– This is a horrible story, but it did get respectable news organizations to say “Pussy Riot.”
– On the one hand, I don’t care about the Republicans on a junket in the Sea of Galilee boozing it up and skinny dipping. On the other hand, if it were a bunch of Democrats.
– Pro life
August 20, 2012
Swing-State Voters Say They Are No Better Off Than in 2008
most of those who say they are not better off believe they would be better off in four years if Romney, rather than Obama, is elected.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/156.....-2008.aspx
Small wonder the Obama team is trying to make this about tax returns, dressage, and dogs on cars.
@1 Got to work early this morning, Bob, I see.
Goood Mooorning Ameeerica!!!
This Monday morning, GOPers have 2 new wildfires on their hands.
#1 Todd Akin’s “legitimate rape” remark is proving so toxic it’s hurting the GOP’s national brand, impeding the GOP’s chances of taking the Senate, and party poobahs are now talking about replacing him as a Senate candidate. So far, he’s saying no way, but he’s now poison to female voters.
#2 The GOP is also reeling from revelations that GOP revelers went wild in Israel, including skinny-dipping in the Sea of Galilee, just a few weeks after these self-same idiot congressmen nearly pushed the U.S. Treasury into default in an attempt by a minority party to dictate the fiscal policies of a U.S. government still trying to climb out of a near-Great Depression.
http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_.....worse?lite
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Looks like a busy week for GOP Damage Control.
Read this horrible story this AM.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012.....z24526Qqpp
Can’t wait for Jesse Jackson & Al Sharpton to come to the murderers defense. It’s what they do.
@4 Another example of why it’s too easy for the wrong people to get guns.
To the commenter @1–You have hit the nail on the head. Have looked back at your comment string and you seem to have a habit of doing that. Congratulations. Anyway, these type’s of polls really draw light to President Obama’s pitiful record. Being an outstanding motivational speaker & community organizer will only carry a President so far. It will hopefully come down to his record, his ideology and who Americans think can do a better job moving forward. Voters can use the past policy record as a predictor of the future. This is where Obama/Biden fail. However, many voters swing & sway in the wind when ads or articles appear that appeal to their emotions of jealousy, sense of right & wrong etc., even when that is pretty much irrelevant to policy that will impact their lives. I think both Romney & Ryan, especially Ryan, has the ability to cut thru the emotion and appeal to the intellectual side of voters with facts and a clear picture. Romney/Ryan seem to have a lot of money to deliver their message. Also, although many voters such as you & I have already made up our minds, I suspect a good 10% or more really haven’t. Some may think they have. I’ve seen articles reporting that only 3-5% can be swayed between now & November. I don’t believe that. More than that can be swayed to even vote period.
So can a failed Incumbent get himself a huge turnout again? There certainly is not the emotion of 2008, so my guess is the answer is no. Obama is desperately going into college campuses and having his surrogates float the same ridiculous rumors about cancelling all the student loans. It’s appealing. But he did that last election too. I guess appealing to personal greed will always work to some extent. Romney/Ryan are not conceding the college vote like McCain did. I’m excited about this election. I haven’t been this excited about an election since Reagan/Carter in 1980 and Reagan in 1984 That’s a long dry spell. Bush, Clinton, Bush & Obama were hardly a stellar group of Presidents. I would prefer Ryan to be at the top of the ticket, but unlike the joke of all-time Biden, Ryan brings a lot of knowledge & fiscal policy clarity to the table. I really like Paul Ryan.
@6 Just what this blog needs — another fact-deprived numbskull parroting wingnut talking points.
Anyone who thinks the economy hasn’t improved since 2008 just arrived from another planet. Which one are you from?
Oh, and keep telling yourselves the Romney/Paul ticket is gonna win by promising to privatize Medicare and raise middle class taxes so greedy bankers can get a free ride.
Yeah, telling students to shut up, get a job, and pay their college loan debts will play real well with the youth demographic.
@6 “I’ve seen articles reporting that only 3-5% can be swayed between now & November. I don’t believe that.”
This pretty much explains the entire rightwing belief system. Global warming? Nah, I don’t believe that. Evolution? Nah, I don’t believe that. Romney behind in the polls? Nah, I don’t believe that. These people brush off reality with a wrist flick, as if repeating the same old canards and lies over and over somehow makes them true.
@ 7
Anyone who thinks the economy hasn’t improved since 2008 just arrived from another planet.
That’s a different issue, RR, from the issue of whether most swing-state Americans think they, individually, are better off.
The unemployment rate now is FAR higher than it was four years ago – 8.3% 7/12 vs. 5.7% 7/08. Additionally, there are around 3+ million more people receiving SSI disability, which is artificially decreasing the measured unemployment rate.
So when the question is put to a voter, “Are YOU better off than you were four years ago?”, the state of the economy is really immaterial. That voter answers according to personal experience.
It’s wonderful that you seem to make $1K to $2K in the stock market every single trading day, RR. Perhaps it causes you not to think of others.
Either that or you totally have your head up your ass on this one.
Scott McKenzie, whose hit song “San Francisco (Be Sure To Put Flowers In Your Hair)” became the anthem of the hippie generation, is dead at age 73. He suffered from Guillain-Barre Syndrome and had been in and out of hospitals the last couple years.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bch1_Ep5M1s
Seems like your manlove for Obama doesn’t allow you to get a grip that this is the slowest economic recovery in History.
Take a look at this Forbes Article from 8/1/12
http://www.forbes.com/sites/lo.....very-ever/
Now tell us this====
Precisely what facts in the article are incorrect?
Take a look at these 5 key issues-
1) total employment growth; 2) unemployment rate reduction; 3) per capita GDP growth; 4) change in the Real Dow; and 5) change in real produced assets.
Only 1 conclusion Roger Rabbit. Obama’s recovery is pathetic. The stock market going up doesn’t reflect current conditions necessarily. Investors are looking 9 months down the road and many are betting that President Obama is gone. In addition, bond rates are so low because the Obama Administration desires running the money printing press at warp speed and running up $6 Trillion more debt in 4 years that taking risks in stocks is the only way to get any kind of return. I don’t see it as sustainable and got out of a number of stocks yesterday. I see the potential for another 800 points to around 14,000 in the Dow, but at a very high risk.
Anyway, please address the key points listed. They are relevant to evaluating the Obama Recovery. Make your best case. Forbes made mine. Looking forward to a legitimate discussion based on facts.
@ 7
@6 Just what this blog needs — another fact-deprived numbskull parroting wingnut talking points.
I know it’s disappointing to you, RR, as you thought you had that job to yourself.
@10 “The unemployment rate now is FAR higher than it was four years ago”
First of all, that’s false; the official unemployment rae was 7.3% in December 2008 and 7.8% in January 2009, when the transition from Bush to Obama occurred, which is less than a 1% difference from the present 8.3% rate. And it climbed to 10% by summer of 2009, when the economy was still reeling from a collapse that started on Bush’s watch under Republican economic policies.
But the main point is it would be massively worse if the austerity policies advocated by Romney and Ryan had been in place over the last four years.
THAT should be the preeminent issue of this campaign.
Digby, as usual, has trenchant things to say, this time germane to the ‘pro-life’ posturings of Neanderthal Republicans
(‘Pro-Life” of course being one of the most profane and sinister malapropisms in the English Language)
(English of course being the language in which God wrote the Bible.)
She quotes Bill Napoli, South Dakota feakizoid, on the situations where an abotion might be justified:
And an excerpt of her commentary:
What is wrong with these people?
You do all know (an this is directed at our resident Ryan fanboy trolls) that Paul Ryan cosponsored the “No Taxpayer Fending for Abortion” Act? The one that tried to define ‘forcible’ rape from all those silly consentual rapes? The ones that all the sluts were having and then having those carefree mellow elective abortions? Remember those?
Assholes.
@11
Deeply sad.
Fanboi for sure.
Uncritical, swallowing hook line and sinker.
Try this. I know you won’t like Krugman, but try to refute the numbers, please.
@10 Seems like Roger Rabbit needed to switch the topic to an old Hippy’s death.
On the topic of undecided voters, I saw the one that claims it’s only 3-5%. That is at a single point in time, when polled. I believe the number is higher as new information comes out. It’s only an opinion. By the way, I do believe in Evolution. But I also believe in a Creator. You know, Darwin’s Theory was based on the cell as the basic element and that it was relatively simple. We now know how complex a cell is. I believe that is an indicator of intelligent design. Also take a look at your eyeball. Yes eyes evolve. But look at the complexity of the eye. It’s amazing. Is it all just random? That question will certainly be debated until the end times.
I also believe in Global Warming. Who doesn’t? We have plenty of historical stats to show the trends. We have had lots of droughts long before man industrialized. Global Warming isn’t the issue. What impact man’s activities have on Global Warming or our environment in general is. Roger Rabbit just throws up a variety of issues and tries to emotionally tie them to someone elses opinion. Very immature and ineffective. Are you a physically well man Roger Rabbit? Seems like you are suffering and nearing death. Is that the case? Sometimes taking certain medications can cause horrible mood swings. I saw that happen to my father years ago before he died. He was taking progesterone and other steroids to aid in breathing. Such a wonderful man, but he became prone to illogical, unreasonable outbursts just like you. Hope you have a better day Roger Rabbit.
RR, you’re doing yeoman’s work.
Don’t let the bastards get you down.
I have to go paint my basement – after breathing latex fumes for a few hours, I may be on the intellectual level of our gas-huffing trolls – watch out!
Keep bleating that Obama “is a failure,” wingnuts. Nobody but you believes that. His stimulus shaved at least 2% off the unemployment rate. The banking system was saved. (Thanks to the joint efforts of Bush and Obama; I’m happy to share the credit for that with Bush; it’s one of the very few things Bush did right.) The U.S. auto industry was saved. The tidal wave of layoffs came to a halt, and while rehiring hasn’t kicked in yet, the economy isn’t bleeding jobs anymore. We didn’t have another Great Depression. The long climb back began under Obama’s careful nursing.
http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/tag/bikini-graph/
And what do Republicans offer us? More of the same that got us into this mess in the first place. Deregulating crooked banks. Borrowing from China to finance tax breaks for billionaires. Austerity. Outsourcing. Privatizing. Cutting unemployment benefits and food stamps. They’ve learned nothing and still can’t do a damned thing right.
Go peddle your bullshit somewhere else. Try the Bible Belt, where they believe evolution is a theology and a woman can’t get pregnant from being rapee unless she enjoys it. People here are too smart and educated to fall for wingnut nonsense.
This asshole is a bigger dumbshit than the “cereal clownservative”.
Just saw this as I was heading out…
O.M.G. *eye roll*
Good luck RR, this one’s a real prize. A believer in Discovery Institute approved Intelligent design, and a doubter of human-derived climate change, and a right-winger to boot (oh and that “end times” construction likely indicates a Bible-thumper, UGH)
Could aerial spraying help?
@17-
Paul Krugman is not a real economist. He simply attacks the right. Krugman is merely parroting the White House arguments against the Ryan Plan. That’s all the article you reference is.
I don’t think undecided voters will spend a lot of time assessing Obama’s list of excuses. As Serial Conservative points out, they will ask themselves a few simple questions principal being am I better off today than 4 years ago? Add to that,
1) Did Obama make good on all his 2008 Campaign promises?
2) Since Obama did not, do I trust Obama to make things better for me the next 4 years?
I don’t think it’s that complicated. Ryan has to be careful. He is so smart and has a better handle on the facts than Romney, Obama and certainly that embarrassment of a VP Joe Biden.
Having a command of the facts is the starting point. Presenting a cogent argument at a 6th grade level is the challenge. I like it when Ryan used charts and graphs a la Ross Perot.
He needs to make a complex issue much simpler and something that will stand up to scrutiny. The tough thing for Obama/Biden is where is there plan? They are in power and incumbents and they don’t have a plan. I guess it’s just to attack and criticize Ryan/Romney. Will that work for 2-1/2 more months? I don’t think it will.
Add @ 21…
This proves it.
21. Rujax!…The President is still Black, GM is still ALIVE, and the US is on MARS (bitches)!!! spews:
6. WhereThereIsSmokeThereIsFire spews:
To the commenter @1–You have hit the nail on the head. Have looked back at your comment string and you seem to have a habit of doing that. Congratulations. Anyway, these type’s of polls really draw light to President Obama’s pitiful record. Being an outstanding motivational speaker & community organizer will only carry a President so far.
08/20/2012 at 8:31 am
This asshole is a bigger dumbshit than the “cereal clownservative”.
I think this comment is indicative of the progressive movement. No opinion or facts, just attack those who share opinions and offer nothing of substance. Looking back on this blog, there are very few of you progressives who provide any substances or individual critical thinking. You link up a few far-left blogs as your fact base and attack others opinions with mean-spirited blather.
@18 You’re new here, aren’t you? Just what this blog doesn’t need, another dopey wingnut.
@ 14
You don’t get to pick and choose your own dates, while at the same time calling my data ‘false’.
My data is accurate and now vs. four years ago isn’t what you threw out there.
You want to pick a different timeframe to discuss? Fine. But don’t accuse me of making a false statement. My numbers are from BLS and are fully accurate.
Yes, Princeton is full of incompetent crackpots, and the Nobel committee is a bunch of hacks. Bring on the Glenn Beck!
@10 You somehow forgot to tell everybody how unemployemnt soared under Bush to nearly 8% in the last five months of his presidency as the economy crashed under his watch.
“FAR higher”
About half a percentage point higher than what Bush left him. When Bush took office after 8 years of a Democratic administration, the unemployment rate was at 4.2%. When he left office, the unemployment rate had nearly doubled.
THAT is your dismal record. Little wonder you don’t want to talk about and defend your own record of failure.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
In just a few posts you’ve established yourself as a complete moron, a buffoon deserving only derision. Nice work.
Krugman:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Krugman
This “WhereThereIsSmokeThereIsFire” dumb fuck must work for Rep.Todd Akin.
22. Liberal Scientist is a a dirty fucking hippie, and THE SPAWN OF SATAN (acocrding to resident Bibul-thumper puddles) spews:
Just saw this as I was heading out…
I believe that is an indicator of intelligent design.
But look at the complexity of the eye. It’s amazing. Is it all just random?
…the end times.
What impact man’s activities have on Global Warming or our environment in general is.
O.M.G. *eye roll*
Good luck RR, this one’s a real prize. A believer in Discovery Institute approved Intelligent design, and a doubter of human-derived climate change, and a right-winger to boot (oh and that “end times” construction likely indicates a Bible-thumper, UGH)
Could aerial spraying help?
Here’s another example of progressive non-arguments. Yes I believe in both Intelligent Design and Evolution. Yes, I doubt the impact of humans on climate change. I believe the studies on both sides have been highly tainted by politics. Some of the progressive studies have been shown to be based on trumped up data. Liberal Scientist et al, if you are a scientist, don’t you look first at the facts, draw a hypothesis and then try to prove that hypothesis. Man’s impact on Global warming is still in the hypothesis stage. It has moved from science to politicals with power & money at stake.
You seem to have draw a conclusion first without intense scrutiny/questioning of the data. You are a Political Liberal Scientist, not a real scientist. Admit it.
The only accurate phrase that our new troll has written all morning.
Later…
@18 “I believe”
That’s the wingnut anthem, right there, in two words. The blind faith these people vest in what they “believe” is jaw-dropping.
This is why I oppose home-schooling. Ignorant parents = ignorant kids. A complete lack of critical thinking skills is creating an entire generation that doesn’t know the difference between belief and fact.
These people can’t recognize reality even when it hits them over the head.
Seriously.
Very true.
26. Roger Rabbit spews:
I’m visiting from the midwest and was hoping to engage in some legitimate discussion. I know this is a Liberal Blog, but no Liberals are willing to discuss. Just attack. Look at your own comment.
@33 It’s about time reinforcements arrived. I have my hands full this morning. What kept you? I was about to call in an airstrike on my pos.
Oh bullshit.
Thank ‘god’.
@36 This is your idea of “legitimate discussion”?
Seems like Roger Rabbit needed to switch the topic to an old Hippy’s death.
Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.
Suck to take a beat down huh, wing nut?
@ 12
We wouldn’t have to be printing money the way you say we are if the top tax rates were 70% or more the way they should be. Currency must circulate for an economy to function. When you have a few thousand people hoarding tens or hundreds or even thousands of millions of dollars out of the system every year and not returning that money back into circulation, then debt goes up, and the value of the currency goes down. “Trickle down” economics is a scam, and it was always intended to be a scam.
When you have politicians betting on that devaluation as Rmoney, Ryan, the Bush family, the Waltons and so many others are doing by using hedge funds that openly short Treasury Bonds and then positioning themselves to create that devaluation, you have corruption in its purest sense, especially when they are making those investments from overseas banks that are themselves exempt from all taxation.
You cannot whine about the poor dumb bastard trying to live on $30 grand a year not “bettering” themselves, when they are paying $10 grand to the State and Federal Governments every year, just so the people making $10 million can avoid having to pay any taxes at all.
It isn’t the workers who are the problem. The price of Labor is not the issue here. Its Capital. Capital has no nation, nor any loyalty to any government or country, and is therefore an enemy to a nation when it takes steps to undermine the Government that enabled the creation of that capital, especially when taken in the context of a Republic such as the United States.
Barack Obama has a Congress problem. The leaders of this current Congress started this Congressional term by stating openly and without reservation, that their sole purpose during this congressional term was to block any effort by this President to promote economic recovery or enforce the laws passed in previous congressional terms. They stated quite clearly, that their entire effort during this session would be to force the failure of this administration at any and all costs, including total economic collapse. They said this flat out and in no uncertain terms.
If every eligible citizen voted, these people would never gain public office, thats why they have to cheat and use obfuscation to deliberately create confusion about elections and electoral processes.
They are oligarchs, and therefore Fascists. Fascism is just as evil as Communism, more so in many ways. This is a Republic, not an Oligarchy. We elect our leaders and representatives in Government, not have them appointed for us, or come into the role by accident of birth or financial fortune.
20. Roger Rabbit spews:
Keep bleating that Obama “is a failure,” wingnuts. Nobody but you believes that. His stimulus shaved at least 2% off the unemployment rate. The banking system was saved.
You throw out numbers & opinions like “shaved at least 2% off the unemployment rate. The banking system was saved.” with nothing to back it up. The banking system is getting free money from the Fed and marking it up nearly 4%. The cost to us little guys is future inflation. Another example of just stringing along a problem for the next poor guy in the White House.
I don’t think unemployed and underemployed people are going to take much solace in your proclamation that unemployment could be even worse. I don’t see that working. People do vote with their pocketbook on the incumbent, especially when the incumbent painted such a glorious future in 2008. Now people do need hope in their lives. Agreed. Obama had the perfect slogan Hope & Change. It was brilliant. But it only works once.
Now it’s “Forward”. Forward?? This is the worst recovery in history. Forward? No thanks.
You underestimate yourself, Roger.
This new one, and the syntax leads me to believe that this is not another sock puppet (though the tag line space-less construction is reminiscent of one of our resident trolls…), though I could be wrong, is easy pickins’ for you.
Not too bright, overt non-sequiturs like linking evolution with intelligent design and the whole breathless “the eye is SO complicated” canard, and the quick dismissal of AGM based on ‘the controversy’ – it’s all pretty pre-packaged wingnut shit. Not to mention the delicious Paul Ryan fandom – oh, now there’s a target rich environment!
I thought you were painting your basement Liberal Scientist? That’s the problem with you progressives, all talk and no action. Get to work. Your wife or life partner will soon be on your tail for screwing around here.
Heading back to Ohio this afternoon.
Hope you can all come to know Christ and put a little more meat on the bones of your progressive ideology.
One last thing my hostess just handed me is the fact that Obama/Biden are running against the 2011 Ryan Medicare Plan which was revised many months ago. Pretty funny. Here’s a little excerpt from the article-
The Obama campaign would like voters to believe that Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan would “end Medicare as we know it” — privatizing the whole system and costing seniors more than $6,000 extra a year. But the campaign, even before Ryan was selected as Mitt Romney’s running mate, has effectively been running against the wrong Ryan plan.
The president’s accusations largely refer to Ryan’s 2011 plan, ignoring the fact that the House Budget Committee chairman rolled out a different version in 2012 — taking into account Democratic critiques. Though the 2012 plan is more moderate, Obama and his surrogates have all but ignored the newer version as they amp up their accusations against the Romney-Ryan ticket.
Most glaringly, the campaign has omitted a key point.
While Ryan’s 2011 plan proposes to give seniors a government payment to buy private insurance, his 2012 plan offers seniors a choice.
@ 44
So your “belief” in Christ leads you to follow the words of Ayn Rand and rationalize the outright subversion of Government by the People, for the People, and OF the People by a small number of wealthy individuals who openly disparage the entire paradigm of a citizens Government?
@45…
Doesn’t take this fuck long to start walking back…
Republicans keep crying that the economic recovery is too slow. Which is kind of like the arsonist complaining about how the fire department is doing it’s job.
There’s nothing wrong with the economy that couldn’t be made better by adding a few Republican Congressmen and Senators to the unemployment rolls.
On Facebook today, I saw a picture posted by a right-winger which trumpeted polling showing Romney had a big advantage, and the President would carry only the Pacific Coast states (Washington, Oregon, Califorinia) plus New Mexico.
This is what the right-wingers are circulating between themselves, trying to keep the morale up. Of course, it has absolutely no basis in reality.
Which reminds me a lot of the trolls posting here. If you don’t agree with them, they complain that you aren’t willing to engage in a discussion on the issues. You then prove them wrong on the issues, and they change subjects or simply go home.
Sorry to hear about Scott McKenzie dying. He had a close relationship with the Mommas and the Papas, and the entire San Francisco music scene during the psychodelic era.
From Kos
Rmoney is an utterly delusional and totally corrupt individual. He is a seriously evil person. This man would be a disaster for the Country in every way possible. He promises us War, unemployment, rampant looting of the Treasury by himself and his owners and a return to the good old days that never existed except in places like Brazil or El Salvadore.
@4 and @5 – also probably because we are so filled with hate in this nation that we no longer hold any value to the human life. Some people just like to resort to violence a little more than others. Maybe if we stop hating everyone this will stop.
@ 41
Listen to the guy unemployed for three years calling for 70% tax rates on someone else.
Real brave of you. You gotta keep the handouts rolling in.
Here’s a clue: Whether or not to revise the tax code to pre-2003 or pre-2001 levels, either for the highest earners or for everyone, is a reasonable discussion to have.
When someone paying zero federal income tax calls for someone else to pay 70% income tax, that’s where the knives come out. Asshole.
Oh, and you can’t get HA on any of the channels back there?
And you’re a greedy creep.
Cereal clownservative is soooooo smart…I’ll bet he doesn’t know what a “marginal” tax rate is…anyway he sure sounds like he doesn’t.
Add @57…
http://news.yahoo.com/eisenhow.....-news.html
YOW!!!!
The poor fucking cereal clownservative would be APOPLECTIC!!!!
@ 56
It’s all a matter of perspective, isn’t it? To you, my objection to having my reward for working 7 days per week be 70% taxation constitutes greed.
And yet somehow it’s not greed for an employee, or group thereof, to work to their own advantage.
Heads you win, tails I lose. What a wonderful world you live in.
Amanda Marcotte, at Salon, has some important things to say about Todd Akin and the anti-woman right wing.
An excerpt:
This is NOT about abortion, it is about control of women by (theocratic) men.
This is not about saving the little babies (AKA Blastocyst-Americans), the baby seals of the reich-wing, but rather about shaming woman, about marginalizing women, about harming women through the destruction of their access to medical care.
“Pro-Life” is a heinous lie, and this is NOT about abortion.
If anyone thinks that will be any better with Romney/Tay then they are just complete nuts. 26 years to balance a budget on the backs of the middle class. Destroy Medicare and Social Security while do so. Prbobably have a $30 Trillion debt by 2038.
Oops – here’s the link to Amanda Marcotte’s piece at Salon.
@13 I know it’s disappointing to you, RR, as you thought you had that job to yourself.
You think I’m a wingnut parrot? Have you completely lost it?
@59
It’s not about you, per se (though it’s telling that those are the terms from which you derive your bleat).
It’s about public policy and the inherent public good that derives from limiting the accumulation of wealth by a tiny sliver of the population. It’s about making the extraction of wealth more costly than the reinvestment of profit. It’s about the equitable distribution of wealth across the entire population.
Yes, your complaint derives from fairly transparent greed.
@ 60
Ah, yes, Amanda Marcotte.
Remember when she shilled for John Edwards? Well, until this came out:
Among other things, Marcotte had written: “The Catholic church is not about to let something like compassion for girls get in the way of using the state as an instrument to force women to bear more tithing Catholics.” She also questioned, in explicit language, what would have happened if the Virgin Mary had taken the emergency contraceptive called Plan B.
Last month, Marcotte wrote of the Duke University rape case: “Can’t a few white boys sexually assault a black woman anymore without people getting all wound up about it? So unfair.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....01632.html
How did that rape case turn out, Lib Sci? The one at Duke? Remember that?
Quote Marcotte, expect to get called on it. Funny that she mentions a woman lying about her own slutty behavior.
That’s exactly what happened at Duke, wasn’t it?
Nice goin’, Ace.
@27 You don’t get to pick and choose your own dates, while at the same time calling my data ‘false’.
I didn’t choose the dates. You did:
The unemployment rate now is FAR higher than it was four years ago…
And I didn’t call your data false. I called your interpretation false, which it is.
@ 63
I DEFINITELY think you’re a parrot. C’mon. Look at the hundreds of cut-and-paste things you post each week.
I definitely think you’re a wingnut. You’re just a lefty wingnut.
It’s Monday, August 20, and yes, Mitt Romney is still rich.
@43 “now there’s a target rich environment”
can’t miss with napalm
And the devil jumped up on a hickory stump. And said, “Boy let me tell you what.”
http://althouse.blogspot.com/2.....-your.html
@42 You throw out numbers & opinions like “shaved at least 2% off the unemployment rate. The banking system was saved.” with nothing to back it up.
If you want to verify that you can look it up on the internet as easily as I can. I’m not your fucking research assistant. When I debunk your horseshit, I post the links; I don’t ask you to do it. If you claim my assertion is incorrect then research it and back up your argument with credible authority.
We need better trolls on this blog. These not only stupid, they’re lazy.
One exception is Wisconsin where Scott Walker implemented his jobs program.
@ 54
I’ve been in school for the last two, living on student loans and trying to get out of an industry that is full of lying, cheating drunks. My last boss, who I worked for for six years, the last two of which I was trying to keep his shop alive while he sat at home and drank beer after his wife died. All the while he was taking work out of the shop to do at his home shop for cash instead of through the company, is telling people that I robbed the shop and sabotaged his machines. I cannot use him as a reference, and people ask me why. They tell me right out that they won’t hire anyone who is not currently employed, and they cannot hire someone without a recent work history that they can refer to.
When gasoline was topping $4.50 a gallon in 2007, he reduced the shop hours to 32, (his personal commute is an hour each way and he drove a truck that got about 10 mpg) and would not pay any more than that even if I worked a full 40. At around the same time, my rent went up by $75 a month, electricity went up by 20%, my car insurance rate jumped by 10%, my health insurance went up to $120 per WEEK (a $40 increase) for me to pay for, and I was evicted from my apartment when I couldn’t pay all those bills on time when my weekly paycheck was cut by $160.
Everything went up, my pay was reduced by $640 a month and the last repair I did to my Jeep cost $1100 which was every penny I had. It was critical to keep it running. Thats what got me evicted. I could not make the rent with all of that. The day I moved was the day I walked into his shop and told him how much he had fucked me. He then refused to allow me to collect unemployment as I had quit. I had to move 150 miles to have a place to live. I was not going to end up homeless because that nasty, uneducated stupid vindictive old drunk decided that he couldn’t afford to drive to work five days a week. It’s bad enough now that I stand to lose all of my shop equipment, table saws, the lathe and such because I cannot afford the storage fees.
So fuck you and your free ride. People like you got to go to school when the top tax rates were 70% and you had little out of pocket expense. My University tuition rates are $19,000 a year. My living expenses are $1200 a month. Books cost about $400 every quarter. I do not have cable TV, I get one channel. I ride my bike to school when it isn’t dumping buckets.
My parents went to University and were able to pay for everything on one income. I don’t have the luxury of being born with a silver dick in my mouth like you.
Google Public Data tracks unemployment.
http://www.google.com/publicda.....yment+rate
“Get to work.”
How original, a ‘tardinated, Psych 101 punching bag of goose-steppin’ fascism barking orders at us.
@70 With reference to whether Obama referred to Rubio as “boy,” this seems to be the money quote:
“That particular anecdote — and really, who the hell knows how true it is? — isn’t going to be all that great for Obama’s image however.”
http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com.....end_te.php
You’re NOT, asshole…and Raw-Money won’t/can’t let you forget it.
@ 76
Know what else isn’t good for Obama’s image?
When national magazines – although in this case one circling the drain – call him out.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/n.....to-go.html
Doncha come back no more no more no more no more……..
@41 & 54: I don’t think the top tax rate should be 70%. I’d settle for the flat tax conservatives say they want. In other words, when Warren Buffett is paying the same effective tax rate as his secretary, I’ll call that fair. This is what I think needs to be fixed:
“Among families making more than $100,000, there were also half a million tax units — enough to replace the population of Tucson, Arizona — that paid no income tax. Even more surprising, 7,000 millionaires also paid no individual income tax.”
http://www.theatlantic.com/bus.....11/245469/
Roger Rabbit Commentary: I’m in favor of a tax policy that’s rational and fair. It should primarily aim at raising the revenue government needs to operate, and should be relatively free of “economic engineering” that seeks to influence economic behavior (and ends up causing distortions in the economy).
Now let’s discuss the tax curve. (It’s time something I posted a number of times when Mark the Redneck was hanging around here.) One of our long since departed trolls, Mark the Redneck, claimed that cutting taxes “always” increases revenues. That’s bullshit, as even a cursory glance at a table of federal revenues for 2001 – 2005 will show. Here’s how it actually works.
A zero tax rate produces zero revenue. A 100% tax rate also produces zero revenue, because it would completely stifle economic activity. Somewhere between 0% and 100%, then, is a point at which revenue is maximized. If you cut taxes below that point, revenue will go down. If you cut taxes above that point, revenue will go up.
@ 79
Look at how many of those millionaires paid zero income tax two years in a row.
Probably very close to zero.
As Roberton Williams of the Tax Policy Center explained to me, there are three buckets of factors that can bring taxable income down from $1 million to zero. One is tax tricks. The IRS should crack down more. Two is relying heavily on investments. The administration can try to level taxes for earned income and investment income. Third is great misfortunes. When investments lose significant income, a house or business is destroyed (i.e. a casualty loss), or a family member gets sick and incurs high medical costs for the self-insured, all these things chop away at taxable income and eventually bring a millionaire’s income taxes to zero.
Tax bills can fluctuate as income fluctuates. It makes for great press to point out a millionaire paying zero tax. The fair way is to explain why, as did the article you linked.
@78 You tout an article written by an “adviser to John McCain”, published in a magazine “circling the drain”, who says he was a “good loser four years ago” because he loves him some black people or some shit, and who is now saying that “Obama needs to go” as what, Bob, an earth shattering fucking surprise or something? Good grief!
“Tax bills can fluctuate as income fluctuates.”
For some, obviously. Unfortunately, Republicans keep proposing to eliminate taxation on inheritance, capital gains, dividends and interest. This makes it possible for, let’s say Mitt’s kids, to inherit and increase a fortune, and pay no taxes whatsoever, generation after generation. No taxes. Ever. There’s not much “fluctuation” with that, now is there? You can call them “job creators” all you want, but they’re really just selfish, greedy moochers.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/.....A0.twitter
Hmmmmmm….
Too bad NOBODY (except desperate, panicking, grasping wingnut nitwits like the cereal clownservative take Ferguson seriously.
@ 81
Doctor Steve, that’s Newsweek, run by Tina Brown, one of MSNBC’s favorite morning guests.
It probably was payback for the Romney ‘wimp’ piece a couple of weeks back.
What’s notable is that it showed up in as a cover story in something Tina Brown controls.
re 12: “Anyway, please address the key points listed. They are relevant to evaluating the Obama Recovery. Make your best case. Forbes made mine. Looking forward to a legitimate discussion based on facts.”
“During the first two years of President Obama’s time in office, Mr. McConnell was the central hurdle to much of the administration’s ambitious agenda. By holding his Republican caucus together in almost constant unanimous opposition, he scuttled an energy bill, several jobs bills and a plan to end the Bush-era tax cuts for the most affluent families.”
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/.....index.html
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>:}
Thanks for all of your help in the past 18 months, unions!
We couldn’t have put Wisconsin (next, MI and MN) in play without your help.
PublicPolicyPolling@ppppolls
Mitt Romney ever so slightly in the lead on our Wisconsin poll. Results out tomorrow
20 Aug 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite
PublicPolicyPolling@ppppolls
Out of Obama, Romney, Biden, Ryan only one Wisconsin voters have a positive opinion of is Ryan
20 Aug 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite
PublicPolicyPolling@ppppolls
Last month we had Romney at 87% of GOP vote in Wisconsin, now 93%. That is probably the true Ryan effect- party unification
Government may not be the solution to every problem, but Republicans are certainly the cause of most of them.
Republicans don’t believe that government works and all you have to do is elect them to prove it.
This didn’t take long:
Richard Grenell
@RichardGrenell
Breaking: Senior GOP official: Akin advisors making preparations for a withdrawal tomorrow.
Hopefully the GOP will replace him with Stephanie Steelman.
Damage minimized, and McCaskill is still really, really vulnerable.
Hey, GOP replaced an idiot Senate candidate. Will the Dems do the same with Biden?
If Obama did anything wrong it was to over promise delivering what he could do coming out of the worst recession (mini depression). But you can argue you that he did keep us out of a depression and a lot more. With no help of the Repukes. Republicans suck. Things will only get worse under Romney/Ryan and it will take 26 fucking years to balance a budget and medicare and social security will be destroyed. Easy decisioin come this fall. Fuck every Republican.
@79 (continued) In a democracy, actual tax rates usually (if not always) will be below the point of revenue maximization, because people who can choose their government normally will not support a leadership intent on extracting as much tax revenue out of them as possible. That’s far more likely to happen under autocratic leadership.
Republicans have always liked to blame huge deficits on “runaway spending.” You can make an argument that spending ran away under Bush Jr., but really when you look at the full equation — the spending side and the revenue side — spending has pretty steadily stayed within the historical 20% – 22% of GDP range (except during recessions, when it bumps a little higher) and it’s on the revenue side that a dramatic change has occurred.
Since the end of World War 2, revenue has tended to be in a 18% – 20% range, but in recent years it has fallen to 16% — a postwar low — because of the tax cuts instituted by Republicans and supported by some Demcorats (including Obama).
The Great Recession — America’s worst economic setback since the 1930s — bumped up federal spending to 24%. That’s because of both lower revenue (fewer people working results in less taxes being paid) and higher spending (for unemployment benefits, food stamps, bailouts and stimulus, etc.). Instead of seeing a roughly 2% spread between revenues and spending — which has to be made up by borrowing — we currently have an 8% spread between revenue and spending, due to historically low taxes and recession-induced spending increases. That’s why deficits are so big right now.
Republicans want to retain today’s ultra-low tax rates for ultra-high-income taxpayers. Their main justification is these people will use the money they save on taxes to create jobs for the working classes. Studies don’t support this, and neither do the facts on the ground: They’ve had these favorable tax rates for a decade now — last year 7,000 taxpayers with million-dollar-plus incomes paid no taxes at all — but where are the jobs?
Let’s be honest about a couple of realities.
First, the affluent do pay a disproportionate share federal income taxes, and millions of low income households pay no federal income tax at all. This story is incomplete, however. Federal payroll taxes, and state and local taxes, are highly regressive; and when this is taken into account, the overall distribution of tax burdens is much more level than you see from the federal income tax alone.
Second, we can’t eliminate trillion-dollar deficits just by taxing the rich. But Democrats don’t claim we can, and aren’t proposing that. Economists agree it takes a combination of tax increases and spending cuts, and Democrats are willing to cut entitlement and discretionary spending but also want to cut defense spending. There appears to be room for defense cuts, as defense spending increased 80% under Bush Jr.
The fastest way to bring down deficits would be to let all the Bush tax cuts expire. But Obama and Democrats in Congress want to extend the middle class cuts, and Republicans say they want to, too. This isn’t all that expensive as the lion’s share of the Bush tax cuts when to upper income taxpayers. It would, though, keep the deficits from coming down as fast as they would if we all anted up more.
What really gives the lie to GOP claims that they’re serious about deficit reduction is they want to increase defense spending and give more tax cuts to the rich. Both of those policies will increase deficits and require us to borrow more money from China. Republicans would offset these policies, to some extent, by cutting aid to those most ravaged by the Republican Depression — i.e., the jobless who depend on unemployment benefits, food stamps, Medicaid, and disability programs. I think that’s a crappy way to pay for increased defense spending and more tax cuts for millionaires.
The U.S. economy faces a “fiscal cliff” on Jan. 1 unless the administration and Congress can get together on a fiscal fix. Republicans hope to win the White House and both houses of Congress in November so they can impose their version of fiscal policy on the nation, i.e. the rich will get an even cushier ride than they have now at the expense of the middle class and at the even greater expense of the poor. If Democrats retain the White House and/or Senate, it remains to be seen if Republicans will let the country go over the “fiscal cliff” rather than negotiate a compromise under which both sides give up some of what they want. The precedent of last summer offers little hope for optimism here.
Both parties are talking about broad tax reform that would strip a lot of the “Christmas tree ornaments” out of the tax code that have accumulated since the last major tax rewrite in 1986. This is such an obviously sensible idea it doesn’t need discussion.
More controversial are proposals to lower tax rates by eliminating or at least capping the mortgage interest deduction and employer-provided health insurance exemption. Democrats seem to favor retaining these deductions for the middle class but cutting them off once a certain income level is reached. On a personal level, the mortgage interest deduction is of no value to me because my burrow is paid for, and quite a few other retirees are in the same boat, so if somebody wants to exempt say the first $15,000 of dividend income from taxes and pay for it by getting rid of or reducing the mortgage deduction, well, I’m not sure that’s quite fair but I would benefit from it, and I’ve never been one to turn down manna. My hypocrisy goes pretty far when you get down to money grubbing. And I don’t have employer-provided health insurance, either, because I don’t have an employer. (Contrary to the beliefs of some, here in Washington, retired state employees do not get taxpayer-subsidized health insurance; we pay for its full cost out of our own pockets.) My health expenses are high enough to exceed 7.5% of my adjusted gross income — by quite a bit, as my insurance premiums and out-of-pocket medical expenses approach 40% of my gross income in some years — so I get a tax writeoff on health expenses, and if that deduction is taken away I will pay more taxes. Which I can live with, if everyone else lives with it too, because I’m not better than anyone else and I’ll pay my fair share — and I do believe the deficits are primarily a revenue problem rather than a spending problem, as I’ve explained above.
Many people in the business and financial communities claim that policy uncertainty is a major factor in why businesses aren’t investing and hiring more. I’m not sure I believe that, but I’m certainly not opposed to resolving the spending and revenue issues, and making it easier for businesses to make plans going forward. But to blame the current climate of uncertainty solely on Obama and Democrats is nonsense. It is primarily caused by the intransigence of Republicans and their unwillingness to compromise. It is they, not Democrats, who have been the “Party of No” and to the extent that has been harmful to the economy and country, it is Republicans and not Democrats who caused that harm. This is something I wish they would rethink immediately. And if businesses want more certainty, giving their money and support to Republicans doesn’t seem to me like a very good way to get it.
@ 85
You could point out that Obama ‘pivoted’ from much of his ambitious agenda to getting Obamacare passed, which sucked out most of the political air in the room.
Obama’s ARRA, Cash for Clunkers, $8,000 first time home buyer rebate…… All passed. None were effective. (Notice how this summer we aren’t hearing ‘Created or Saved‘ anymore? Know why? Because the electorate has figured out it was bullshit.)
He could have done more work on the economy. Instead he took a sixth of it and put it under government control. Cost him the House and will cost him the Senate. Oh, and his own job.
Don’t blame McConnell. Obama made his choices and led his Congress. Live with the result.
@84 Out of curiousity, why do you call me “Doctor Steve”? I ask because there is someone who posts here, Seattle Jew, whose real name is Stephen. He has a doctorate, which I certainly don’t. His is in microbiology, as I recall. A few here have taken to calling him called “Doctor Steve”, although most seem to refer to him as “SJ” or “God”, a screen name he uses in the Bible Study theads.
92. Steve spews:
@84 Out of curiousity, why do you call me “Doctor Steve”?
To be honest, I can’t even remember. It’s somewhere in a months-old thread.
Cut the threats and profane insults and I’m pleased to call you Steve.
Stand your ground, Steve!
http://www.dailykos.com/story/.....em-useless
Nope…
…Don’t let ’em push you around, Todd!!!
@ 93
Out of curiosity, where did ‘goatfucker’ originate and, other than bestiality with a caprine, what makes one a goatfucker?
@ 95
Akin’s bottom-line? “Just because somebody makes a mistake doesn’t make them useless.”
Joe Biden’s proof that a diagnosis of useless requires numerous unforced errors over a career, and then despite them selection as a Vice President by an inexperienced Senator who still had good reason to know better.
@82 “selfish, greedy moochers”
I think another factor in this debate is that so many of today’s rich didn’t get that way by inventing new technologies, developing resources, making things, or employing people.
Many of today’s rich are flippers, skimmers, and scammers. In 2009 the financial industry accounted for 40% of all U.S. corporate profits. What does the financial industry produce? Nothing. What does a hedge fund manager produce? Nothing. What does a bank produce? Nothing. They’re nothing but money-changers, loan sharks, usurers. They create no wealth for anyone except themselves, and they do that by skimming a few pennies off the top of every banking transaction and hundreds of millions off the top of every merger or acquisition or IPO. All they do is push other people’s money in circles and charge a fee (usually percentage-based) for pushing it. And, in too many cases, the very rich got that way through actions that not only don’t create wealth or create jobs, but destroy companies and eliminate jobs — and sometimes these actions are flat-ass illegal. Today’s millionaire is as likely to be a guy who runs a telemarketing scam or deals drugs as someone who creates a new company to sell a new product. Which helps explain why all these tax cuts for billionaires and millionaires haven’t created new jobs.
So why should be suck up to these “new rich”? We know the GOP sucks up to them because they’re a major source of GOP campaign cash. But what advantage is there for the rest of us to suck up to them? In Reagan days, we were told a “trickle down effect” would raise all boats. That was bullshit then, still is, and the difference now is everyone knows it’s bullshit so GOPers don’t use that line very much anymore. Now they simply claim we have to suck up to rich guys because they create all the jobs. That’s bullshit, too. Most jobs are created by huge corporations that are widely owned (including by millions of middle-class people who either directly own stock shares, or own stock shares indirectly through pension plans and mutual funds) and by countless small businesses whose owners aren’t millionaires and don’t make million-dollar incomes. (For every small business millionaire, I’ll bet there are 50 small business owners who are struggling or getting by.)
Republicans have good reason to suck up to billionaires and millionaires — campaign cash. But that doesn’t apply to the rest of us. So why would the rest of us vote for Republican policies that don’t benefit us in any way and end up costing us a lot? That makes no sense.
I don’t know about you, but I have enough sense to not vote for Republicans or their policies.
@ 98
Hypocrite day-trader RR skewers GOP for being ‘flippers and skimmers’. Then goes and flips some stock, which he’ll brag about tomorrow.
Hey RR: Who did Goldman Sachs donate to in 2008? I sorta forget. Remind me, will ya?
“Cut the threats and profane insults and I’m pleased to call you Steve.”
You know, if I’d never read you repeatedly call Roger a “dumbfuck” and if you hadn’t, in this very thread, talked about “bringing a knife”, you might actually have some justification for your righteous fucking indignation, Bob. But you don’t. I call you out for what you are, Bob, a hypocritical, greedy fucking racist and you have a problem with that. To that I say, tough fucking shit.
@96 The term “goatfucker” was originally applied to a now-departed troll who called himself “Mr. Cynical” because it was widely believed on this blog that he fucks goats.
Mr. Cynical is believed to be residing in a portion of Montana remoted from human habitation. As we understand it, there’s nothing there except Mr. Cynical, his goatshed, and his goats; and reports, believed to be reliable, suggest that Mr. Cynical takes out his virility (what’s left of it) on his goats because there’s no other outlet available to him.
Logical reasoning suggests Mr. Cynical may have chosen to habitate in an uninhabited part of Montana, a generally uninhabited state, so no one would interference with his strange predilection for goatfucking.
Maybe this is actually a business. It’s conceivable he video records his sessions in the goat shed, and then sells the film to porn sites specializing in bestiality and animal fetishes. If so, he can take a tax writeoff on the entire property and livestock herd.
It’s always possible, of course, that Mr. Cynical simply prefers goats to women. You’d probably have to delve into his upbringing to acquire insight into how that came about.
We don’t stop picking on trolls just because they leave. Once you’re an HA troll, we’ll pick on you forever.
Which brings me to the HA ad hoc posting rules. It’s been a while since I’ve posted these, so it may be time to do so again, in order to get our green trolls up to speed. It benefits everyone when they understand the expectations here. And as the unofficial HA greeter, it is my task to make sure all trolls are properly educated regarding the HA ad hoc posting rules. Here they are:
1. This is a liberal blog.
2. Anyone can post here, except JCH.
3. There is no censorship.
4. As liberals, our patriotic duty is to verbally kick the living shit out of you America-hating trolls.
5. No mercy for wingnuts!
6. Our terms are unconditional surrender, which will be followed by trials.
7. klake is a nazi.
Any questions?
I don’t think this week will be any better for Obama than last week.
Overlooked in the furor surrounding Paul Ryan’s Medicare proposal — a plan, it should be recalled, that wouldn’t start until 2023 and even then would affect only new beneficiaries — is a just-published study in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) suggesting that, well, Ryan might be right. The study finds that a voucher-type system might noticeably reduce costs compared to “traditional” fee-for-service Medicare. Three Harvard economists did the study, including one prominent supporter of President Obama’s health-care overhaul.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....s_opinions
Sure, Ryan might be trying to ‘end Medicare as we know it’. But if he can make it seem more like Medicare Advantage, and he and Romney have 2+ months and nearly $200M to use to do it, Obama’s got even more trouble.
No wonder Team Obama keeps talking about irrelevant tax returns.
@101 (continued) The term “goatfucker” is a badge of dishonor reserved for exceptionally odious trolls. It’s officially known as the Golden Goat Trophy. It’s not bestowed gratuitously or lightly;
you have to earn it by being unusually obnoxious.
@ 100
Good enough, Doctor Steve. Glad we could have this chat.
@105…
Is it time to bring back the coveted…
“Golden Goat”??
@104 We’ll put that in the fine print of the disclaimers under our “Granny Over The Ccliff” ad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGnE83A1Z4U
HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR
@103 Is klake the HNMT? I was never sure of that. Klake was before my time, but I always liked the HNMT. I thought my comment the other day about RFK might draw my old friend out of the woodwork to give me another RFK tweak, but it didn’t happen. I hope all is well with him.
Deathfroggy needs to take his sorry ass to a community college.
Talk about a fucking crybaby..geezus.
“Good enough, Doctor Steve. Glad we could have this chat.”
Fuck off, racist.
@107 When we have a qualified recipient.
@100 “repeatedly call Roger a ‘dumbfuck'”
Which, coming from him, I consider an honor. I’d worry about myself if he said something nice about me. That would make me wonder if I’m going soft in my old age. We’ve all got to keep kicking these sheep abusers until they’re all dead or in jail or no longer a threat to society.
Like every repulican hypocrite…
…cheap college was good enough for the emperor max mini-dick (aka kaiser bun the first; lying fucking rat-bastard SCAB) but not for anyone else.
“Is it time to bring back the coveted…
“Golden Goat”??”
I don’t think anyone on the Golden Goat nominating committee could bring themselves to retrieve it after the Klown was done with it last time. The winner will probably have to go to Montana, pick it up themselves and accept it in “as is” condition.
And the feeble minded rujax fails to put 2 and 2 together again..
@115 Yeah, it’s pretty grungy after the Klown jerked off on it.
“I’d worry about myself if he said something nice about me.”
Same here. But we needn’t worry.
Notice that rujax changed his name after I owned his previous name…..
What a flake…
@114 “cheap college was good enough for the emperor max mini-dick”
You mean the free online colleges? That’s the only “college” the emperor can get into.
“I’d worry about myself if he said something nice about me.”
Same here. But we needn’t worry.
Het, instead of the trophy, maybe we should give these to the winners instead,
http://www.theonion.com/articl.....goat,4579/
The Onion. Gotta love it.
The rich white guys who run Augusta Country Club finally realized there’s another gender. It had to be beaten into them, though.
“For the first time in its 80-year history, Augusta National Golf Club has female members. The home of the Masters, under increasing criticism the last decade because of its all-male membership, invited former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and South Carolina financier Darla Moore to become the first women in green jackets when the club opens for a new season in October.”
http://www.golfchannel.com/new.....-of-women/
“The woman who led a protest starting in 2002 calling for the Augusta National Golf Club to admit female members on Monday welcomed the club’s decision to end its males-only policy, saying, ‘I knew we could outlast them.'”
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_new.....-them?lite
@121 Better order now before Republican deviates buy out the entire supply.
What a bunch of fucking traitors!
Akin is toast.
“Two Senate Republicans have already said Akin should abandon his Senate bid. Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown and Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson both called for Akin to resign his Senate nomination. Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who heads the GOP’s Senate campaign efforts, … called on Akin to ‘carefully consider what is best for him, his family, the Republican Party, and the values that he cares about and has fought for throughout his career in public service.’ Former congresswoman and current Senate candidate from New Mexico, Heather Wilson, has also called on Akin to step aside. Other Republicans have also been critical of Akin …. ”
But don’t expect the GOP’s chickenshit standard bearer to take a stand.
“Romney will not call for Akin to step down from the race ….”
http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_.....icism?lite
Pioneering female comedian Phyllis Diller has died of old age. She was 95.
Scotty does what weak-kneed Willard won’t:
http://www.politico.com/blogs/.....32547.html
Gee I wonder why? Could it be that women might be offended at whacky teabaliban crap?
An Oklahoma high school has refused to give a valedictorian with a 4.0 GPA her diploma because she used the word “hell” in her graduation speech.
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_new.....peech?lite
Roger Rabbit Commentary: It probably wouldn’t be a good idea to call this principal a “goatfucker” until after you have your diploma.
Wow I guess Todd learned something from Sarah Failin’.
Rep. Todd Akin: ‘I’m not a quitter’
He’d rather settle for being defeated in November!
George Hickman of Seattle has died at age 88.
Hickman was a fixture as an usher at U.W. and Seahawks football games
He was one of the original Tuskegee Airman, for which he was honored with a Congressional Gold Medal in 2007.
@128
Yeah, there’s a lawsuit that the school’s going to lose. Idiot.
@131
Withholding the diploma won’t matter anyway. Showing folks that transcript with 4 years of 4.0 will be more than good enough for anyone.
Niall Ferguson: a right wing joke..
http://www.theatlantic.com/bus.....ma/261306/
Pseudo-academic
re 128: AC/DC couldn’t play any venues in OK until they changed their signature tune to Highway to Heck.
For those who are about to rock in OK, we feel sorry for you! Booooooooooooooooooooooooommmmm!!
A License To Kill Workers
That’s what a powerful Kentucky employer has. And that state’s cowardly workplace safety bureaucrats didn’t even have the guts to tell the victim’s family that the violations and fine were dropped at the behest of the company’s lawyers.
This case involves a young woman who suffered the most horrible of all deaths: She was engulfed by fire when vapors from improperly stored solvents exploded, and lingered for 11 excruciating days after being burned over 90% of her body.
The employer, which kept highly flammable solvents in open containers, won’t pay a penny of fines nor will it have a violation citation on its records. That was all quietly and secretly dropped.
It gets even worse. No less than 26 states — more than half of all states — are under federal supervision because they can’t run an honest workplace safety program. In state after state, egregious employer violations that endanger (and sometimes take) workers’ lives are ignored or go unpunished, because of the undue influence employers can exercise over those programs.
http://openchannel.nbcnews.com.....death?lite
Roger Rabbit Commentary: This is what Republicans are asking you to vote for. They can’t have my vote.
Today’s 4.0 is about a B+ for my generation.
Everybody goes to Lake Wobegon High School these days.
Roger Clemons has signed with the Sugar Land Skeeters baseball team.
Paul Ryan Wondering If He Should Have Told Romney About This Guy He’s Dating
DES MOINES, IA—After appearing at his first solo campaign event since becoming the presumptive Republican nominee for vice president, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) reportedly began wondering if he ought to have told running mate Mitt Romney about the man he’s been dating recently.
@ 127
While you’re snarking about Romney’s absence of specific repudiation of Akin and call for him to leave the race, can you remind me how Obama responded when Dollar Bill Jefferson endorsed him in 2008?
Or was Obama busy with other things that day:
6/6/2008
Dollar Bill Jefferson Endorses Obama
Filed under: 2008 Election — Patterico @ 8:10 am
The news came on the same day Jefferson’s sister, brother and niece were indicted, and Obama pal Tony Rezko was convicted of 16 corruption charges.
http://patterico.com/2008/06/0.....ses-obama/
You know, come to think of it, as it became clear that Roland Burris lied about how he came to be appointed to fill Obama’s Senate seat, I don’t recall Obama repudiating him and telling him to step aside, either.
But I’m in my 50s now, and I don’t recall things as well as I perhaps should. Maybe help me out?
All thanks to the GW “All Children Left Behind” program.
It’s looking like a Talent-McCaskill rematch is a distinct possibiilty here.
http://hotair.com/archives/201.....-drop-out/
Given Talent’s close relationship with the Romney campaign, maybe this is why Romney hasn’t weight in specifically about Akin’s candidacy.
Jim Talent has to be McCaskill’s worst nightmare. Other than Obama campaigning in Missouri, that is.
@ 140
When I took O-Chem in the Fall of 1980, I received an A+. There were about 350 of us in that class, and there were 27 A+ grades. I counted ’em.
No, it wasn’t BlameBush. His dad hadn’t even become VP yet.
He’s hitting the “bath salts” again…look out!
“But I’m in my 50s now, and I don’t recall things as well as I perhaps should. Maybe help me out?”
We can start with the abject failures of the Bush administration that led our nation invading the wrong country, the Great Recession and soaring deficits, all of which the entire Republican party seems to have wiped from their collective memory.
Yeah…
…I changed my name from Rujax!
To…
Rujax!
(fucking scab-bastard moron)
“Jim Talent”
At least you know his name. You were earlier crowing about the laughable virtues of Stephanie Steelman.
@ 144
I forget (again, I’m old). Is GWB43 on the ballot again this year?
’cause I get the impression your side is running against him.
Hey Cereal,
About that affirmative argument for a Romney presidency….
Please be specific, but concise. Five itty-bitty little reasons to vote FOR Romney is all I’m asking.
Pretty please?
@ 146
I had forgotten about Talent. Imagine him being handed the race, and a substantial lead, with only 10 weeks to go. Weakened opponent he knows inside and out. Missouri now solidly red. Demoralized MO Dem electorate. Lotsa surrogate help from nearby states.
Talent’s denying he’ll run.
Yeah. He’ll run if asked. President Romney needs that seat.
Since I’m batting, lessee, .000 I think you said, how do I hurt my average if I’m wrong?
@65
I’m not running away from Amanda Marcotte – she’s RIGHT.
Your snide little digs notwithstanding.
Are you asserting the there is widespread lying about rape? (Sorta like the epidemic of voter fraud)?
Are you buying the ‘legitimate’ rape analysis?
Are you buying the parsing of ‘forcible’ versus other rapes (as does your guy Paul Ryan)?
Your side is actively asserting an vicious anti-woman agenda – are you on board? Or do you repudiate Paul Ryan in his multiple anti-woman stances – like sponsoring both the ‘forcible rape’ and embryonic personhood bills?
I think there should NOT be an embryonic personhood amendment.
What we need is a woman personhood amendment in this country.
Hey cereal – if you can’t do it, just admit that.
Can you, or can’t you, produce a simple, 5-point, affirmative argument for a vote for Romney?
@ 152
I gotta be honest, I thought about doing it and started working on something thorough (like I did a week ago Saturday when Ryan’s nomination was announced), but to be frank it’s much more fun just watching the Obama campaign flail, the momentum shift to Romney/Ryan, and you guys getting increasingly frustrated that you’re going to lose to a Republican that you think every Republican voter hates.
If I don’t reply it just feeds into your angst.
Feel free to tell yourself I am unable to iterate my reasons for supporting Romney.
In truth I was a Mitch Daniels fan and was disappointed he did not run. But I have a reasonable substitute for his attention to fiscal matters in Ryan, so I’m good.
If it helps you, recall the reasons so many Dems backed Kerry. He was the candidate who was not George W. Bush.
Given my discomfort with Obama’s performance and ideology as I perceive it, a competent anti-Obama candidate is plenty, if there were nothing else I could say in support of Romney.
So, keep telling yourself I can’t stand Romney. You’d be about 10-15% correct.
“I forget (again, I’m old). Is GWB43 on the ballot again this year?
’cause I get the impression your side is running against him.”
It’s your chance to talk about your party’s record, Bob. It’s not like it was the last century or something. It was less than four years ago, and the mess you left still isn’t fixed yet, it was that bad. Given how much that record of yours sucks, I can see why you and your party desperately want to disown it, pretend it never happened, and hope to God that nobody remembers or asks you about it.
You have repeatedly promised the nation fiscal responsibility and yet all your party has ever left in it’s wake are massive deficits and massively increased debt. So, yeah, I can’t really blame you for not wanting to run on your record of huge fucking failures, one after another. Hell, someone might get the impression that you’re full of shit and will only fail the nation again.
“If I don’t reply it just feeds into your angst.”
Yeah, just keep on believing that it’s all about you, Bob.
God, what a narcissistic fucktard.
Please be specific, but concise. Five itty-bitty little reasons to vote FOR Romney is all I’m asking.
I’d like to know 5 things Mitt the Twitt has not FLIPP-FLOPPED on.
(Other than not releasing his taxes.)
I’d like to know 5 things Mitt the Twitt has not FLIPP-FLOPPED on.
(Other than not releasing his taxes.)
Maybe you should take it up with the Truth Team.
http://www.barackobama.com/truth-team/
How about even a single reason why the nation shouldn’t consider Romney to be a sociopath?
“Maybe you should take it up with the Truth Team.”
Sucks for you, I suppose, Romney and his flip-flops. You probably don’t want to talk about that anymore than you want to talk about how your party always promised fiscal responsibility and how it left a trail of massive deficits and debt instead.
The story of trillion dollar plus deficits in pictures:
http://www.nytimes.com/interac.....d=fb-share
The upshot: Mostly Bush, not much Obama. And when the stimulus runs out – maybe 56 billion Obama. Trivial..
That’s not at all what I think.
I think your inability/unwillingness to articulate an affirmative Romney argument has to do with caginess.
I don’t think you’re a culture warrior, like puddles, though you do engage in the backhanded degradation of women’s issues, as above.
No, you’re in it for the money, I think. You’re part of the “I got mine” caucus, but you’re smart enough to realize that that is indefensible on both socioeconomic as well as moral grounds, and further, that such an argument will be savaged around here. I suspect you’re perfectly happy with Romney, in part because his wealth is a positive indicator of his deserved-ness, in the greed-centered universe you seem to inhabit.
@156
1. The business for car roof dog cages will skyrocket.
2. Pancakes will become America’s official breakfast item.
3. It will take one Vagina and one Penis to start a Corporation.
4. …..
5. …..
Damn, I thought I could actually name five things.
Up until the black man took office and you saddled him with the worst economic situation since the Great Depression, you guys had no problem at all with deficits. “Deficits don’t matter.” But that black guy, he must have inspired some kind of “Come to Jesus” moment for you teabagging fucks. All of a sudden, deficits mattered again. Geez, it was almost like everybody in your political party flipped and a flopped at once, kind of like a bizarre form of mass synchronized swimming.
Why should anybody believe you lying bastards this time around when once again you are promising fiscal responsibility? You’ve never delivered before, why should anybody believe that you’ll deliver now?
# 154: It might be different if the GOP admitted they screwed up, and had a reform platform in place. But they don’t. They are going back to the same recipie they’ve used since 1980, and we can expect the same results: the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and the middle class merges into the poor class.
But they know that won’t sell. So they pretend that George W. Bush never happened, and blame the Great Rescession on a combination of Bill Clinton and President Obama. In other words, they are counting on us to be idiots with short-term memory problems.
Paul Ryan Gives Thanks
@163 To them, “fiscal responsibility” is just a catchphrase to excuse what they’ve always wanted to do, which is to gut the programs that help less fortunate Americans. After all, hungry people will work for cheap wages.
Conservatives are getting their wish. Immigrants are going home.
“Some crops aren’t get picked this season due to a lack of workers. The Western Growers Association told CNBC its members are reporting a 20 percent drop in laborers this year. Stronger border controls are keeping workers from crossing into the U.S. illegally, and the current guest worker program is not providing enough bodies.”
http://www.cnbc.com/id/48725145
There’s quite a kerfuffle brewing between Paul Krugman and Niall Ferguson, with Krugman (a Princeton professor) accusing Ferguson (a Harvard professor) of lying, a Berkeley professor calling for Ferguson’s firing, and Newsweek admitting it doesn’t fact-check stories.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....d%3D194793
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Nobody has fights like academics, except maybe Native Americans, and of course rabbits.
“In other words, they are counting on us to be idiots with short-term memory problems.”
That’s one reason why they love the idea of privatizing public education. They could reap huge profits while producing a few generations of dumbed down American voters. Dumbed down voters. Without them and the suppression of the votes of everybody else, the wingnuts would have nothing.
For years, Republicans have used charity by the rich as an excuse to attack government programs for the poor and justify tax breaks for millionaires.
Well, guess what, the rich are not only chintzy about paying taxes, they’re also cheapskates in their charitable giving.
“The study, conducted by the Chronicle of Philanthropy using tax-deduction data from the Internal Revenue Service, showed that households earning between $50,000 and $75,000 year give an average of 7.6 percent of their discretionary income to charity. That compares to 4.2 percent for people who make $100,000 or more. In some of the wealthiest neighborhoods, with a large share of people making $200,000 a year or more, the average giving rate was 2.8 percent. The two wealthiest zip codes in the nation are both in Manhattan. Neither made it to the top 3,000 for charitable giving.”
http://www.cnbc.com/id/48725147
Roger Rabbit Commentary: This gives a whole new depth to the old gag line, “My favorite charity is me.”
Theocrat wannabe Tony Perkins slams Ted Nugent for his inflamatory rhetoric.
No, of course not. I’m just kidding. Ted’s OK by Tony. The real haters are the SPLC, says Tony.
From Crooks & Liars,
“So clearly they are inciting this environment of hostility toward religious organizations. And it’s dangerous. We’ve now seen it’s gone beyond the rhetoric and passing of words to actually almost taking the lives of individuals.”
No word from Tony about dead abortion doctors. I take it he’s good with that.
Take a look at these 4 most recent National Polls-
Monmouth/SurveyUSA/Braun 8/15 – 8/19 1149 LV 2.9 46 45 Obama +1
Rasmussen Tracking 8/17 – 8/19 1500 LV 3.0 43 44 Romney +1
Gallup Tracking 8/13 – 8/19 3050 RV 2.0 45 47 Romney +2
Politico/GWU/Battleground 8/5 – 8/9 1000 LV 3.1 48 47 Obama +1
Now don’t fall off the deepend. As Darryl reminds you idiots is it’s merely a snapshot with a number of underlying assumptions. But it looks like Obama ought to be concerned. I know you idiots aren’t, but you aren’t running and don’t stand to go down in history as Jimmy Carter II like Barry Soetoro does. Ain’t that right Doctor Steve!
@170 – I’d have one question for Bigot Perkins. In one word tell me what you thing of people perpetrating hate crimes against gay people, one word. I’d love to hear his one word. Bigot. And no Freedom with Tony.
“Ain’t that right Doctor Steve!”
I dunno, Klown, try asking the goat.
Been out of the loop today. Has it been a good day for Slick Willard and the Republican Party?
Oh, I did hear that Newsweek has an awesome fact free post about Obama’s impending doom. Has Cereal quoted it yet?
@174 “Has Cereal quoted it yet?”
Cereal was Johnny on the Spot with that one @78. He had his ass handed to him, of course, and doesn’t seem to want to talk about it anymore.
What? no more bragging about how we are on Mars? Ya, thats before you realized that program was started under the previous president…funny, you get owned and quietly change the name.
owned.
@175 Steve,
heh.
I hope Cereal doesn’t go way mad. Just go away and “Doncha come back no more no more no more no more……..“
Freaking heavens above! What a monster of an insight by the Wyoming harlequin!
Heh. With all the billionaires counting on Dullard (R – Money) to make this country into a playground for them, where they own everything and extract whatever they can for them and theirs – like Putin’s Russia?
Obama ought to be concerned? Anyone with a brain ought to be concerned..
Hey last Thursday when it got a little warm around here I asked
“Soon we’ll be faced with the dilemma over which is worse; No grain to ship on the Mississippi? or No Mississippi to ship anything on?”
Nobody cared, but today – 11-mile stretch of Mississippi River closed
I’m sure those Midwestern farmers and river workers are going to be glad to see Republican House Leader, Paul Ryan living it up in Tampa next week and not talking about the farm bill (passed in the Senate!) that Ryan could not lead his House to consider.
Sorry, I forgot the obligatory ‘but Al Gore is FAT!‘. there. now all is well in the heartland.
Aaaaawwwww.. “I used the wrong words! Can I still play???”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....12052.html
heh. Looks like he won’t cave. Hell why should he – his base believes that kind of shit.
Count that in the W column for the Dems.
Wingnuts believe that America’s poor should live in shame for not being Galtian Lords, and that bakers should have the right to refuse to sell America’s poor any more cherry pie. No mention of poor people’s rights. I take they don’t have rights anymore.
http://crooksandliars.com/karo.....are-queens
Of course, they offer no condemnation whatsoever, not even a mention, of America’s true welfare queen, the oil industry.
165. Roger Rabbit spews:
@163 To them, “fiscal responsibility” is just a catchphrase to excuse what they’ve always wanted to do:
legitimate rape
Misspeaking, it is what Republicans do best.
I Misspoke—What I Meant To Say Is ‘I Am Dumb As Dog Shit And I Am A Terrible Human Being’
By Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO)
August 20, 2012
Politico reporter removed from Todd Akins coverage for offensive tweet supporting his views on rape.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....13728.html
What’s up with wingnuts wanting to redefine rape? That’s some sick shit you’re up to, asswipes.
Yeah, I’m sure that wingnuts like Bob, if faced with his own daughter claiming to have been raped but then learning that she had also gotten pregnant, would conclude that she was lying to Daddy about something.
I can see it now.
Wingnut Bob’s little girl, crying, “Daddy, I was raped!”
Wingnut Bob, “Are you pregnant?”
Wingnut Bob’s little girl, sobbing, knowing well her father’s views and his capacity for harsh judgement and subsequent wrath, “I’m so sorry, Daddy, but yes, I think I am!”
Wingnut Bob, “Then you should be sorry, you damned slut!”
Bob’s little girl, “I’m sorry, Daddy, please don’t hit me!”
@154 It’s at least fair to ask the GOP what, if anything, they’d do differently if they’re in power for the next four years than they did from 2001 through 2008. From listening to their rhetoric and connecting the dots, I see nothing but more of the same old same old. Rmoney seems to be oozing smegma over the prospect of a war with Iran, which almost certainly would mean an “emergency” discontinuance of any restrictions on military spending (except maybe veterans’s benefits). Ryan, Cantor and McConnell all have their axes poised to hack away at any and all domestic programs except corporate subsidies, further reduce taxes on the wealthy and corporations and “unchain” Wall Street to go back to turning us into “debtcroppers”. About the only new addition is some new statutes to keep women barefoot and pregnant. What’s different? Well, maybe Mitt will be better manuicured and won’t cuss quite so much. Big deal.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpoi.....fpnewsfeed
You don’t say. One of the holy pure ones might be in a little trouble.
@185
That’s over the top.
Hard to know what he’d do in that awful hypothetical scenario – right wingers often improve their stances to something resembling humane when they’re personally confronted with it (see Reagan, Nancy as pertains stem cells and Alzheimer’s).
The whole portrayal you’ve drawn, though, leaves me queasy, as it approaches involving one’s children in our political combat, even if hypothetical to draw a legitimate question regarding politics and the Republican war on women.
Like I said above, I don’t think Cereal is a culture warrior – if personally appropriate, I doubt he’d have a problem with abortion – he’s likely perfectly happy going on about ‘legitimate abortion’ however, as it gets the rubes all hot and bothered and voting for the guys that will cut his taxes, what he really cares about.
NT Times article about why Obama needs to sweat NH this time after winning by 8-1/2% points in 2008.
Look at the 2010 election results.
Better yet, keep your heads firmly up your asses and continue pretending this is an Obama landslide.
http://campaignstops.blogs.nyt.....ef=opinion
No one has said that. You are an imbecile.
Maybe you could give me a set of positive reasons to vote for Romney, since you buddy Cereal can’t/won’t.
2 latest polls in Ohio-
Purple Strategies 8/13 – 8/14 600 LV 44 46 Romney +2
Rasmussen Reports 8/13 – 8/13 500 LV 45 45 Tie
Looks like Ryan is having a positive impact despite the left-wing echo chamber to the contrary. Keep kidding yourselves. Proclaim a landslide. Never Never land is where most of you idiots reside anyway. Factless and emotional won’t get you too far.
190–Plenty of you numbskulls have been predicting a landslide. Backing off now?
Here’s another reason to back off…Virgin’a 2 latest polls.
Purple Strategies 8/13 – 8/14 600 LV 45 48 Romney +3
Rasmussen Reports 8/7 – 8/7 500 LV 48 46 Obama +2
Let’s keep going. Here are Florida’s last 3 including the left-wing poll PPP
Rasmussen Reports 8/15 – 8/15 500 LV 43 45 Romney +2
Purple Strategies 8/13 – 8/14 600 LV 47 48 Romney +1
PPP (D) 7/26 – 7/29 871 LV 48 47 Obama +1
Ok, one last state for you to froth over. Let’s try IOWA!
Rasmussen Reports 8/8 – 8/8 500 LV 44 46 Romney +2
WeAskAmerica 6/18 – 6/18 1086 LV 45 44 Obama +1
NBC News/Marist 5/22 – 5/24 1106 RV 44 44 Tie
Perhaps you left-wing assholes have some sort of mystical powers that allow you to look at the current facts, factor in that Romney is crushing Obama in fund-raising and cash on hand and can somehow defy all logic & common sense and conclude Obama will win in a landslide?
Wow.
@195
No one’s predicting a landslide win for Obama. The election’s a long ways away and anything could happen between now and then, but for now Obama’s in the lead.
@185
We try to keep even mythical kids and spouses out of fracas. You should retract that one.
LMAO!! It’s always money with these right wing buffoons..
How did money help Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina?
Some of these right wing sugar daddies like Adelson get their egos involved. That’s ended in disaster in the past.. Money hurt more than it helped.
The skinny-dipping buffoon in Israel was funny on the radio today..
Denied alcohol was involved. Yeah right. Says he was only in the water for 10 minutes.
The equivalent of “I didn’t inhale”.. Who the fuck the cares? oh silly right wing idiots at home seem to care about proper “family values”…
What a bunch of withered prudes!
I hope this tape plays out some more.
“That’s over the top.”
Yeah, maybe. Maybe not. I’ll think about it. I can say that it’s far less offensive than what the Republicans who Bob supports have long been trying to force upon women who are pregnant, even from rape or incest. Maddow was just going over the long history of that rape part. Republicans have been going after abortion for rape and incest for decades. Today they are amped up more than ever. Abortion is no longer some carrot forever dangled by Republican power brokers to get the evangelical vote. The crazy’s have taken over the party and they are feverishly passing very real laws.
“Legitimate rape”
Wingnuts say that a lot. WTF are the other kinds of rape?
If a woman can’t get pregnant from being raped, it stands to wingnut reason that, if a woman is pregnant and if she say she was raped, she’s lying. Todd Akin didn’t just come from nowhere. Republicans have been spewing that bullshit for a long time.
Bob, if he doesn’t agree with any of this, does worse than nothing. He supports them. He lies for them. Even if he did say something about this topic, it’d be no more than an arm wave, and then he’d return to posting his endless drivel.
“That’s over the top.”
Yeah, I agree, it’s over the top. Worse, it wasn’t funny. But Bob has something coming to him for his support of a foul and evil political movement that would take away rights from Americans citizens. They would take away their right to vote, as they do with voter ID, to the right to control one’s own body, as they do with abortion. I say that it doesn’t matter if this doesn’t myself or a loved one, or you and yours. It’s enough that they are doing this to anybody, anywhere. That’s enough to say, “That’s enough!”
No apology to Bob. He can kiss my ass.
Now that’s a chart!
http://cdn.theatlantic.com/sta.....rolls3.png
“You should retract that one.”
No more than I did. I’m sorry if I offended you, but Bob can kiss my ass.
@191, 192, 193, 194, 195
Wow, that’s almost as silly as circus Klowns pouring out of a teeny, tiny car.
@192 I read these comments every day and haven’t seen anyone predict a “landslide,” which makes me wonder if you know what the term means.
A “landslide” is a win by a large margin. LBJ’s and Nixon’s 60%+ PV (popular vote) margins in 1964 and 1972 were “landslides.” In 1980, Reagan got only 50.7% of the PV but won an EV (electoral vote) landslide (489-44) against Carter. Obama’s 2008 win, nearly 53% PV and more than 2-1 EVs, while solid, wasn’t of “landslide” proportions.
Right now electoral maps show 337 to 357 EVs safe or leaning to Obama. Absent a drastic shift in voter sentiment between now and Election Day, which seems unlikely as pollsters tell us most voters are locked in, it’s unlikely either candidate will peel away states leaning to other candidate, so the election will be won or lost in tossup states.
Romney can’t afford to lose Florida. If he does, Obama needs only New Hampshire’s 4 EVs or Nevada’s 6 EVs, and can lose the rest of the tossup states. If Obama loses Florida and North Carolina, it’s still pretty easy for him if he wins Ohio and Wisconsin, because then he only needs Nevada. If Obama loses Florida, Ohio, and North Carolina, he can still win with Virginia, Nevada, New Hampshire, and either Wisconsin or Colorado.
This won’t be a landslide. Nowhere near one. But the fact a handful of states where the candidates are virtually tied will decide the election doesn’t mean they have equal chances. And a big PV margin isn’t necessary, as Reagan’s 1980 victory demonstrates. The hill is much steeper for Romney than Obama because he’s 79 EVs away from 270 while Obama is only 33 EVs away. That means Romney has to win 72% of the EVs up for grabs. Anyone who thinks that’s the same thing as even odds probably shouldn’t bet on horses.
@202
It’s a community standard and somehow I seem to be the one that got the job of pointing out when people go over it. Personally, I don’t get offended by such things.
@201 Our trolls don’t realize unemployment is still over 8% because of government downsizing and public employee layoffs, which is exactly what they say they want to do. So it’s hard to see how the unemployment rate would be better with Republicans running things.
@197 re @185 – We don’t have many rules here, but I wouldn’t have made an example like that personal. If something like that is used to make a point, it should be in the Anonymous Third Person.
Darryl posted this article about an Obama Landslide earlier this month.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/a.....slide.html
@207 Point well taken, Roger.
@208 Yes, I remember reading that article. It doesn’t really predict a “landslide” (except in a headline written by some clueless copywriter). Rather, here’s what it says:
“The list of states where Obama holds that narrow but consistent lead is long: Ohio, Virginia, Iowa, Colorado, Nevada, and New Hampshire. Michigan and Wisconsin are no longer really narrow. Florida is more or less a dead heat. The bottom line is that of the dozen or so key swing states, Romney leads only in one: North Carolina.”
And that’s entirely in line with what I posted above. In fact, Tomasky puts it better than I did: Obama has a “narrow but consistent lead” in a long list of crux states. Of a “dozen or so key swing states, Romney leads in only one,” and even in that one his lead isn’t secure.
A narrow Obama victory in a large number of the tossup states would give him a decisive electoral vote win. And yet, his popular vote margin could be razor-thin in all of those states.
The point of this, which I made above, is that Romney has to win far more of these states than Obama does, and currently trails in most of them, which is why a Romney victory is implausible.
Nate Silver rates the odds of an Obama landslide at 7.3% and a Romney landslide at 1.3%. (Silver’s definition of a “landslide” is a double-digit popular vote margin, i.e. 55%-45% or greater.)
Silver rates the odds of Obama losing at least one state he carried in 2008 at 93.5%, and his odds of winning at least one state he lost in 2008 at 25.7%. (It’s easy to visualize which state he’ll lose — Indiana — but considerably more difficult to imagine him winning a McCain state … South Carolina probably is the best candidate.)
Silver thinks there’s a less than 1% chance of the 2012 map being identical to the 2008 map.
But of the states Obama carried in 2008, even if he loses, in addition to Indiana, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Colorado, and Iowa, he’ll still win the election. Romney would need, in addition to all those states, Wisconsin, Virginia, or Nevada and New Hampshire. That’s a tall order.
Silver gives Obama better-than-even odds of winning Ohio, Virginia, Wisconsin, Colorado, Nevada, Iowa, and New Hampshire. He has Romney ahead only in Indiana (a given), North Carolina (a challenge for Obama but within reach), and Florida (weak Romney lead).
Let’s say Romney wins Indiana, North Carolina, Florida, and Iowa. Winning Florida would be a big deal; but he’s still got to win Ohio, Wisconsin, and Colorado. If he doesn’t take all three of those states as well it’s pretty much undoable. And, of course, if Romney loses Florida or Ohio, it’s damned near impossible. If he loses both of those states it is impossible, because that alone would put Obama over 270.
Obama landslide? No, barring the unforeseen, it won’t happen. But Romney’s odds of eking out a win are slim indeed. Losing by a little bit in even a few of the tossup states will have the same effect as losing in a landslide.
Now let’s look at Nate Silver’s odds for each of those states.
Romney must-win states:
Indiana – 92.8% chance of Romney win
Florida – 54.7% of Romney win
Ohio – 33.7% chance of Romney win
North Carolina – 68.0% chance of Romney win
Colorado – 37.9% chance of Romney win
Iowa – 35.0% chance of Romney win
Plus Romney needs one of these:
Wisconsin – 22.1% chance of Romney win
Virginia – 37.7% chance of Romney win
or (needs both):
Nevada – 21.5% chance of Romney win
New Hampshire – 25.0% chance of Romney win
Romney obviously has serious problems in at least four states he can’t afford to lose; and his chances in Nevada and New Hampshire are so poor either Wisconsin or Virginia is also a must-win state for him. And if Florida goes haywire and ends up in Obama’s column, well, in that scenario it’s over because there aren’t enough electoral votes left to make it up elsewhere.
If Romney wins Florida but loses Ohio, then both Wisconsin and Virginia plus Nevada are must-wins. That’s very unlikely.
Every day I see our trolls cheering themselves on to a faith-based belief that Romney is ahead and is gonna win this thing. Even if he somehow does, they’ll get a guy conservatives don’t trust. That’s the best possible outcome for our wingnut friends, and it isn’t a good one; from their viewpoint, the only virtue of a Romney win is they dislike Romney less than they dislike Obama. Sucks to be them.
But they don’t have much more than faith going for them, and the odds are pretty solid that they’re gonna live under the black guy’s governance for another four years. Really sucks to be them.
What Akin is wrong about:
“Physicians and rape experts say there’s no way the trauma of rape would prevent pregnancy from occurring. ‘If a woman’s ovaries have already released an egg, she’s just as likely to get pregnant from a rape as she would be from a voluntary encounter,’ Dr. Barbara Levy, vice president for health policy at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, told NBC News.”
Why it wasn’t an accidental gaffe:
“Akin’s not the first politician to claim the rape can prevent pregnancy, according to a report in the Washington Post. The anti-abortion thinking goes back to the 1980s, with politicians from Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Arkansas making the argument that rape disrupts conception, the newspaper reported Monday.”
Why, even if this biological bunk wasn’t a (false) meme of the right-to-life crowd, his remark is politically devastating and why his apology won’t get him off the hook:
“‘It’s another example of the blame-the-victim mentality that is so pervasive in our culture,’ she said. … ‘Supporting victims — and recognizing the impact of the crime on them — is the very least we should expect from our political leaders.'”
Prediction: Akin is toast.
http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_new.....nancy?lite
Here’s a gem:
“Ryan voted against legislation protecting active-duty service members from foreclosures.”
And another one:
“Ryan voted against federal money to help veterans dealing with PTSD.”
http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_.....worse?lite
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Why does Ryan hate our soldiers?
Obama has just told us under what circumstances he would authorize a U.S. military intervention in Syria.
http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_.....apons?lite
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Now watch Republicans bash Obama for suggesting he might intervene in Syria. When they do, the question to ask Romney is whether his policy would be exactly the same; and if not, why not?
This Wall Street pro says the U.S. economy is “coming out of its soft patch” and is “accelerating.”
http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/.....038;play=1
Roger Rabbit Commentary: I’m seeing that in the economic data and financial commentary, too. If it’s truly happening, and I believe it is — my stocks are gaining nearly every trading day — this will make it tough for Romney to credibly call Obama’s economy policy a “failure.”
You Can Spot Bullshit By Its Smell
“A man’s death from a gunshot wound to the head while his hands were handcuffed behind him in an Arkansas police patrol car has been ruled a suicide … the state crime lab report said 21-year-old Chavis Carter shot himself in the right temple of his head with a gun he had hidden.
“The report was based on autopsy findings and an investigation by the Jonesboro, Ark., Police Department. Carter’s death has prompted skepticism about the police version of events. His father … does not believe that his son’s death was a suicide.
Carter and two friends were riding in a truck in Jonesboro on the night of July 28 when they were pulled over. … During a search of the trio and the vehicle, police found marijuana …. After running a check on his name, police learned Carter had a warrant for … for marijuana possession.
He was handcuffed after a second search and placed in the back of the squad car while the officers conducted another search of the truck. Shortly thereafter the officers … said they heard a gunshot and discovered that Carter had shot himself in the head.
“Suspicion … has continued to grow in the city’s African-American community. Police video from the night of the incident provided few answers, as it did not show the shooting.
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_new.....icide?lite
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Deep South. Small-town cops. Black guy pulled over, searched twice, handcuffed, locked in patrol car. Bang, he’s dead. If you believe that was a suicide, I’ve got a used bedsheet you can wear to your next civic club meeting.
http://www.unskkkk.com/vintage.....pg_pic.htm
Mika Yamamota died this weekend.
She was killed in Aleppo, Syria, the scene of fierce fighting between thug ruler Bashir Assad’s troops and Syrian rebels seeking to overthrow his brutal regime.
Yamamota, 45, was a Japanese war correspondent who had previously covered the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
There are a couple hundred journalists who specialize in providing on-the-scene reporting from battle zones. They have an exceptionally dangerous job and many are killed. But because of their dedication to their craft, and willingness to risk their lives, they provide much of the information we have about the realities of warfare.
I recall, with some bitterness, loathsome rightwingers in our country celebrating every death of a journalist in Iraq. How despicable.
Many notable war correspondents became famous, including Stephen Crane, Frederic Villiers, Jack London, John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway, Winston Churchill, Ernie Pyle, and Edward R. Murrow, among others.
I doubt anyone here had heard of Mika Yamamota, and neither had I before reading of her death on NBC’s website. Her job was to inform the Japanese people about what is going on in Syria. Without journalists like her, the evils and brutalities of war and repression would exist only in dark unseen places. Because of journalists like her those things are exposed to the conscience of mankind, and the perpetrators of the worst things humans are capable of are subjected to the judgment of history. Sometimes, just knowing their black secrets will become known, is enough to restrain them. Information can be more powerful than armies.
A fascinating novel about a war correspondent, written by a former war correspondent, is Arturo Perez-Reverte’s “A Painter of Battles,” which focuses on the Kosovo war. The plot revolves around an ex-soldier who has come to kill an ex-journalist holed up in an abandoned seaside castle because a photograph taken by the journalist ruined the soldier’s life. In their confrontation with each other, both men must struggle with their inner demons.
Wingnuts have no inner demons. That’s because they don’t have consciences. They’re bots programmed to spew wingnut talking points and are incapable of thoughts or feelings. But if they could have inner demons theirs would be bloodsucking vampires.
Thanks to Barry Soetoro and his yapping without a teleprompter, Barry inspired the Republican Convention Theme of “WE BUILT THIS!”
It’s awesome and will certainly resonate.
I’m sure you will hear plenty about Biden’s gaffes and his chronic insanity, especially about R’s putting African Americans back in chains.
Read about the Convention here
http://politics.blogs.foxnews......z249cVykCS
Oh yeah, and tune it please.
@220 Au contraire.
Republicans have a conscience. They want all Americans to become self-sufficient and less dependent on the Democrat trap of Big Government.
How is making people feel useless and dependent having a conscience?
Democrats are the party of the dependent.
And you’re are NOT a Republican remember?
http://horsesass.org/?p=21738#comment-959933
Ayn Ryan @222,
And how is that working for the folk in Wisconsin?
With wingnut welfare from Sheldon Adelson, Wilbur Ross, Harold Hamm, Leslie Wexner, John Catsimitidis, Louis Bacon, Jim Davis, Ken Griffin, Paul Tudor-Jones II, Bill Koch, Bruce Kovner, Henry Kravis, Bill and Richard Marriot, John Paulson, Jerrold Perrenchio, Julian Robertson, Stephen Ross, Steven Roth, Marc Rowan, Robert Rowling, David Tepper, Jim and Alice Walton, Meg Whitman, Sam Zell, Joseph Craft, Charles and Helen Schwab, Harold Simmons.
Nope.
It’s really the small ‘d’ of democratic government that you people loathe.
Government is the one sphere in society that is equal by definition, where everyone gets an equal say (megaphones of money notwithstanding).
That’s why you people hate it, and are doing your best to vilify it, delegitimize it, drown it in a bathtub, starve it into submission.
You loathe the notion that you have to share this country with everybody else, and that we all, in theory anyway, participate equally.
The destruction of democratic government is an essential step in the Neofeudal wet dream you fiends all share – turning this country into a vast nation of powerless, disposable serfs, with all wealth siphoned upward to the thin stratum of sociopathic, greed-driven, soulless assholes.
@226
LMFAO..quite the imagination!
Que up the theme to the Imperial March from Star Wars….lol.
The rich want government out of the way because it’s the only thing big enough to stop them from screwing the middle class even more thoroughly than they already are.
The rich will collectively have more money & be better off with a stronger middle class, but individually they just see all these shortcuts they could take to make more money NOW if government weren’t in the way.
It’s more about the differential than about absolute wealth for some of these guys … some would rather be the biggest fish in a small pond.
Inflating the currency isn’t that bad a solution for our monetary problems … unless you’re all about sitting on a huge pile of money whose value will shrink if we do that.
If your money is invested in assets that generate income, a little inflation just changes the flow rate ….
if you’re a trust fund baby, you’re screaming bloody murder.
# 217: Sounds like the coroner’s ruling in one case I heard about years ago. A man with his hands tied behind his back was shot in the back with a shotgun. The coronor ruled it was a suicide.
By the way, do the trolls know that they don’t get paid for any posts they enter on a thread after a thread gets to 100 posts?
So what name does the fucking emeperor max mini-dick want to see…
THis one?
This one???
Hmmmmm….guess we really DID lose ev.
Oh well.
How ’bout THIS ONE?
But this one’s MY favorite!!!
Fuck you “emperor max mini-dick aka kaiser bun the first biiiggggg highfukking school footbal star with the biiiiggg SIX-FIGURE income and the biiiiiggg local living wage job killing union busting corporate connections. Just a corrupt filthy fucking empty suit too scared to keep one handle.
Sure max. You rat bastard scab puke.