Friday, November 09, 2012

Rachel Explains The Election


[ UPDATE 11/12/12: Rachel Maddow's post-election monologue has been so popular that someone made a poster from it that you can download in four different formats HERE ]

The Post this morning had a page A-13 headline: "GOP to review tactics and message to gauge what went wrong." This seems so backwards. What if there was a political party that believed in something, and then figured out how to win votes?

This week's election marked the collapse of an angry political movement. Conservatives need more than tactics and "a message," they need to think about their long-term vision for this evolving country, which is changing under them too fast for them to keep up. Rachel Maddow's summary of the election is a masterpiece. I don't usually link to TV shows on this blog, but every Republican should sit back and watch this.

It is worth it to watch the entire sixteen minutes and hear all she has to say, but if you don't want to take the time, at least read what she had to say toward the end:

[ After showing Karl Rove stunned and denying that Ohio had gone to Obama ] Ohio really did go to President Obama last night. And he really did win. And he really was born in Hawaii. And he really is legitimately president of the United States, again. And the Bureau of Labor Statistics did not make up a fake unemployment rate last month. And the Congressional Research Service really can find no evidence that cutting taxes on rich people grows the economy. And the polls were not skewed to oversample Democrats. And Nate Silver was not making up fake projections about the election to make conservatives feel bad. Nate Silver was doing math. And climate change is real. And rape really does cause pregnancy sometimes. And evolution is a thing. And Benghazi was an attack on us, it was not a scandal by us. And nobody is taking away anyone`s guns. And taxes have not gone up. And the deficit is dropping, actually. And Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction. And the moon landing was real. And FEMA is not building concentration camps. And U.N. election observers are not taking over Texas. And moderate reforms of the regulations on the insurance industry and the financial services industry in this country are not the same thing as communism.

Listen, last night was a good night for liberals and for Democrats for very obvious reasons, but it was also, possibly, a good night for this country as a whole, because in this country, we have a two-party system in government. And the idea is supposed to be that the two sides, both come up with ways to confront and fix the real problems facing our country. They both propose possible solutions to our real problems. And we debate between those possible solutions.

I am optimistic that this GOP meltdown will be a good thing in the long run. There can be more than one solution to a problem, and we need grown-ups in Washington to suggest ideas and debate them and move us forward.

141 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

"The Post this morning had a page A-13 headline: "GOP to review tactics and message to gauge what went wrong." This seems so backwards. What if there was a political party that believed in something, and then figured out how to win votes?"

actually, there were two such political parties in this election

Republicans civilly discussed their ideas and bravely leveled with the American people on the need for reforms

the way Obommunists "figured out how to win votes" was:

1. launch personal attacks against Romney

2. lie about Romney's positions

3. set up an organization to harass people not inclined to vote into voting for you

"This week's election marked the collapse of an angry political movement."

not really

there was surprise that Obama's machine was still potent

but, with the exception of taxing wealthy people, polls showed most Americans sided with the major Republican positions

"Conservatives need more than tactics and "a message," they need to think about their long-term vision for this evolving country,"

the Republicans articulated a long-term vision

Obama couldn't even say what his short-term plans were, much less long-term

"which is changing under them too fast for them to keep up."

not really

"Rachel Maddow's summary of the election is a masterpiece."

a good thing you posted this, Jim, because I looked at the ratings and few people actually watch MSNBC

on election night, they came in dead last while Fox News Channel beat all the other cable channels as well as CBS and ABC

I usually flip the channels and always enjoy watching Maddow because she seems so spirited

her understanding of issues is really off though

btw, Chris Matthews needs help, he's really insane and the comment he made about how great the hurricane was typifies his attitude

also, who is that new creepy guy they have that looks exactly like Maddow and imitates her exact mannerisms?

maybe she just goes in the back and changes

November 09, 2012 1:30 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"After showing Karl Rove stunned and denying that Ohio had gone to Obama. Ohio really did go to President Obama last night."

I watched Karl Rove's comments

he actually was right at the time

the rationale the networks were using to call Ohio seemed shaky and more applicable to Florida and they never called Florida

the whole thing was really minor though

and, as usual, just another opportunity to attack someone they disagree with

"And he really was born in Hawaii."

really? why did the promotional material for his first book say he was from Kenya and his grandmother in Kenya say she witnessed his birth?

"And the Bureau of Labor Statistics did not make up a fake unemployment rate last month."

a lot about them didn't add up

while we're at it, when the unemployment rate rose a week ago, the headlines in the media were "job gains seen"

the media pushed Obama unashamedly

"And the Congressional Research Service really can find no evidence that cutting taxes on rich people grows the economy."

and they really aren't the beginning and end of economic research

"And the polls were not skewed to oversample Democrats."

apparently not, but there was no way to know that until the election and there was some evidence indicating they were skewed

"And Nate Silver was not making up fake projections about the election to make conservatives feel bad. Nate Silver was doing math."

no one said he was faking, they disagreed with some of his assumptions

"And climate change is real."

and it really hasn't been proven to be caused by human activity

and no cost-effective and feasible plan has been devised to deal with it

"And rape really does cause pregnancy sometimes."

they were few, including Republicans, who disagree

liberal demagoguery at its most venal

"And evolution is a thing."

specifically, a theory with a lot of holes that some people have an irrational faith in

"And Benghazi was an attack on us, it was not a scandal by us."

an attack that our President handled in a scandalous way

"And nobody is taking away anyone`s guns."

most Dems want to take them all away

"And taxes have not gone up."

just wait for January 1

"And the deficit is dropping, actually."

not much, and it would be hard to oush it much higher

"And Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction."

so, when he used chemical weapons on the Iranians and Kurds, where did they come from?

"And the moon landing was real."

yes , it was

and Obama wants to cut NASA spending

"And moderate reforms of the regulations on the insurance industry and the financial services industry in this country are not the same thing as communism."

so why did Obama not stick with moderate reforms?

"we have a two-party system in government. And the idea is supposed to be that the two sides, both come up with ways to confront and fix the real problems facing our country. They both propose possible solutions to our real problems. And we debate between those possible solutions.
I am optimistic that this GOP meltdown will be a good thing in the long run. There can be more than one solution to a problem, and we need grown-ups in Washington to suggest ideas and debate them and move us forward."

Jim, the Republicans had a detailed plan for our country and instead of discussing them rationally, Obama ran a billion dollars worth of ads across America lying about them

Romney did not propose 5 trillion in tax cuts, did not propose 6400 a year in additional Medicare fees, 250K in tax cuts for each wealthy person or any tax increase at all on middle class citizens

and every Obama ad said Romney did those things

if you want an adult and civil conversation, you need to have a talk with your guy on Pennsylvania Avenue

November 09, 2012 1:30 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Bad anonymous, its too late for the Romney lies and flip-flops to help you now. The American public stood up to Romney and said "We will not reward your dishonesty." and they voted for Obama and the truth.

November 09, 2012 2:20 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

nasty Priya

Obama lied and Romney told the truth

I showed some examples above

too late for what?

this President really is worthless

no bill can be passed without first being passed by the House and then the Senate

the first is controlled by the Tea Party

the second can be stopped by the filibustering minority forces

not that it matters

the House has passed tons of legislation

Harry Reid, partisan flake, refuses to bring anything up for vote, much less negotiate the differences

and Obama?

he's invited all of the Congress for a meeting on the fiscal cliff

a nice photo op to make him look like he's doing something

but he has no proposal, he says

he just wants to tell Congress to do something

Obama's only power is to veto and he can't do that because Harry Reid won't bring anything up for vote

if he could rally the American people and devise proposals, he might actually accomplish something

but he's on the wrong track, baby, he was born that way

just like you, nasty Pri

November 09, 2012 2:48 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"The American public stood up to Romney and said "We will not reward your dishonesty.""

yeah, sure

all 50.1% of 'em

any time a liberal wins, they all fly off to lala land and fantasize the end of all dissent

news flash: Romney would have won with a few slight shifts in a few constituencies

Obama's shaky coalition won't last

most of them don't agree with him about much

and remember, in two years, nobody will listen to the Bush-did-it lies










































November 09, 2012 2:55 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

November 09, 2012 3:06 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Repeating the same lies won't make them true, bad anonymous.

Don't worry though, Republicans have been able to slow down the economic recovery but they can't prevent it. By 2016 the economy will be humming along nicely and Americans will re-elect the incumbent party. In the meantime the Republican party will either have to move to the centre or it will become a fringe party. So liberal voters will be saving you from your vote against your own best interests for a long time to come. The Republican party as you've known it is dead.

November 09, 2012 3:10 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anon, I sense bitterness lol.

You can walk around denying the results of the election, which was a disaster for Republicans and especially for the nuts of the teabagging variety on every level -- or you can pull your head out of your ass and start thinking of a way to win a few votes next time by, maybe, proposing policies and principles that people want.

As Rachel says here, America needs a second party. Did you see the amazement in Karl Rove's face when it turned out the statistical models were correct and the Fox pundits were wrong? That's idiotic, everybody knew they were wrong -- Romney was all ready to have a fireworks show in Boston, he had no concession speech prepared, the whole bunch of them were off in fantasy land, thinking everybody loved them, and they lost everywhere except in the Confederacy. We need a second party that can join the rest of us in this world we call Reality. We know you're mad about all the brown people and the gays and the foreigners, but those people inhabit the real world and they aren't going away. Why don't you lighten up and help the rest of us solve some real problems?

November 09, 2012 3:10 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

You know your party is in trouble when someone asks "Did the rape guy win" and you have to ask "Which one?".

November 09, 2012 4:01 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Repeating the same lies won't make them true, bad anonymous."

just saying I lied doesn't make it true

let's hear what I lied about

"Don't worry though, Republicans have been able to slow down the economic recovery but they can't prevent it."

other than allow Obama to spend a trillion more than we bring in, bailout banks and autos, extend unemployment benefits, declare a payroll tax cut, and keep interest rates at near zero, what else have Republicans done to slow growth?

because, usually, in the hands of a deft executive branch, that kind of stuff makes an economy hum

"By 2016 the economy will be humming along nicely"

why do you say that?

growth is slower this year than last, which was slower than the year before

man, those Republicans really know how to manipulate the economy

maybe we shoulda put them in charge of it

"and Americans will re-elect the incumbent party."

since the Republicans control Congress, that's good news

"In the meantime the Republican party will either have to move to the centre or it will become a fringe party."

how so?

they just won 48.5 of the electorate for their Presidential candidate

better than last time, the trajectory is improving

they simply need to find a way to bring aboard a little more support from a few constituencies

that's politics- happens all the time

"So liberal voters will be saving you from your vote against your own best interests for a long time to come."

right now, with Republicans in control of Congress, the liberals are pretty powerless

"The Republican party as you've known it is dead."

hard to see why anyone would think that

"Anon, I sense bitterness lol."

it's an illusion, my friend

when you awake, you will see that the status quo has been maintained with a little less support from the public

"You can walk around denying the results of the election,"

deny? I seem to have a more realistic view than anyone here

"which was a disaster for Republicans"

hardly

we control Congress

"and especially for the nuts of the teabagging variety on every level --"

oh, I think the teabag issues are still pretty much alive

even Obama is trying to convince us he's addressing them

"or you can pull your head out of your ass"

you guys love to thinking like that, don't you?

"and start thinking of a way to win a few votes next time by, maybe, proposing policies and principles that people want."

actually we only need to find something that 2% of the people want

in two years, that will likely be the dissolution of the Democratic party

"As Rachel says here, America needs a second party."

they have one

most Americans agree with the Republicans principles of restrained government

November 09, 2012 4:27 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"they lost everywhere except in the Confederacy."

actually, if look at the electoral map, it looks mostly red

and the same applies to most states

most of the counties are red

"We need a second party that can join the rest of us in this world we call Reality."

you mean where you can borrow a trillion dollars a year forever and Medicare won't go bankrupt if you just vote that it won't?

"We know you're mad about all the brown people and the gays and the foreigners, but those people inhabit the real world and they aren't going away."

sad

still trying to latch on to the moral capital of racial minorities for sexual practices

Hispanics and Asians have traditionally voted Republican in high numbers and will be back

blacks will someday realize that a President that does nothing about Depression-level unemployment in their communities and fights any chance for their children to have alternatives to dismal inner city public education is not their friend

"Why don't you lighten up and help the rest of us solve some real problems?"

I'm floating on air

reduce marginal tax rates and repeal Obamacare and unleash our national energy resources and the real problems of our economy will start to go away

don't worry, Obama will come around once he realizes he has no idea what to do and doesn't have to worry about his base for re-election anymore

"You know your party is in trouble when someone asks "Did the rape guy win" and you have to ask "Which one?"."

you know your party is in trouble when you consider the reinstatement of status quo gridlock by a slender margin is the cause of exuberant celebration

November 09, 2012 4:27 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

LOL, bad anonymous is really bitter. Seeing you lash out in fury at a past you can't change makes me giggly.

Here's a hint bad anonymous, when you see a word highlighted in a different colour, that's a link you can click on to answer your questions about how the Republican party as you've known it is dead.

Bad anonymous, trying to re-do the last election is only going to make you unhappy - let it go.

November 09, 2012 4:33 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Remarks by the President, November 9, 2012

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. (Applause.) Thank you so much. (Applause.) Thank you very much, everybody. Everybody, please have a seat. (Applause.)

Well, good afternoon, everybody. Now that those of us on the campaign trail have had a chance to get a little sleep -- (laughter) -- it’s time to get back to work. And there is plenty of work to do.

As I said on Tuesday night, the American people voted for action, not politics as usual. You elected us to focus on your jobs, not ours. And in that spirit, I’ve invited leaders of both parties to the White House next week, so we can start to build consensus around the challenges that we can only solve together. And I also intend to bring in business and labor and civic leaders from all across the country here to Washington to get their ideas and input as well.

At a time when our economy is still recovering from the Great Recession, our top priority has to be jobs and growth. That’s the focus of the plan I talked about during the campaign. (Applause.) It’s a plan to reward small businesses and manufacturers that create jobs here, not overseas. It’s a plan to give people the chance to get the education and training that businesses are looking for right now. It’s a plan to make sure this country is a global leader in research and technology and clean energy, which will attract new companies and high-wage jobs to America. It’s a plan to put folks back to work, including our veterans, rebuilding our roads and our bridges, and other infrastructure. And it’s a plan to reduce our deficit in a balanced and responsible way.

Our work is made that much more urgent because at the end of this year, we face a series of deadlines that require us to make major decisions about how to pay our deficit down -- decisions that will have a huge impact on the economy and the middle class, both now and in the future. Last year, I worked with Democrats and Republicans to cut a trillion dollars’ worth of spending that we just couldn’t afford. I intend to work with both parties to do more -- and that includes making reforms that will bring down the cost of health care so we can strengthen programs like Medicaid and Medicare for the long haul.

But as I’ve said before, we can’t just cut our way to prosperity. If we’re serious about reducing the deficit, we have to combine spending cuts with revenue -- and that means asking the wealthiest Americans to pay a little more in taxes. (Applause.) That’s how we did it in the 1990s, when Bill Clinton was President. That’s how we can reduce the deficit while still making the investments we need to build a strong middle class and a strong economy. That’s the only way we can still afford to train our workers, or help our kids pay for college, or make sure that good jobs in clean energy or high-tech manufacturing don’t end up in countries like China.

Now, already, I’ve put forward a detailed plan that allows us to make these investments while reducing our deficit by $4 trillion over the next decade. I want to be clear -- I’m not wedded to every detail of my plan. I’m open to compromise. I’m open to new ideas. I’m committed to solving our fiscal challenges. But I refuse to accept any approach that isn’t balanced. I am not going to ask students and seniors and middle-class families to pay down the entire deficit while people like me, making over $250,000, aren’t asked to pay a dime more in taxes. I'm not going to do that. (Applause.)

And I just want to point out this was a central question during the election. It was debated over and over again. And on Tuesday night, we found out that the majority of Americans agree with my approach -- and that includes Democrats, independents, and a lot of Republicans across the country, as well as independent economists and budget experts. That’s how you reduce the deficit -- with a balanced approach.

November 09, 2012 5:02 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Bad anonymous said "growth is slower this year than last, which was slower than the year before.".

LOL, you really are living in the conservative bubble. All economic indicators have been steadily improving since the height of the Bush Recession in the fall/winter of 2009. Its this inability to acknowledge reality that caused your side to lose.

November 09, 2012 5:02 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

So our job now is to get a majority in Congress to reflect the will of the American people. And I believe we can get that majority. I was encouraged to hear Speaker Boehner agree that tax revenue has to be part of this equation -- so I look forward to hearing his ideas when I see him next week.

And let me make one final point that every American needs to hear. Right now, if Congress fails to come to an agreement on an overall deficit reduction package by the end of the year, everybody’s taxes will automatically go up on January 1st -- everybody’s -- including the 98 percent of Americans who make less than $250,000 a year. And that makes no sense. It would be bad for the economy and would hit families that are already struggling to make ends meet.

Now, fortunately, we shouldn’t need long negotiations or drama to solve that part of the problem. While there may be disagreement in Congress over whether or not to raise taxes on folks making over $250,000 a year, nobody -- not Republicans, not Democrats -- want taxes to go up for folks making under $250,000 a year. So let’s not wait. Even as we’re negotiating a broader deficit reduction package, let’s extend the middle-class tax cuts right now. Let's do that right now. (Applause.)

That one step -- that one step -- would give millions of families -- 98 percent of Americans and 97 percent of small businesses -- the certainty that they need going into the new year. It would immediately take a huge chunk of the economic uncertainty off the table, and that will lead to new jobs and faster growth. Business will know that consumers, they're not going to see a big tax increase. They'll know that most small businesses won't see a tax increase. And so a lot of the uncertainty that you're reading about, that will be removed.

In fact, the Senate has already passed a bill doing exactly this, so all we need is action from the House. And I’ve got the pen ready to sign the bill right away. I'm ready to do it. (Applause.) I'm ready to do it. (Applause.)

The American people understand that we’re going to have differences and disagreements in the months to come. They get that. But on Tuesday, they said loud and clear that they won’t tolerate dysfunction. They won’t tolerate politicians who view compromise as a dirty word. Not when so many Americans are still out of work. Not when so many families and small business owners are still struggling to pay the bills.

What the American people are looking for is cooperation. They're looking for consensus. They're looking for common sense. Most of all, they want action. I intend to deliver for them in my second term, and I expect to find willing partners in both parties to make that happen. So let’s get to work.

Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you. (Applause.)


Watch it here

November 09, 2012 5:02 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

I said "The Republican party as you've known it is dead."

Bad anonymous said "hard to see why anyone would think that".

Its not at all hard to see for anyone not living in the Republican non-reality bubble. Seeing as you were too slow to catch it the first time(or just afraid to consider reality), here's why again..

November 09, 2012 5:36 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

while we're at it, when the unemployment rate rose a week ago, the headlines in the media were "job gains seen"

When "jobs gains [are] seen" AKA when new jobs are created, long-term unemployed people -- some of whom have been without work since the crash we suffered at the hands of the Bush administration -- who had long ago given up looking for work, often resume looking for work and cause the unemployment rate to rise. It's a simple enough fact for most people to grasp.

Try reading Whiff of optimism draws out job seekers and see if you can comprehend its message.

"Hundreds of thousands of Americans, among them many who had given up during bleaker economic times, are again looking for work as they perceive improving job prospects in a slowly strengthening recovery, economists said.

Nearly 1 million people have reentered the labor market since September, a trend that contributed to the slight rise in the unemployment rate last month, to 7.9 percent, the US Labor Department reported Friday. While no one welcomes an increase in the jobless rate, economists said a growing labor force is a component of a healthy job market.

Generally, when workers believe that the economy is generating jobs and their chances of finding work are improving, they come off the sidelines to search. Only those who actively seek work are counted in the labor force, and their ranks had declined significantly after the economy seemed to stall in the spring. Now many are back in the hunt.

“In a normal recovery, that’s part of the process — people start to smell jobs and come into the workforce,” said Harvard University economics professor Kenneth Rogoff. “A big influx of workers into the labor force, which we have seen for a couple months in a row now, is a sign there are jobs out there.”...


Unlike your false spin, the economy is improving thanks to President Obama's leadership and in spite of GOP obstruction and filibusters.

November 09, 2012 5:37 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I happen to love Fordham University. My daughter got a great education there. As president of the College Democrats, she worked well with College Republicans. I met a whole lot of them when they politely turned out the night she helped bring Howard Dean to campus; the next year, she got to moderate a question and answer session – to insure fairness – when the College Republicans hosted Karl Rove. It felt to me like a lost era of civility and reason, watching young people from the two parties get along up in the Bronx.

But now the Fordham College Republicans have invited Ann Coulter, who outdoes Karl Rove (barely, these days) in the department of divisiveness and meanness. I had a moment of regretting the mega-dollars I spent on Fordham – even though I know the clubs are free to invite whomever they like, within reason (although this tests reason.) Then I saw Fordham President Father Joseph McShane’s terrific reply, which I’m printing in full.

Given the dramatic rightward shift of the Republican Party, I happen to believe that the path back to civility involves civil people not merely smiling and being civil, but forcefully calling extremist Republicans out on their cruelty and extremism. Father McShane shows the way. He blasts Coulter’s message as “hateful and needlessly provocative—more heat than light—and her message is aimed squarely at the darker side of our nature.”

McShane notes that Fordham has been blighted by ugly racial and homophobic incidents in the last few years, and he laments the lack of “maturity” shown by his young campus Republicans in inviting the provocateur Coulter. But he says he trusts the Fordham “community” to model “the power of decency and reason to overcome hatred and prejudice.” Let’s hope that happens. Personally, I hope Coulter reads McShane’s statement, withdraws from the engagement, and spends some time reflecting on why she’s filled with so much hate. But I’m a dreamer.

November 09, 2012 5:46 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Here’s the whole statement:

The College Republicans, a student club at Fordham University, has invited Ann Coulter to speak on campus on November 29. The event is funded through student activity fees and is not open to the public nor the media. Student groups are allowed, and encouraged, to invite speakers who represent diverse, and sometimes unpopular, points of view, in keeping with the canons of academic freedom. Accordingly, the University will not block the College Republicans from hosting their speaker of choice on campus.

To say that I am disappointed with the judgment and maturity of the College Republicans, however, would be a tremendous understatement. There are many people who can speak to the conservative point of view with integrity and conviction, but Ms. Coulter is not among them. Her rhetoric is often hateful and needlessly provocative—more heat than light—and her message is aimed squarely at the darker side of our nature.

As members of a Jesuit institution, we are called upon to deal with one another with civility and compassion, not to sling mud and impugn the motives of those with whom we disagree or to engage in racial or social stereotyping. In the wake of several bias incidents last spring, I told the University community that I hold out great contempt for anyone who would intentionally inflict pain on another human being because of their race, gender, sexual orientation, or creed.

“Disgust” was the word I used to sum up my feelings about those incidents. Hate speech, name-calling, and incivility are completely at odds with the Jesuit ideals that have always guided and animated Fordham.

Still, to prohibit Ms. Coulter from speaking at Fordham would be to do greater violence to the academy, and to the Jesuit tradition of fearless and robust engagement. Preventing Ms. Coulter from speaking would counter one wrong with another. The old saw goes that the answer to bad speech is more speech. This is especially true at a university, and I fully expect our students, faculty, alumni, parents, and staff to voice their opposition, civilly and respectfully, and forcefully.

The College Republicans have unwittingly provided Fordham with a test of its character: do we abandon our ideals in the face of repugnant speech and seek to stifle Ms. Coulter’s (and the student organizers’) opinions, or do we use her appearance as an opportunity to prove that our ideas are better and our faith in the academy—and one another—stronger? We have chosen the latter course, confident in our community, and in the power of decency and reason to overcome hatred and prejudice.

Joseph M. McShane, S.J., President

November 09, 2012 5:46 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Bad anonymous said "Hispanics and Asians have traditionally voted Republican in high numbers and will be back".

Hispanics and Asians have never voted for republicans in high numbers. 71% of Latinos and 73% of Asians voted Democrat. They're not going to switch to the Republican party unless it moves to the centre. They're a growing demographic unlike the shrinking old white man demographic that's the backbone of the Republican party. So, once again, either the Republican party changes or dies.

The unemployment rate was at 10.2% at the height of the Bush recession in Fall of 2009. Since then its gradually dropped to 7.8%, a 2.4% improvement. You can pin your hopes on nothing much having changed in this election and the Republicans trying to destroy the economy in this term just like they did in the last but that's fine with us, things went pretty well last term and by the end of this one the unemployment rate will be 5.4% and Americans will happily re-elect the democrats.

November 09, 2012 6:11 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

tternedbrilliant anonymous said:

"growth is slower this year than last, which was slower than the year before."

nasty pri said:

"LOL, you really are living in the conservative bubble. All economic indicators have been steadily improving since the height of the Bush Recession in the fall/winter of 2009. Its this inability to acknowledge reality that caused your side to lose."

you have to wonder:

is nasty pri stupid, lying or just an ignorant canadian?

since the recesion ended, here are the average rates of growth in GDP:

2010- 2.4
2011- 2.0
2012- 1.8

there are no serious economists who believe this type of steadily declining growth will make a dent in unemployment

indeed, right now the real unemployment rate is higher than it's been since the Great Depression because so many have given up looking for work

this is why the media emphasizing the jobs created instead of the uptick in unemployment was so disingenuous last week

the only reason unemployment is as low as it is is that unprecedented numbers have given up looking for work

I don't know how old nasty pri is but here's a history lesson:

from LBJ to Jimmy Carter, we had a series of liberal Democrats and moderate Republicans who pursued Keynesian economic policies

the economy got worse and worse

from Reagan to 2006, we had supply side Republicans and centrist Dems

the economy boomed and unemployment was non-existent

we are now suffering from a sluggish economy after Obama's Keynesian stimulus approach and Obama's re-election did nothing to change that

we need pro-growth, pro-business policies, a more moderate regulatory environment and lower marginal tax rates to get the economy moving again

unless Obama ends his vendetta against successful people and learns how works in a bi-partisan manner, our economy won't get better until he's gone

November 09, 2012 8:53 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Brilliant anonymous said:

"Hispanics and Asians have traditionally voted Republican in high numbers and will be back".

nasty priya said:

"Hispanics and Asians have never voted for republicans in high numbers"

you have to wonder:

is nasty pri stupid, lying or just an ignorant canadian?

in 2004, 49% of Latinos voted for Bush and 44% of Asians voted for Bush

so, when nasty pry says "Hispanics and Asians have never voted for republicans in high numbers", she must mean since she was released from the insane asylum

that's when reality started for nasty Pry

if Romney had attracted those numbers, he'd have won by a country mile

I've never understood the harsh line on immigration myself, I support letting as many in as possible as that's what made America great

(the only exception is nasty Canadians from Saskatchewan with socialist tendencies and a history of mental illness)

my only guess is some have hoped to harness some resentment among blue-collar union voters worried about foreigners taking their jobs, which we here in the beltway bubble find hard to relate to

nevertheless, I'm confident the rising crop of Republicans will not have this defect as many of them are from immigrant families themselves

so, yes this was a factor

but, in spite of the gleeful fantasies of socialists everywhere, it's not the end of the Republican party

"They're not going to switch to the Republican party unless it moves to the centre."

the only adjustment needed is on immigration policy

on most other issues, first and second generation immigrants agree with Republicans

freedom and opportunity is actually what attracted them to us

if they wanted to live in a socialist society, they'd have chosen Canada or Western Europe

btw, they are also generally socially conservative as well so, even if rich whites now support gay marriage by a thin majority, it's going to be a long haul overturning constitutional amendments in 32 states and probably will never happen in most

"The unemployment rate was at 10.2% at the height of the Bush recession in Fall of 2009. Since then its gradually dropped to 7.8%, a 2.4% improvement."

you have to wonder:

is nasty pri stupid, lying or just an ignorant canadian?

unemployment has dropped because despair has lead so many to give up

real unemployment is higher than at any point since the Great Depression

half of college graduates can't get a job

for young minorities, a generation is being entirely lost by Obama's incompetence

"You can pin your hopes on nothing much having changed in this election"

well, nothing has changed and that's not hopeful for anyone

we still have an elitist Senate and a socialist President trying to impede the work of the people's representatives in the House

"and the Republicans trying to destroy the economy in this term just like they did in the last"

you mean like when Obama sent up and a joke budget and the House passed it and Harry Reid wouldn't let the Senate vote on it?

the House has passed innumerable bills inthe last two years and the Senate won't even vote on them

"but that's fine with us,"

I thought you were a Canadian

"things went pretty well last term"

tell that to the 23 million Americans without a job

"and by the end of this one the unemployment rate will be 5.4%"

not if Obama vetoes the extension of the Bush tax cuts as he's promised to do

the CBO estimates that ending the tax cuts for the wealthy alone will cost 200,000 jobs next year

"and Americans will happily re-elect the democrats."

they only re-elected a figurehead Democratic President who's done nothing the last two years

and they made sure it will stay that way by overwhelmingly re-electing Representatives to Congress who oppose raising taxes on anyone

c'est la vie

November 10, 2012 11:04 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Actually, GDP for this year is 2% so far and far from your absurd claim that no economists think this will lead to job growth, experts forcast slow but steady job growth at a rate of increase that was faster than that between the fall of 2009 and now so the unemployment rate is on pace to drop more than 2.4% to into the 5% range between now and 2016. The economy is going to accelerate in 2013 after Obama forces the Republicans to deal with the fiscal cliff. You naively think the Republicans can stall but Obama holds all the cards. He won a 6 million vote mandate in the election and exit polling show 60% of Americans want a tax increase. If Obama does nothing the Bush tax cuts expire in January and large cuts to defense kick in. Republicans desperately want to avoid that so they're going to be forced to deal with Obama on his terms. Obama is going to extend tax cuts to the middle class in the interim and Republicans are going to go along with it because they know the American public will punish them if they withold tax cuts to the middle class because they want to give even more to the super rich.

Bad anonymous said "indeed, right now the real unemployment rate is higher than it's been since the Great Depression because so many have given up looking for work this is why the media emphasizing the jobs created instead of the uptick in unemployment was so disingenuous last week.".

Another typical Republican lie from the bubble. Unemployment peaked in the fall of 2009 at 10.2% and has dropped to 7.8 % since then. And as you've already been informed but childlishly chose to ignore the reason why the unemployment rate went up to 7.9% last month was because the economy is improving and people who had previously given up work decided to start looking again and be counted in the number of unemployed - job growth substantially increased by you're too dishonest to acknowledge reality.

Bad anonymous said "from LBJ to Jimmy Carter, we had a series of liberal Democrats and moderate Republicans who pursued Keynesian economic policies the economy got worse and worse".

Another Republican lie from the bubble. Its time to stop blindly believing old myths and accept reality. Under Republican administrations gross national product and inflation have decreased. The opposite has occurred under Democratic control of the White House.
“The tax policy of Republican administrations tends to favor the wealthy segments of society through policies such as tax cuts that mostly favor the rich and businesses, and repeal of the estate tax, which only applies to multi-millionaires,” Bartels said. “Democratic policy follows more egalitarian values, utilizing redistribution of wealth through progressive taxation to decrease inequality.” “In fact, there are significant data that show a pattern between Republican administrations and slow income growth across the board, and among the poor especially. On the other hand, the data suggest that, under Democratic administrations, inequality temporarily decreases, while more robust income growth is seen overall, and is especially concentrated in the middle- and lower-classes.”

November 10, 2012 1:09 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Bad anonymous said "from Reagan to 2006, we had supply side Republicans and centrist Dems the economy boomed and unemployment was non-existent".

An outrageous lie. You're just repeating your favourite fantasies and ignoring reality . After the Reagan tax cuts the federal budget deficit tripled, unemployment soared to 10.8% and took years to get down to the previous level. Meanwhile income inequality exploded. Reagan disproportionately taxed the poor and middle class, but the economic growth of the 1980′s did little help them. Since 1980, median household income has risen only 30 percent, adjusted for inflation, while average incomes at the top have tripled or quadrupled.

When Clinton was in office the top tax rate was 39.6% and 20.8 million jobs were created. Under Bush the top tax rate was lowered to 35% and 663,000 private sector jobs were lost. Clinton did the exact opposite of Republican policy and the economy grew and he left office with a $236 billion surplus. History has proven over and over Republican policies are bad for the economy and everyone but the super rich. Research has shown that when you show a Republican proof his beliefs are false that just makes him more convinced he's right - you're the perfect example of that. Once again, liberal voters have to save you from yourself and your vote against your own best interests.

Bad anonymous said "in 2004, 49% of Latinos voted for Bush and 44% of Asians voted for Bush".

You lie again. Asian voters have moved strongly to the Democrats for two decades now. Bush only got somewhere between 24% and 34% of the Asian vote in 2004 . He got 44% of the Latino vote in 2004 but that was still a minority and Mccain got 31% and Romney only 27%. Dole only got 21% of the Latino vote. Latino's have voted strongly Democrat for the majority of recent history and Bush managed to slightly reverse that trend but he was a much more moderate Republican, the Republican party has since moved much further right and become anti-miniorty so once again the Republican party is consistently losing this growing demographic and must change or die as its old white man base shrunk 2% between 2008 and 2012 and will likely shrink another 2% between now and 2016.

Bad anonymous said "the CBO estimates that ending the tax cuts for the wealthy alone will cost 200,000 jobs next year".

You lie by ommission. While the CBO said that would result in a relatively small job loss it also said tax hikes for the wealthy won't kill economic growth. The CBO said the consequences of extending the tax cuts without reducing the deficit would result in the economy remaining below its potential and the unemployment rate remaining higher than usual for some time.

You keep repeating the same lies, distortions and lies through omission. We know from your lies and the times you post to TTF you're immoral, but you're incredibly stupid too, constantly voting against your own best interests. If there were a way that democrat voters could be insulated from the effects of Republican administrations it would be nice to see you get the crap you deserve and have Republicans win, but fortunately for you the Republican party as you've known it is gone

November 10, 2012 1:10 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anon, to state the obvious -- Priya Lynn is having your ass for lunch today.

It is one thing to throw around a lot of stuff about deviants and generalizations about TTF-ers and liberals, but as the election showed, that approach has lost its appeal. Conservatives lost everything in that election, well Michelle Bachmann kept her job, but otherwise the whole country voted against moronic paranoia.

Why don't you pop open one of your old econ textbooks and see if you can think of a way to rescue the country without insulting and demeaning minorities and acting like a jerk in general. In the video linked on this blog, Rachel Maddow is asking for an opposition party to step up and propose alternatives, nobody is against that. But the hate has to stop.

Straight white males are not automatically right any more. You are going to have to toss in some facts and logic.

November 10, 2012 1:22 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

"Anon, to state the obvious -- Priya Lynn is having your ass for lunch today."

Giggle : )

I've been repeatedly spanking him this entire election season, he's too dumb to learn though.

November 10, 2012 4:31 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The Last Word - Rewriting the Romney cheerleaders

November 10, 2012 4:42 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Bad anonymous is operating based on the wishful thinking that making some changes to Republican immigration policy is going to allow them to win the next election. Trouble for them is the electorate is a moving target and while a large increase in the percentage of Latino voters this election would have allowed them to win, a similar gain in future elections won't be enough. Not only are Republicans quickly losing their base of white voters (the percentage of the electorate that is white was 88% during Regan’s presidency, 74% in 2008 and 72% in 2012) they lost the youth vote by 40% and lost the female vote by 10% which is double trouble for them because women make up 54% of the electorate.

Gaining a few latino voters won't be enough when their base is going to be even smaller in 2016 because of growing minority demographics, not to mention that as more young voters enter the electorate and their old voters die off the electorate massively skews democratic as time goes on. Appealing to more older lation voters won't make up for the huge loss in women voters and the even bigger and growing loss amongst younger voters.

Many Republicans thought Obama had lost the election when he came out in favour of marriage equality but instead of that holding him back it resulted in a massive shift in favour of marriage equality amongst black voters. The table has turned and now opposing marriage equality costs Republicans more votes than it gains and that advantage for Democrats will accelerate as older voters are replaced by younger equality minded voters. Republicans not only have to change their immigration policies or die, they have to reject the anti-gay and anti-women policies they've clung to or die as well.

November 10, 2012 5:14 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

oh, wow!

a TTFer thinks nasty Pry had me for lunch

now, my world is shattered

you've really blown these election results way out of proportion

every four years, you hear that whatever party lost the Presidential election is on the verge of extinction

yet, Obama has become the first President since Andrew Jackson to be re-elected by a smaller margin than his first election

and, significantly, Americans did not give him a Congress that will support his agenda

and while Obama needn't worry about re-election, the Senate could flip in two years

which would especially delightful if Reid succeeds in eliminating the filibuster

so, if Obama doesn't play his cards right, his agenda could be repealed in two years

and, really, he doesn't play cards well

the female vote shifted around but most women are as pro-life as anyone and most would rather have a job than a lifetime supply of free contraceptives

the Hispanic population does indeed agree with Republicans except for immigration policy

indeed, there are scores of elected Hispanic Republicans, including many who could be feasible Prez or VP material in 2016

youth? are you kidding?

it doesn't last long

then, they graduate without hope of finding a job

right now, Obama has put those who can afford it in grad school

those who can't afford it are getting government-backed loans that will hobble them for most of their lives

or, they're behind the counter at Starbucks

they aren't patient and we have elections every two years with more Dem seats open than Repubs in 2014

so many TTFers here seem to think rich white people are what's wrong with the world

problem is, once you've vented your hatred, life is still going on all around you

November 10, 2012 8:42 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

youth? are you kidding?

it doesn't last long


< eye roll > Another sign of right wing magical thinking.

In fact, there is an endless supply of youth because more and more people of every color of the rainbow are born every day.

HuffPo reported Youth Vote 2012 Turnout: Exit Polls Show Greater Share Of Electorate Than In 2008

"Voters from ages 18 to 29 represented 19 percent of all those who voted on Tuesday, according to the early National Exit Poll conducted by Edison Research. That's an increase of one percentage point from 2008."

And while there are more youth ready to support fairness and equality, the Face of US electorate looking less white

"Nonwhites made up 28 percent of the electorate this year, compared with 20 percent in 2000. Much of that growth is coming from Hispanics....

White men made up 34 percent of the electorate this year, down from 46 percent in 1972."


Though in fairness, not all angry white guys want to stay angry. Some like Sean Hannity of all people actually manage to "evolve":

"We've gotta get rid of the immigration issue altogether. It's simple for me to fix it. I think you control the border first, you create a pathway for those people that are here, you don't say you gotta home. And that is a position that I've evolved on. Because you know what--it just--it's gotta be resolved. The majority of people here--if some people have criminal records you can send' em home--but if people are here, law-abiding, participating, four years, their kids are born here... first secure the border, pathway to citizenship... then it's done. But you can't let the problem continue. It's gotta stop."

What's taking you so long?

November 11, 2012 9:25 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Bad anonymous said "you've really blown these election results way out of proportion every four years, you hear that whatever party lost the Presidential election is on the verge of extinction".

No, the truth is you're in denial about how significant this election was. No incumbant has won reelection with unemployment above 7.4% since Roosevelt. That Republicans weren't able to win the presidency in that economic climate shows just how very badly the public rejected their right wing policies. Romney ran for sixteen months as a self described "severe conservative" and was losing badly until he recanted all his positions in the first debate. It was only by moving away from the right wing Republican party platform he was able to make any sort of dent in Obama's lead but it still wasn't enough because most didn't believe his flip-flopping - most Americans knew he was indebted to right wing tea partiers and would have to repay them for their support. The base of the Republican party is old white men and that demographic is shrinking significantly every election - the Republican party as we've known it is over.

Republicans have only won the popular vote in one of the last six presidential elections. Republicans only got a majority in the house this time because of gerrymandering, house Democrats actually got more total votes than house Republicans. . In 2012 voters preferred Democrats in the house, senate, and presidency.

Bad anonymous said "the female vote shifted around but most women are are as pro-life as anyone ".

Back to your usual trick of making up something you are well aware isn't true, 53% of men consider themselves "pro-life" but only 46% of women do. A plurality of 39% of women voters said abortion was their number one issue in the election. 98% of women use birth control so not surprisingly 60% of women in swing states rated government policies on contraception extremely/very important to their voting decision. The election results reflect this with 10 of the 13 Republican candidates who oppose abortion in all circumstances being defeated. Although the Republicans criticized murdoch and Aitken for their "legitimate rape" and "rape babies are a gift from god" comments their crime for Republicans wasn't holding those views, it was admitting them in public. The Repulican party platform opposes abortion in all circumstances including rape and incest and Mitt Romney said he supports a "personhood amendment" that was also part of the party platform which would criminalize abortion in all circumstances and even criminalize some forms of birth control. For virtually every woman the thought of rape is a terrible violation of her person and the thought of being forced to carry a rapists baby to term by the government is absolutely horrifying. The Republican party platform of opposing abortion in all circumstances is a big problem for them - they're going to have to change it.

November 11, 2012 12:09 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Bad anonymous said "indeed, there are scores of elected Hispanic Republicans, including many who could be feasible Prez or VP material in 2016".

Please spare us a little of the B.S. at least. There are very few hispanics in the Republican party, those few they have they parade front and centre just as they do with blacks to try to create the artificial impression they are a diverse party. The facts speak for themselves, look at unstaged pictures from any Republican event and the faces are overwhelmingly white. Republican problems with Latino voters aren't just about imigration policy, Latinos overwhelmingly opposed Romeny because of his opposition to Obamacare and government low income support programs many Latinos rely on and they rejejct Republican latinos like Marco Rubio because they are just as anti-latino as the rest of the party.


Bad anonymous said "youth? are you kidding? it doesn't last long.".

The first stage of grief is denial - you're in denial. Those young people who overwhelmingly vote democrat are going to continue to do so as they get older and Republican voters will continue to be replaced with Democrat voters. Republicans like to hope they'll become conservative as they age but history has shown that doesn't happen. The percentage of the voting public that registers as Democrat is a majority and growing and we can see by the ongoing steady increase in overall American support for same sex marriage young people don't lose their values as they age - the Republican party as we've known it is gone.

If you think the unemployment rate is too high and want to blame someone you need to look no further than the Republican party. In 2011 Obama introduced the American Jobs Act Proposal. Economists, including Mark Zandy, a former Mccain economic advisor, say it would have added 2 million jobs to the economy but every single Republican voted against it in 2011 and again a few weeks ago because they desperately wanted the economy to fail under Obama. The Republicans promised a "relentless focus on creating jobs" when they won the 2010 elections but they didn't advance a single jobs proposal instead preferring to take 55 votes on anti-women policies.

The Republican party must move to the center or become a fringe party of angry old white men.

November 11, 2012 12:11 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"What's taking you so long?"

anon-B

you know as well as I do that I've always agreed with what Hannity is saying in this quote

and it's not a matter of winning elections

immigrants are always what's made America great

I support letting in as many as we can feasibly assimilate

because its good for the country

I would challenge you to find any instance where I've said any different

November 11, 2012 2:07 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

every election, we have the media, and a few partisan wackos, declaring the demise of the opposition party

particularly funny this time when the victor won by 2% in the national polls and a fraction of a percent in the Congressional races

and two years ago, Republicans, of the most conservative variety, swept Dems from office

the attempt of the craven and venal Democratic party to divide Americans between race and genders will eventually be recognized and discredited by people of good will

Barack Obama whose party controlled Congress for the first two years of his presidency could have passed any jobs bill he wanted

it wasn't a priority until he got "shellacked", in his words, in 2010

then, suddenly, he had a jobs bill

didn't fly in Congress but rather than negotiate, he gave up

and during this election, was he running around making passage of the bill a priority?

no, his only issue was making sure rich people paid more in taxes

ewhich won't change the jobs situation

but that's not what he cares about

his goal is to turn America into a socialist state

right now, economists of repute, not the nasty Pry guys, estimate that going off the fiscal cliff will send unemployment back to 10%

but Obama is willing to do that if Congress won't approve raising taxes on the wealthy

it's obvious creating and saving jobs is still not on top of Obama's priorities

which will be unfortunate for him in 2014 when more Dem Senate seats are up than Repub ones

2010 deja vu

all over again

by then, young people and minorities and women will be sick of being unemployed

November 11, 2012 3:32 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

A new study out of Yale University confirms what liberals have long-known: Proving conservative lies false only makes conservatives cling to those lies even harder - bad anonymous is the perfect example of that.

November 11, 2012 4:10 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Bad anonymous, anyone with your record in predicting the outcome of elections should know better than to talk about what's going to happen in 2014. We haven't forgotten how you assured us in 2008 of all the things "President Huckabee" was going to do in his first and second term. Nor have we forgottten a couple of days before the 2012 election when you fatuously said "popular vote: Romney 52, Obama 48 you heard at TTF first, people". Yes, we heard it and we won't let you forget it.

November 11, 2012 4:19 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

don't what your point is

you didn't have any better grasp

you kept telling us Obama would lose the popular vote and win the electoral because he would win Ohio and Republicanscan't win without Ohio

that's wrong and someday it will happen

as it is, well in excess of 100 million votes were cast and if 155,000 in Ohio, Florida, Virginia and New Hampshire flipped, Romney would be President-elect now

and everyone would be talking about what will Democrats do to survive after this catastrophe

it's all really inane

and you're insane

as I said at the beginning of this thread:

Republicans had a detailed plan for our country and instead of discussing them rationally, Obama ran a billion dollars worth of ads across America lying about them

Romney did not propose 5 trillion in tax cuts, did not propose 6400 a year in additional Medicare fees, 250K in tax cuts for each wealthy person or any tax increase at all on middle class citizens

and every Obama ad said Romney did those things

Obama is a shameless liar

and nasty Pry knowingly repeated all these lies

and nasty Pry has called me a liar but has yet to come up with an example

perhaps Yale could study her pathological condition




November 11, 2012 9:10 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anon, the Democrats won everything except Michelle Bachmann's seat. They got gay marriage, they got marijuana, they got everything. The Republicans got stomped into the ground.

And here's why, and let this sink in: white guys don't automatically win any more. They are not a majority, especially when they alienate women by threatening to take away their right to have an abortion and use birth control, and when they make excuses for rape and call it a blessing.

The racism of Romney's campaign was barely concealed, the sexism was out in the open, homophobia was a given, xenophobia was a hallmark of the campaign. And guess what, the majority of Americans don't want that crap. The American people are not straight white male Christians any more, and it will never be that way again. Ozzie and Harriet has been taken off the air. You need to think about a better way to get what you want now.

November 11, 2012 9:25 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Anon, the Democrats won everything except Michelle Bachmann's seat."

that, and control of the House of Representatives, which must pass all legislation

oh, and, a filibuster proof majority in the Senate

yeah, except for that, you got it all

"They got gay marriage,"

yes, now that you've finally found four gay-friendly liberal states to endorse gay marriages by slnder margins, the sky's the limit

"they got marijuana,"

actually, more Repubs favor this than Dems

always been that way

I remember when I was living in California in the 70s and Jerry Brown was running for re-election, his Republican opponent was in favor of legalization and Jerry Brown said "I think it's a substance that should be controlled"

flashforward to the 21st century:

Brown is still governor in California and our Democratic President has been closing down medical marijuana shops in California, among other places

and even Pat Robertson favors legalization

"they got everything."

is this like when 60 Minutes says "all that and more tonight" and then the 'more' is reading letters from viewers?

"The Republicans got stomped into the ground."

they lost the Presidency narrowly

who really got stomped was all those Democratic candidates for House seats that lost to Republicans

November 12, 2012 8:01 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"And here's why, and let this sink in: white guys don't automatically win any more."

actually, that's not why

"They are not a majority,"

well, they never were

there have always been more women than men

"especially when they alienate women by threatening to take away their right to have an abortion"

women don't uniformly support killing unborn children

many of these murdered children are female

"and use birth control,"

Republicans didn't favor banning birth control

this is another lie told by Democrats

"and when they make excuses for rape"

no one did that

"and call it a blessing."

the individual you reference didn't say rape was a blessing, he said the life resulting from it was

talk about lack of compassion for a minority

Dems want to tell people whose father raped their mother that they have no right to believe their life was a blessing from God?

this is where fanaticism morphs into cruelty

"The racism of Romney's campaign was barely concealed,"

there was no racism in the campaign

"the sexism was out in the open,"

none of that either

"homophobia was a given,"

if you mean resistance to the gay agenda, you're right about that

"xenophobia was a hallmark of the campaign."

no, it wasn't

Romney's father was born in Mexico

Romney did overseas missions with his religious group as a young adult

Romney once organized a sporting event with participants from around the globe

"And guess what, the majority of Americans don't want that crap."

actually, just a couple of weeks before the election, polls showed the majority of them supported Romney

a combination of things reversed things a few percentage points at the end but they didn't suddenly develop an aversion to crap

otherwise, they wouldn't have voted for him

"The American people are not straight white male Christians any more, and it will never be that way again."

they are indeed mostly straight male Christians

as for white, they never were only white

the most recent Republican administration was the most diverse in history

in the most recent primary season, there was a black candidate who was leading the polls at one point and a woman

there are minority and women Republican governors across the country

"Ozzie and Harriet has been taken off the air. You need to think about a better way to get what you want now."

actually, if you think encouraging racial and gender division is a long-run winning strategy for Dems, you're crazy

minimal governmental intervention, low taxation, freedom, liberatarianism are universally appealing and will prevail

the issues are sufficient

November 12, 2012 8:01 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

LOL, bad anonymous walks right into it and proves the Yale study right - show him a list of his lies and links to the truth and like a little kid he sticks his fingers in his ears and screams "You didn't give any examples of my lies la la la la la".

Here's an example for you bad anonymous, I never once said Obama would lose the popular vote and win the electoral college, I said "IF Obama loses the electoral vote he'll still win the electoral college.

Get over it. Obama won by 6 million votes and House Democrats got more total votes then House Republicans and would be the majority if it weren't for Republicans gaming the system. The majority of American voters asked for a Democrat president, senate, and house, only Republican dirty tricks prevented that.

The Democratic party won the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections, the severe conservative Republican party you love is gone forever. Personally I hope you get your way and they refuse to change rather than try to win - then they'll become the fringe party with tin-foil hats on their heads that is representative of you and the tea baggers now running the show.

November 12, 2012 11:55 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

I don't like children so I'm done playing with bad anonymous.

November 12, 2012 11:57 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Final score:

Priya 94

Bad anonymous 0

November 12, 2012 12:01 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"LOL,"

can you post a picture proving this because I really don't think you're laughing about the unfortunate predicament that Mr. B-Rock Obomba finds himself in

"bad anonymous walks right into it and proves the Yale study right - show him a list of his lies and links to the truth and like a little kid he sticks his fingers in his ears and screams "You didn't give any examples of my lies la la la la la"."

oh, were those links examples of my lies?

I think I've mentioned before I don't look at links

this is a blog, a medium designed for short exchanges

if you think I've lied say how

I think you're hiding behind links because you're making crap up

"Here's an example for you bad anonymous, I never once said Obama would lose the popular vote and win the electoral college, I said "IF Obama loses the electoral vote he'll still win the electoral college."

well, it's my recollection you did but I could be mistaken

that's not what most of us call a lie though

accusations of lies are simply the inflammatory flavor of the year for crazed liberals

you did defend the integrity of the mainstream polls and they did say Romney was leading the popular vote in the not too distant past

the storm seem to have a psychological effect, swaying a certain group to fear change and stick with the known, however incompetent

the Great Lakes area was the difference in the election

they went for Obama in 2008, went sharply for Republicans in 2010, and went for Obama in 2012

wouldn't get too cozy

2014 will be here before you know it

meanwhile, the American people gave Republicans a means to halt Obama's socialist agenda with a majority in the House and some big talkers in the Senate with Dems lacking the votes to stop them

"Get over it."

what's to get over?

Republicans are in the drivers' seat

Obama can't get anything passed without our permission

and he's gonna have to ask nicely

November 12, 2012 2:43 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Obama won by 6 million votes and House Democrats got more total votes then House Republicans and would be the majority if it weren't for Republicans gaming the system."

well, I'll assume you're just mistaken and not lying but Obama won by about 3 million votes

in the House, the totals were only about 470,000 difference

we don't work by sheer population but by area

it doesn't make sense to Americans that NYC should run North Dakota just because they have more votes

just like the wealthy shouldn't have to pay all the taxes just because they don't have as many votes as the unwealthy

"The majority of American voters asked for a Democrat president, senate, and house, only Republican dirty tricks prevented that."

gerrymandering is a "dirty trick" now?

everyone is aware that the states make the decisions on districts

what happened is Obama was screwed by Obamacare again

casued a Republican sweep in 2010, just in time for ten year adjustment

Obama's not too swift

if he had focused on jobs the first two years and then moved to health care, he wouldn't be in so much trouble now

"The Democratic party won the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections, the severe conservative Republican party you love is gone forever."

I don't know. We just got over 48% of the vote in a Presidential election and control the House of Representatives

doesn't seem that bad a situation

personally, I don't necessarily LOOOOVe the Republican party

as you know from reading here, neither Bush nor Romney was anyone I was excited about and I've always felt Republicans were too anti-immigrant

but, the pro-growth, low tax, small government, libertarian, pro-family and pro-life model is alive and well, thank you

"Personally I hope you get your way and they refuse to change rather than try to win - then they'll become the fringe party with tin-foil hats on their heads that is representative of you and the tea baggers now running the show."

Teabaggers are currently running the show in Congress

get over it

"I don't like children so I'm done playing with bad anonymous."

well, we know from the past that when you lose an argument, you'll go back under your rock for months

have fun with the bugs and grubs

November 12, 2012 2:43 PM  
Anonymous I feel like a bargaining chip said...

WASHINGTON -- After bailing out a global financial crisis, enacting a series of major tax cuts for the wealthy and waging two unpaid-for wars, the U.S. government is some $16 trillion in debt. Now, Democrats have offered, in a series of high-profile negotiations, to slash trillions in spending, much of it hitting the elderly and the poor. This process of transferring wealth up the economic ladder is known in Washington as a "grand bargain."

With the election over, Democrats and Republicans will soon be back at the negotiating table, driven there by the so-called "fiscal cliff" -- the moment in January 2013 when the Bush-era tax cuts expire and automatic cuts to defense and social programs take effect.

In order to avoid this scenario, President Barack Obama is proposing a grand bargain that would reduce the deficit by $4 trillion over 10 years, relying on a mix of spending cuts.

Republicans, meanwhile, have rejected including new taxes.

Last year's talks demonstrated just how little fat the federal government could trim away from its budget before impacting the services and benefits it provides. All in all, Republicans and Democrats found only $40 billion that they agreed could be saved by targeting waste and fraud in government operations.

To make a real impact on the deficit, lawmakers will likely target Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and a host of other social programs that help those with the fewest advocates in Washington, including people on food stamps, veterans, retiring federal workers, home health care workers and the elderly.

November 12, 2012 4:54 PM  
Anonymous Assuming the goal is $4 trillion of deficit reduction over the next decade said...

Sixty years ago, Americans earning over $1 million in today’s dollars paid 55.2 percent of it in income taxes, after taking all deductions and credits. If they were taxed at that rate now, they’d pay at least $80 billion more annually — which would reduce the budget deficit by about $1 trillion over the next decade. That’s a quarter of the $4 trillion in deficit reduction right there.

A 2 percent surtax on the wealth of the richest one-half of 1 percent would bring in another $750 billion over the decade. A one-half of 1 percent tax on financial transactions would bring in an additional $250 billion.

Add this up and we get $2 trillion over 10 years — half of the deficit-reduction goal.

Raise the capital gains rate to match the rate on ordinary income and cap the mortgage interest deduction at $12,000 a year, and that’s another $1 trillion over 10 years. So now we’re up to $3 trillion in additional revenue.

Eliminate special tax preferences for oil and gas, price supports for big agriculture, tax breaks and research subsidies for Big Pharma, unnecessary weapons systems for military contractors, and indirect subsidies to the biggest banks on Wall Street, and we’re nearly there.

End the Bush tax cuts on incomes between $250,000 and $1 million, and — bingo — we made it: $4 trillion over 10 years.

And we haven’t had to raise taxes on America’s beleaguered middle class, cut Social Security or Medicare and Medicaid, reduce spending on education or infrastructure, or cut programs for the poor.

November 12, 2012 9:02 PM  
Anonymous Democrats pick up another House seat said...

PHOENIX (AP) — Former Democratic state Sen. Kyrsten Sinema has been elected to represent a new Phoenix-area congressional district, emerging victorious after a bitterly fought race that featured millions of dollars in attack ads.

Sinema becomes the first openly bisexual member of Congress. Her victory came in a year when three states approved gay marriage, and at least five openly gay Democrats were elected to House seats. A Wisconsin congresswoman also became the first openly gay person elected to the Senate.

Sinema had a narrow lead on election night that made the race too close to call. But she slowly improved that advantage as more ballots were tallied in recent days, and now has a nearly 6,000-vote edge that is too much for Republican Vernon Parker to overcome.

Sinema, 36, said Monday she was "honored and ready to start working for the people of Arizona."

Parker, 52, who took the national stage briefly in September when he gave the GOP weekly address, conceded with a promise to "continue my public service."

During the race, he was criticized by Democrats as a tea party radical who would hurt children by cutting the federal education department.

Republicans countered saying Sinema was too liberal for the newly created district and doesn't understand stay-at-home moms.

One other congressional race remains undecided in Arizona. Rep. Ron Barber, the hand-picked successor to Gabrielle Giffords, had a lead of a few hundred votes over Republican Martha McSally in the Tucson-area district.

The Sinema victory ensures that Democrats will gain at least one seat in the Arizona congressional delegation.

Republicans entered the election with a 5-3 advantage, and the new census added a ninth seat in the state. The delegation is now split 4-4, with the Barber-McSally race still up for grabs.

November 13, 2012 8:29 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"— bingo — we made it: $4 trillion over 10 years"

and, wala, no one has to make any sacrifice except the rich people we all hate because they are more successful than the rest of us

but they don't have as many votes as the rest of us so any time we want something, we'll make them pay for it

why stop? let's make 'em pay for every else's kid to go to college and not let 'em take any deductions for all the money they give to charity and we'll pass a law that they have to give all that money to charity anyway

no, we'll pass a law they have to give 10% more to charity every year than the year before

and, let's say that have to buy us all a basket of food for Thanksgiving

and, since we have more votes than them, we'll pass a law that anyone can camp on their lawn, free of charge

and let's make a law they have to dress as the Easter Bunny every Spring and hide eggs in the yards of all their neighbors

oh, and they must give twice as many eggs to families with two mommies!!

"Sixty years ago, Americans earning over $1 million in today’s dollars paid 55.2 percent of it in income taxes, after taking all deductions and credits. If they were taxed at that rate now, they’d pay at least $80 billion more annually — which would reduce the budget deficit by about $1 trillion over the next decade. That’s a quarter of the $4 trillion in deficit reduction right there.

End the Bush tax cuts on incomes between $250,000 and $1 million, and — bingo — we made it: $4 trillion over 10 years."

there we go

wiped out 4 trillion and only had to cancel the Bush tax cuts- and then double them

let's do it two more times and wipe out 8 trillion

then, we'll be halfway to wiping out Obama's accumulated deficit

November 13, 2012 8:43 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"A 2 percent surtax on the wealth of the richest one-half of 1 percent would bring in another $750 billion over the decade."

that can go on top of the 3% surtax they'll be paying under Obamacare starting January 1

"A one-half of 1 percent tax on financial transactions would bring in an additional $250 billion."

when you tax something, you get less of it and we're sick all them biiiigg financial transactions anyway

"Add this up and we get $2 trillion over 10 years — half of the deficit-reduction goal."

why-o-why didn't this genius run for President?

or was he the write-in independent candidate, Santa Claus?

"Raise the capital gains rate to match the rate on ordinary income and cap the mortgage interest deduction at $12,000 a year, and that’s another $1 trillion over 10 years. So now we’re up to $3 trillion in additional revenue."

yeah, and as a bonus we won't have anybody investing in America anymore

that way the government can own all the businesses and there won't be any rich people acting like they're better than everyone else

"Eliminate special tax preferences for oil and gas,"

they're the one industry producing jobs and they are on a course to make us energy dependent within the next decade,

so, if something works, let's break it

"price supports for big agriculture,"

that way there won't be as much food going to waste because there won't be as much food

"tax breaks and research subsidies for Big Pharma,"

that's another thing: all this cutting edge medical technology is causing an over-population problem

"unnecessary weapons systems for military contractors,"

like what is all this defense spending for?

everyone loves us, we don't need defense

"and indirect subsidies to the biggest banks on Wall Street,"

watch out, those are obama's buddies

"And we haven’t had to raise taxes on America’s beleaguered middle class, cut Social Security or Medicare and Medicaid, reduce spending on education or infrastructure, or cut programs for the poor."

no, but there will be a lot more poor

that's alright

when we tax away all the money of our successful, we can invade Canada and take their money too

oh wait a minute

we cut our defense spending down

oh well

never mind

November 13, 2012 8:43 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Romney wanted immigrants to self-deport and said that if elected president, he would end the program that offers hundreds of thousands of those immigrants two-year reprieves from deportation, which the Obama administration began in August.

"immigrants are always what's made America great

I support letting in as many as we can feasibly assimilate

because its good for the country"


Wanting to kick kids out of the only country they've ever known because of the law breaking of their parents has become GOTP mantra, until they lost so badly a week ago today.

And that's not the only hateful position taken by your favorite candidate and party during the 2012 campaign:

"From Mitt Romney’s widely derided, antagonistic speech to the NAACP, to his reliance on on bigoted surrogates like John Sununu and Donald Trump, to his flagrantly false ad campaign invoking well-known dog whistles about welfare reform, to the Republican party’s transparent attempts to discourage minorities from voting through “voter ID” laws, the GOP was disturbingly comfortable with using racial politics to build an elderly, white coalition in 2012.

The voter suppression laws were especially egregious. The laws were clearly targeted at minority voters, a fact that some Republicans didn’t even try to hide. Former Florida Republican Party chairman Jim Greer, for example, admitted under oath that “political consultants and staff were talking about voter suppression and keeping blacks from voting,” and added that party officials discussed how “minority outreach programs were not fit for the Republican Party.”

Ironically, scare tactics such as the menacing billboards that went up in black neighborhoods in Cleveland ultimately backfired, increasing black voters’ motivation to get to the polls. As Latino Decisions co-founder Matt Barreto told The Nation‘s Ari Berman, “There were huge organizing efforts in the black, Hispanic and Asian community, more than there would’ve been, as a direct result of the voter suppression efforts.”"

Oh sure, you claim you "support letting in as many as we can feasibly assimilate...because its good for the country" but you voted for Romney anyway.

Your actions speak louder than your words.

November 13, 2012 8:57 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

well, you're preaching to the choir about immigration policy

I personally didn't think it was the most important issue in this election though

once they've come here, they are entitled to the same benefits and have the same obligations as the rest of us

they aren't the pets of the Dem party and you shouldn't count on them being forever dependent on the state

most immigrants adjust fairly quickly and have no need for dependence on the state

Hispanics and Asians will tend to move toward conservatism the longer they are here

as far as the other accusations of racism, you're way off base

just because minorities don't support Repubs in large numbers, it doesn't mean Repubs are racists

you're reasoning is fallacious

November 13, 2012 9:12 AM  
Anonymous Karen Hughes said...

Another GOTP problem:

"Finally, the Republican Party has to set a tone that is more respectful, positive and inclusive. The immigration rhetoric that came out of the Republican primary seemed harsh, unwelcoming and offputting to many minority voters. Obama increased his share of the Hispanic vote and won it 69 percent to 29 percent (per The New York Times exit poll); likewise he built a huge margin among Asian voters, 74-25, almost doubling the margin of his support compared to 2008. Both of those constituencies are hardworking, upwardly mobile, family-oriented, and should be open to Republican appeals if we don’t make them feel unwelcome.

And if another Republican man says anything about rape other than it is a horrific, violent crime, I want to personally cut out his tongue. The college-age daughters of many of my friends voted for Obama because they were completely turned off by Neanderthal comments like the suggestion of “legitimate rape.”

November 13, 2012 9:22 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"as far as the other accusations of racism, you're way off base

just because minorities don't support Repubs in large numbers, it doesn't mean Repubs are racists

you're reasoning is fallacious"

You wish. The facts are clear.

There is no doubt many states Republican Party controlled legislatures enacted Voter ID legislation solely for the purpose of suppressing minority vote.

That's the party you support and vote for.

November 13, 2012 9:27 AM  
Anonymous cluck-cluck said...

Chick-fil-A -- the chain that scored a major victory against gay marriage earlier this year -- came out on top of a recent analysis of America's chicken chains.

In a survey that tallied the responses of 7,600 consumers, Chick-fil-A was voted number one. It was followed by Raising Cane’s and Boston Market in second and third, and El Pollo Loco, Zaxby’s, Popeyes, KFC, Wingstop and Church’s Chicken brought up the rear in descending order.

Like previous studies, the chicken chain study looked at a total number of votes for each chain and the number of locations in each chain. Chick-fil-A has the most locations of any chain considered in the study -- 1,600 stores in 39 states -- and claimed the most favorite votes per location.

Chick-fil-A also fared well when considered on a regional basis; it was named the favorite chain in all regions except the South, where Raising Cane's took top honors. Boston Market performed respectably in each region, remaining in the top three across the country.

The analysts attributed Chick-fil-A's high performance to its high consumer-reported rankings of food quality and taste, customer service, cleanliness, atmosphere and overall family values. Raising Cane's also performed well in these categories. KFC, in contrast, ranked ninth in the food quality/taste and value categories.

In a press release, an analyst explained Chick-fil-A's appeal:

“Whether it’s wings, fingers or sandwiches, chicken is more popular than ever with the masses ... With its quirky marketing campaign and consistent connection with pro-family groups, Chick-fil-A has carved out a large stake in the expanding chicken segment, although regional competitors like Raising Cane’s and Zaxby’s are also seeing impressive growth.”

November 13, 2012 12:39 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Finally, the Republican Party has to set a tone that is more respectful, positive and inclusive. The immigration rhetoric that came out of the Republican primary seemed harsh, unwelcoming and offputting to many minority voters."

that's true

that's was a reason I supported Huckabee last time

Perry, who was buffoned out the race scared the other guys into stupid statements

"Both of those constituencies are hardworking, upwardly mobile, family-oriented, and should be open to Republican appeals if we don’t make them feel unwelcome."

couldn't agree more

"And if another Republican man says anything about rape other than it is a horrific, violent crime, I want to personally cut out his tongue. The college-age daughters of many of my friends voted for Obama because they were completely turned off by Neanderthal comments like the suggestion of “legitimate rape.”"

gee, did anyone tell those girls that the entire Republican establishment, including Romney, asked those guys to quit?

and the comments got alot more attention than they deserved because it was in Obama's interest to inflame gender division

let's take Akin

the notion that pregnancy isn't as likely during rape is kind of stupid

he probably heard it somewhere and repeated

was he was trying to do was defend the life of the child

does anyone really think this guy was soft on rape?

I'm sure he favored death by slow torture for convicted rapists

he certainly would be more vigilant protecting women from rape than some slobbering liberal

and how about Murdoch?

he didn't, as reported, say rape was God's will

he said life was

those who disagree are actually putting people who's mother was raped in another caste beyond the blessing of God

and saying it's OK to kill a unborn child if her mother was raped

this is an evil position

"You wish. The facts are clear."

no, they aren't

"There is no doubt many states Republican Party controlled legislatures enacted Voter ID legislation solely for the purpose of suppressing minority vote."

I think most people would like to have controls to prevent voter fraud

just because some Republicans think that's more important in areas where the Obama ground game suddenly found a bunch of "new voters", doesn't mean they're racist

they'd love to have any black votes they can get

these measures may have a political edge but that's not racist

"That's the party you support and vote for."

the one that protects the life
of the weak and tries to prevent voter fraud?

sounds good

November 13, 2012 12:59 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

When asked to support Chik Fil A President's desire to deny same sex couples the right to wed by repealing state laws or amending state Constitutions, the resounding answer of voters in four states was NO.

LGBT haters should get used to it for the times they are a'changin'.

November 13, 2012 1:03 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"did anyone tell those girls that the entire Republican establishment, including Romney, asked those guys to quit?"

Typical GOTP double-speak.

Karen Hughes is a member of the establishment GOP and most certainly aware of her party's double speak on women's issues. That's why she's speaking out.

The GOP doesn't support Todd Akin < wink wink > but the GOP does maintain the Akin plank in its platform.

"TAMPA, Fla. — Even as Mitt Romney sought to quash the furor surrounding Todd Akin’s “legitimate” rape comments, the Republican platform committee here approved an abortion plank that includes no exemptions for rape, incest or even to save the life of the mother.

The platform committee instead approved draft language Tuesday, calling for a “Human Life Amendment” that gives legal protection to the unborn. Democrats quickly labeled the GOP language the “Akin Plank,” referring to the Missouri Senate candidate’s statements that victims of “legitimate rape” rarely get pregnant.

On Tuesday, not one of the 100-plus members on the GOP platform committee introduced amendments. They kept the identical language from 2004 and 2008.

“I appreciate the good work that that committee did — in past platforms that has been hours of discussion — and I applaud the committee’s work in affirming our respect for human life,” said Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, the chairman of the platform committee. “Well done.”

The full committee later passed a measure opposing the FDA approval of drugs like RU-486, which North Carolina representative Mary Summa called “an abortion pill.” The platform would now effectively prevent the sale of “any drug that terminates life after conception.”


Women as smart as Karen Hughes realize how badly the radical tea baggers in the GOP are hurting the GOP brand among young women voters.

November 13, 2012 1:32 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

no one showed up to the Chik-Fil-A counter-protest while hordes lined up to support the chain against the gay agenda

TTFers predicted that was a one-time burst that would presage a decline in CFA's business

instead, they're America's favorite chicken

commitment to marriage is not hatred

and the four states that didn't reject gay "marriage" did so by the slenderest of margins

"LGBT haters should get used to it for the times they are a'changin'"

we'll see

right now, two-thirds of U.S. have outlawed gay "marriage" in their constitution

even if this slender margin repeated in rational states, that wouldn't change anything

"Typical GOTP double-speak"

the double-speak is all yours

saying that babies whose father was a rapist should not be killed is not the same as saying some category of rape is legitimate

not even close

the attempt to stigmatize and shun and allow the murder of children whose father was a rapist is evil

liberals and radical feminists know no shame



November 13, 2012 1:45 PM  
Anonymous Mr. Poopyhead stinks said...

Norquist tax pledge takes election hit

"Republicans might have held the House, but Grover Norquist’s majority in Congress is all but gone.

Fewer incoming members of the House and Senate have signed the pledge against tax increases run by Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform, in a reflection not only of the seats that Democrats gained but of the success they’ve enjoyed in vilifying Norquist.

About a dozen newly elected House Republicans refused to sign the anti-tax pledge during their campaigns, and another handful of returning Republicans have disavowed their allegiance to the written commitment.

With Democrats picking up seven or eight seats, that means the pledge guides fewer than the 218 members needed for a majority. In the Senate, where Republicans lost two seats, just 39 members of the chamber are pledge-signers, according to the group’s records. That is a drop from 238 members of the House and 41 senators who committed to the pledge at the start of the 112th Congress...

The Republican candidates who declined to sign the pledge in 2012 hail from a variety of states and districts, some safely red and others competitive. Most of the candidates said their decision should not be interpreted as support for tax increases.

“I don’t want to sign a pledge that’s going to tie my hands,” Ted Yoho, a GOP congressman-elect from Florida, told The Hill. “I need free rein to do what I think is right for the people in my district and the country.”

Yoho is no fan of taxes, calling them “a necessary evil, it appears.” He said one reason he did not sign the pledge was that he had never met Norquist. “To sign a pledge to somebody that’s not a member of Congress or part of my constituency, I don’t think would be very prudent,” Yoho said.

Susan Brooks, a newly elected Republican from Indiana, offered a similar explanation on the campaign trail, spokeswoman Dollyne Pettingill Sherman said. “She just took the position that she was not going to sign pledges,” she said. “That doesn’t mean she’s for tax increases. She’s not. She was very clear about it.”

In an interview, Norquist said Americans for Tax Reform counts 219 incoming House Republicans as signers of the pledge, which he frequently notes is a commitment not to him but to a lawmaker’s constituents. The members of the House and Senate GOP leadership have also signed the pledge. Norquist’s 219 figure includes members who signed the pledge but who have since disavowed it...

A House Democratic leadership aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity, was more hopeful. “As far as [Norquist’s] ability to sway votes, it’s gone,” the aide said. “So I don’t think he’s a concern.”"

November 13, 2012 4:29 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

which is only important to Dems who personify every fear they have because demonizing some individual is the only way they have to deal with anything, rationalizing that if they can destroy that person, all their problems will be solved

importantly, the majority of the House is opposed to tax increases

your straw man is not that important

rates are going down

we'll trick Obama into thinking we'll make up for it by reducing deductions

and we'll get a start on reducing the deficit when he agrees to big cuts to expenditures importante' to his constituents

November 13, 2012 8:37 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Gallup is very upset at Nate Silver

Did Gallup just blame Nate Silver for ruining the art and science of polling?

You don’t have to read too far between the lines of a statement from Gallup’s editor in chief, Frank Newport, published on Friday, to get that impression.

Newport first attempts the formidable task of defending Gallup’s polling accuracy during the 2012 campaign. Perhaps he was anticipating Silver’s Saturday column, which labeled Gallup the most inaccurate pollster of all the firms that measured voter sentiment this year. But Silver was hardly alone in wondering why Gallup regularly reported numbers much more favorable to Romney than anyone else in 2012. We deserve an explanation a little less lame than Newport’s: what’s the big fuss? Gallup wasn’t really off by that much.

But then it gets interesting:

But some of this will result from a variant of the venerable “law of the commons.” Individual farmers can each made a perfectly rational decision to graze their cows on the town commons. But all of these rational decisions together mean that the commons became overgrazed and, in the end, there is no grass left for any cow to graze. Many individual rational decisions can end up in a collective mess.

We have a reverse law of the commons with polls. It’s not easy nor cheap to conduct traditional random sample polls. It’s much easier, cheaper, and mostly less risky to focus on aggregating and analyzing others’ polls. Organizations that traditionally go to the expense and effort to conduct individual polls could, in theory, decide to put their efforts into aggregation and statistical analyses of other people’s polls in the next election cycle and cut out their own polling. If many organizations make this seemingly rational decision, we could quickly be in a situation in which there are fewer and fewer polls left to aggregate and put into statistical models. Many individual rational decisions could result in a loss for the collective interest of those interested in public opinion.

This will develop into a significant issue for the industry going forward.


It is impossible to read this as anything other than an attack on Nate Silver, who is by far the most prominent aggregator and analyzer of others’ polls currently operating today. And it simply reeks of sour grapes. During the campaign year, Silver consistently pointed out that Gallup’s results were oddly inconsistent with what other pollsters were finding. And he was right — Gallup got it wrong. It is not inappropriate to point that out. But Gallup presumes too much when it effectively threatens to take its surveys home and just stop playing.

OK, Nate Silver didn’t pick up the phone and call voters himself. And yes, it’s true, if all the polling organizations stop polling, Nate Silver will be out of a job. He might have to go back to crunching baseball stats. But he’s a smart guy, with an impressive track record. He’ll do fine. It seems foolish to blame him for crunching data that is publicly available for anyone to crunch. If he wasn’t good at what he does, he’d still be another anonymous poster hanging around the DailyKos forums. He’s been rewarded for getting things right.

Gallup faces a more unhappy future. If the company keeps getting the numbers wrong, the market will punish it. At that point, Gallup won’t be able to blame its sorry fate on anyone but its own incompetence.


Nate Silver wasn't the only one

November 14, 2012 8:25 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

a couple of things:

-Gallup's final numbers weren't off that much

-there's no big mystery why Gallup was off

they simply assumed that fewer of Obama's base would show up in 2012 than 2008

it wasn't an outrageous assumption, even though it turned out to be wrong

but it was an informed guess and despite what everyone else said, they were all guessing too

and the main reason it turned out to be wrong is that Obama has found a way to translate the Chicago-type political machine on to a national level

assisted by early voting, they found ways to get a lot of people to the polls that don't traditionally vote

whether this can be passed on as a legacy to future Dems or if its just the extraordinary skills of our national Community Organizer will be what everyone is guessing about in 2016

November 14, 2012 8:44 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Zogby tells GOP: Change your message

The Republican Party needs to drastically change its message in order to win elections in 2014, according to political pollster John Zogby.

Zogby said Republicans should focus on job creation and move away from conservative positions on immigration and social issues, such as birth control and gay marriage.

“If the Republican Party is to have hope, it has to change the message. And the entrepreneurship message has potential,” said Zogby at an event held by the Institute for Education on Tuesday evening at the Swiss Embassy in Washington, D.C.

“But entrepreneurism does not translate into tax cuts. Young people have to be entrepreneurs, but young people aren’t asking for tax cuts. They’re asking for gigs, jobs, [and] contracts.”

A key problem for Republicans is that the party has largely relied on white voters and evangelical supporters, Zogby said. But that demographic is shrinking, he said, adding that the GOP needs to appeal to the growing voting groups of Latinos and African Americans if it hopes to survive.

“I’m not going to say necessarily that we’re talking about, as a couple of authors have suggested, an emerging Democratic majority,” he said. “But I am going to say that there’s an emerging GOP problem. And demographics are a huge part of the problem.”

Zogby said that 40 percent of Latinos identify themselves as conservatives in polls conducted by his company. But Latino voters, with the help of Democratic messaging, take the GOP’s overwhelming opposition to illegal immigration as evidence that the party is against immigrants. And the anti-immigrant positions translate into being against Latinos, said Zogby.

“They have to get off this immigration thing. It’s deadly,” he said. “That’s a hard one to cleanse.”

Zogby said the GOP also needs to make a concerted effort to run and elect more moderate candidates, such as retiring Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-Ohio). The Tea Party support that helped deliver Republicans a majority in 2010 is dwindling, said Zogby, pointing to 18 Tea Party candidates who lost elections earlier this month.

“The Republicans are done if they run as a conservative party with no central appeal,” said Zogby.

“It’s hard to see a scenario for them. It’s easier to see congressional districts that are gerrymandered to be safe. But when it comes to a national vote it’s very difficult to see Republicans winning a base election when that base is shrinking.”

Libertarians, however, may become a burgeoning part of the GOP's base if the party moves appropriately, said Zogby.

“While I see this growing libertarianism, I don’t know where libertarians are going to park, especially young libertarians,” he said.

November 14, 2012 9:26 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The Gallup guy has it all wrong. In a famous 1968 Science paper called "The Tragedy of the Commons," Garrett Hardin described a situation where a community has to share a resource, say a pasture, where each individual may be motivated to take more for himself -- graze more sheep, in the example -- but if he does the communal resource will be depleted and the whole community will suffer. The commons dilemma is a powerful representation of an N-person game-theoretic situation where each individual has to exercise self-discipline in the interest of the group, and paradoxically, his own self-interest.

In Gallup's world: the public may be willing to answer a few questions over the phone, but if too many pollsters call, respondents will stop responding. Especially when they find that the polls are politically biased. That is a commons dilemma. Nate Silver analyzing survey results in a statistical model, no, that is not a commons dilemma.

Pollsters may feel they are being ripped off when someone else takes their published results and re-analyzes them. In this election cycle we did see a great reliance on Internet postings of aggregated survey results, and a lot of discussion comparing the outcomes. Even now, if you look at Real Clear Politics you will see the last day's predictions, with Gallup and Rasmussen in red predicting a Romney victory. That probably is embarrassing for Gallup, and it should be the occasion for them to tune up their methods. They should look at their sampling, their weighting, the question wording, the follow-up strategy, training and quality control, and everything else, if they are serious about producing good estimates. They can complain when the guy who got fifty states out of fifty right criticizes them for predicting the wrong candidate would win, but it is not flattering to the organization. Maybe they should just quit.

It is curious to see Anon try to impugn Obama for running an excellent campaign that mobilized voters. "The Chicago-type political machine" -- seriously? Armies of energized volunteers manned phones and walked the streets for weeks, identifying voters and making sure they would get to the polls. There is nothing wrong with that. Romney tried to do the same thing, it would be irresponsible not to give it everything you've got. The Republicans tried to influence the results in their own way, publishing incorrect voting dates, telling people they needed to show ID or even passing laws requiring identification, cutting back on early voting hours in locations that favor Democrats, and so on. The Democrats could at least face themselves in the mirror in the morning, even if they had lost.

November 14, 2012 9:43 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

For more than two years Republicans have campaigned and legislated against the right of certain groups of people to vote. On Election Day, Republicans suffered the consequences. The very groups the GOP targeted -- among them African Americans, Latinos, and young people -- turned out in record numbers, propelling to victory the president and Democrats across the country. The Republicans' strategy failed because it awakened the most powerful force in a democracy: the determination of the voters themselves.

Republican lawmakers and conservative activists undertook a concerted effort to keep minorities, students and those with lower or fixed incomes (including many of our seniors) from voting. One GOP official in Ohio said early voting cuts were necessary to check the power of "the urban -- read African-American -- voter-turnout machine." A leader of the Tea Party group "True the Vote" said he wanted to make the experience of voting "like driving and seeing the police following you." The Republican House speaker in New Hampshire said restrictions on college students voting were needed because "voting as a liberal ... that's what kids do."

To reduce turnout among these groups, Republican officials deployed a variety of tactics. Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted and Florida Governor Rick Scott slashed the amount of time available for early voting, which is disproportionately utilized by minority and low-income voters. GOP legislators in Pennsylvania enacted a photo ID law, and then failed to establish adequate procedures for allowing more than 700,000 Pennsylvanians who lacked photo ID to obtain one. Voter purges attempted by Gov. Scott and Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler targeted thousands of lawfully registered voters. "True the Vote" -- surely a leading candidate for the Newspeak Award -- challenged minority voter registrations on an unprecedented scale.

The Obama campaign, the Democratic National Committee, and other voting rights advocates responded by challenging many of these restrictions in court. The courts blocked many of the worst measures, including Pennsylvania's photo ID law and the bulk of Florida's voter purge. The Obama campaign and the DNC successfully litigated to restore the final three days of early voting for all Ohioans, and defended this right all the way to the Supreme Court....

When Secretary Husted tried to change election rules last year, Ohioans responded by gathering 300,000 signatures toward a referendum that successfully suspended the law. After we successfully restored access for the last three days of early voting, the African-American community participated in record numbers, aided by a massive turnout for Souls to the Polls on the Sunday before Election Day. Overall, the African-American share of the Ohio electorate was more than one-third higher than in 2008.

In Florida, 150 black pastors organized "Operation Lemonade" -- named for the "lemon" they were handed when Gov. Scott cut early voting. Although the state reduced the number of early voting days from 14 to eight, and eliminated voting on the Sunday before Election Day, nearly as many voters -- 2.4 million in all -- voted early as in 2008.

On Election Day, voters stood with determination in unconscionably long lines, some that stretched for up to seven hours. Though some voters were elderly, frail, missing work, or simply exhausted, theyrefused to leave, undeterred by the line and in fact galvanized by the bad intent. Voters and activists used social media to stand in solidarity as the hashtag #StayInLine quickly began trending on Twitter. People were so determined to vote that many polling places ran out of provisional ballots.

When the dust settled, the very groups targeted for suppression and intimidation had voted in record numbers. Compared to 2008, African Americans, Hispanics, and people under age 29 all represented a greater share of the national electorate.

November 14, 2012 10:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

In September, Georgia congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis told the Democratic National Convention:

I've seen this before. I lived this before. Too many people struggled, suffered, and died to make it possible for every American to exercise their right to vote. And we have come too far together to ever turn back... [W]e must not be silent. We must stand up, speak up, and speak out. We must march to the polls like never, ever before.

On Election Day, we marched to the polls, and persevered lines (Twitter hash tag #stayinline) as long as necessary to cast our ballots. We marched and stood for many reasons--not least among them, the refusal to let others trample on our hard-won rights. Those seeking to do so would be wise to heed this lesson in the years to come.

November 14, 2012 10:18 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"It is curious to see Anon try to impugn Obama for running an excellent campaign that mobilized voters. "The Chicago-type political machine" -- seriously? Armies of energized volunteers manned phones and walked the streets for weeks, identifying voters and making sure they would get to the polls. There is nothing wrong with that."

I agree with you, and I didn't intend the characterization as negative. They simply did an outstanding job reaching out to individual voters and getting them to vote.

If only he had put the same skill and energy at work trying to produce economic growth in our country and increasing our influence abroad.

And you're right. Romney, who didn't have any other duties than campaigning, should have done the same.

Still, you do have to wonder about the whole early voting idea. Is pressuring people who usually don't think voting is worth it the way to produce the best decision-makers for our country? I'm not sure. I have always thought 100% voting should not be required because those who don't think it's worth the trouble are making a decision not to be invested in the common good. If we make it less inconvenient and practically harass them to go, are we maybe we monkeying with a system that has worked well. Maybe. Maybe not. i think it's something we all ned to consider.

"The Republicans tried to influence the results in their own way, publishing incorrect voting dates, telling people they needed to show ID or even passing laws requiring identification, cutting back on early voting hours in locations that favor Democrats, and so on."

making sure everyone who votes is eligible is a way to avoid voter fraud and very reasonable

the expansion of early voting hours to allow mobilization of those who generally don't consider voting worth going to any trouble for is a dubious policy

"The Democrats could at least face themselves in the mirror in the morning,"

they're looking at a warped funhouse mirror now

they act like this election is the greatest progressive victory of all time

they won the Presidency by a two point margin and likely wouldn't have if Repubs had been more reasonable on immigration or if a certain Frankenstorm hadn't interrupted the momentum of the campaign

"Republican lawmakers and conservative activists undertook a concerted effort to keep minorities, students and those with lower or fixed incomes (including many of our seniors) from voting."

when lawmakers see a flood of new voters, it's prudent to check their eligibility to vote

the early voting may not be appropriate and certainly shouldn't be expanded-

in some states, this is all started before th campaigns had concluded

we need a fixed date to measure the electorate

on the positive, from your above statement, you're conceding that this is not racist but, at worst, political

you might want to consider how much damage inflammatory and irresponsible racial statements by liberals has done

November 14, 2012 10:31 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

every since Obama was re-elected and odds for getting rid of Obamacare decreased, the stock market has crashed and employers have been laying off workers

the latest:

"LOS ANGELES -- Comcast Corp's NBCUniversal entertainment unit is laying off about 500 employees at cable channels, Jay Leno's late-night TV show and the Universal Pictures movie studio, a person with knowledge of the matter said on Monday.

The cuts add up to about 1.5 percent of the company's workforce of 30,000 employees, the source said."

November 14, 2012 3:20 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

If only he had put the same skill and energy at work trying to produce economic growth in our country and increasing our influence abroad.

If only Mitch McConnell and his lockstep marching GOP hadn't decided their "top priority" was to make sure Obama was a one term president. Maybe then instead of filibustering them, Congress would have enacted laws to stimulate economic growth.

Republicans have opposed a lion's share of stimulus measures that once they supported, such as a payroll tax break, which they grudgingly embraced earlier this year. Even unemployment insurance, a relatively uncontroversial tool for helping those in an economic downturn, has been consistently held up by Republicans or used as a bargaining chip for more tax cuts. Ten years ago, prominent conservatives were loudly making the case for fiscal stimulus to get the economy going; today, they treat such ideas like they're the plague.


Is pressuring people who usually don't think voting is worth it the way to produce the best decision-makers for our country?

Not a single voter was pressured into voting by anybody. You must be thinking of those workers at some companies with CEO's who threatened to fire employees if Obama won re-election.

we make it less inconvenient and practically harass them to go

No one was harassed to vote. Not everyone can cancel their manicure appointment in order to vote on election day like a Mrs. Romney-type lady of leisure. Plenty of US citizens work 2 and 3 jobs to support their families and they deserve more than a 13 hour window one day every 4 years to cast their vote for President of the United States of America.

the expansion of early voting hours to allow mobilization of those who generally don't consider voting worth going to any trouble for is a dubious policy

Working a couple of jobs to support a family says nothing about a persons value on voting.

they won the Presidency by a two point margin

So far Obama is up 3 points over Romney (50.6-47.8), and as the vote counting continues in some states, Obama's margin keeps increasing. This is not unlike 2008, when the early vote count was more in line with the Rasmussen prediction, but the final vote count proved Rasmussen was just in the middle of the pack.

when lawmakers see a flood of new voters, it's prudent to check their eligibility to vote

That's the job of voter registrars when they register voters to vote. They are to insure each voter shows the state required documents to prove their eligibility and each state creates its own rules. Maybe you'd you prefer we federalize voting procedures so that every state must adhere to the federal rules on voting.

November 14, 2012 4:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

During Obama's first term, corporate profits have consistently hit new record highs. And the S&P 500 has spiked 65.6 percent.

November 14, 2012 4:05 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Mary Alford, the owner of a Florida architecture and engineering firm that specializes in sustainable design, says her business is poised to double or triple over the next four years thanks to Obama’s win. Alford says she expects that Obama’s reelection will mean an uptick “environmental patriotism” -- or support for policies that protect the environment and advocate sustainability, which will be a boon for her business.

Alford started The Sustainable Design Group five years ago and has grown it to six employees in that short time -- growth she attributes in part to Obama’s reign.

“He addresses global climate change and he addresses sustainability and by addressing those things I will be directly affected," Alford said of Obama. "We’re all concerned about all of our resources right now in a tighter economy. Sustainability is going to be about doing it right the first time and I believe that he supports that in his attitude towards business."

Alford’s comments counter a recent din of business owners claiming Obama’s reelection -- and more specifically Obamacare -- will force them to cut back. Papa John’s CEO John Schnatter claimed that the increased cost of health care reform will force him to charge between 11 and 14 more cents per pizza, as well as cut back the hours of some of his workers. In addition, Robert Murray, CEO of Murray Energy, laid off 160 workers last week, citing the president’s win, though the coal industry of which Murray is a part is likely on the decline for reasons other than Obama’s policies.

Of company heads that are blaming restructuring on Obama’s win, Alford has this to say: “They must have not had a very good business plan to begin with.”

Alford added that for some small businesses, like her own, Obamacare may likely lower the cost of insuring employees. Before the law, the cost of insuring her workers was “outrageously high," she said. Though many small business owners say they're likely to trim benefits as a result of Obamacare, according to an October survey, most are unlikely to take drastic steps in response to the law.

November 14, 2012 4:27 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"If only Mitch McConnell and his lockstep marching GOP"

interesting how liberals try to convince everyone that unity among Republicans is a vice

the truth is that the Democratic Party is the home of the political correct elitists while the Republican Partty is where our society's libertaranians reside

meanwhile,the gay activists are the most fascist element in our country

if a business owner contributes to a groups that opposes the gay agenda, boycott his business

if an employee signs a petition calling for gay marriage to be voted on, fire her

all dissent from the gay agenda must be punished by economic banishment

"hadn't decided their "top priority" was to make sure Obama was a one term president"

not a bad priority since that was the best way to save the country

"Maybe then instead of filibustering them, Congress would have enacted laws to stimulate economic growth"

actually, the country has a lot of stimulus

we have borrowed and spent four trillion during Obama's term and interest rates have been near zero

truth is, Obama wasted his first two years pushing his socialist health care program while parties from both sides pleaded with him to focus on jobs

then, he was "shellacked" in 2010 as a result

so, he threw together a quick jobs bill for show with a lot of objectionable crap in it that neither side supported

and he didn't keep trying because he really didn't care about jobs, his second two years were devoted to getting re-elected

right now, he's pushing to extend the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy even though the CBO says it would cost 200,000 jobs

why?

it will only reduce the deficit by about 7%, we'll still have a deficit of about 920 billion

but he doesn't care about the jobs lost because he is devoted to Marxism: we have to do it because it's "fair"

"Republicans have opposed a lion's share of stimulus measures that once they supported, such as a payroll tax break,"

interesting that Dems resist any change to Social Security except reducing its funding

payroll taxes are designed to fund retirement for Americans

using them as stimulus is changing Social Security

"Even unemployment insurance, a relatively uncontroversial tool for helping those in an economic downturn, has been consistently held up by Republicans or used as a bargaining chip for more tax cuts."

I thought you said Repubs were resisting stimulus

tax cuts stimulate the economy

Obama admitted that when he signed the 2010 extension of all the Bush tax cuts

"Ten years ago, prominent conservatives were loudly making the case for fiscal stimulus to get the economy going; today, they treat such ideas like they're the plague."

you idiot

the biggest stimulus we could create would be to lower marginal tax rates and reduce burdensome regulations and repeal Obamacare

most Americans actually favor that as well

November 14, 2012 9:25 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...


"Not a single voter was pressured into voting by anybody."

that's a matter of opinion

people were zeroed in on and harassed like they got a free cruise and just have to hear a presentationin return

it was that kind of technique

"You must be thinking of those workers at some companies with CEO's who threatened to fire employees if Obama won re-election"

if you design a healthcare plan and say all employers must provide free health care coverage to any employee who works more than 30 hours, it doesn't take Einstein to realize that employers will start only hiring employees to work 30 hours

and we didn't just re-elect Einstein

"No one was harassed to vote. Not everyone can cancel their manicure appointment in order to vote on election day like a Mrs. Romney-type lady of leisure. Plenty of US citizens work 2 and 3 jobs to support their families and they deserve more than a 13 hour window one day every 4 years to cast their vote for President of the United States of America."

how's this for an idea? make election day a national holiday and cancel MLK's birthday every four years

"Working a couple of jobs to support a family says nothing about a persons value on voting."

my guess is those type of hard workers alwasy did vote

the usual non-voters were the millions of unemployed and under-employed who didn't care until they were harassed by Obama's "ground game"

"So far Obama is up 3 points over Romney (50.6-47.8),"

wouldn't have been that high if the media hadn't failed to fact-check Obama's lies

Obama repeatedly got on TV for months and claimed that Romney favored cutting taxes 250K for each wealthy person in America and raising Medicare fees by 6400 a year for seniors and raising taxes on the Middle Class

all three of those assertions were lies

that's why Obama really has no mandate

he was elected by the most shameless lying campaign in American history and the media colluded in hiding it from the public

"and as the vote counting continues in some states, Obama's margin keeps increasing"

and why is that?

years ago when the Chicago results were slow to come in and then all went for Kennedy, everyone knew Daley had manipulated the vote

so, this kind of thing is a little suspicious and indicates the need for more scrutiny to make sure the votes are valid

"That's the job of voter registrars when they register voters to vote. They are to insure each voter shows the state required documents to prove their eligibility and each state creates its own rules. Maybe you'd you prefer we federalize voting procedures so that every state must adhere to the federal rules on voting."

no, I favor letting states make their own rules

you're the one that claims that states are being racist when they check IDs

"During Obama's first term, corporate profits have consistently hit new record highs. And the S&P 500 has spiked 65.6 percent."

you mean after they plumetted in the first months of his Presidency?

"Mary Alford, the owner of a Florida architecture and engineering firm that specializes in sustainable design,"

November 14, 2012 9:25 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Bill O’Reilly expresses his feelings about Mitt Romney’s failed presidential campaign:

“I was very disappointed in the governor, very disappointed,” O’Reilly says.

“He ran and he hid for the last two weeks of the campaign. He actually hid. He wouldn’t come on [our show]. He wouldn’t come on other high-profile programs on television and tell people what he believed. He wouldn’t do it. He deserved to lose.

“He made a mistake. Hurricane Sandy blows him off the front page for five days — and what’s his answer? He hides.

“He got three million less votes than John McCain. Are you kidding me? With all of the money they spent, and McCain had to run into a recession, and Romney gets three million less votes? Come on."

November 14, 2012 9:32 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Barack Obama won the election.

He did not win by stealing the election. Voter irregularities always happen. It is one reason we support voter ID rules. But even in the worse scenario of reports out there, there were not enough tales of voter irregularities to matter nationwide. This is another benefit and built in safeguard of the electoral college.

Barack Obama won. He won by turning out the most people in a well run campaign. In other words, he won fair and square.

We here at RedState are American citizens. We have no plans to secede from the union. If you do, good luck with that, but this is not the place for you.

We have a place for you here if you wish to continue the fight against Republicans in Washington like John Boehner and Mitch McConnell who’d be happy to sell us down the river to keep their power, no matter how devoid of principle or sound policy...

Too many people have spent the past four years obsessed with birth certificates. Now they are obsessed with voter fraud conspiracies, talk of secession, and supposed election changing news stories if only we had known.

So let’s add dabblers in this latest nuttiness to birthers as a category of people we do not welcome at RedState. Our aim is to beat the Democrats, not beat a retreat to a Confederacy that Generals Grant and Sherman rent asunder well over a hundred years ago.

Even here at RedState, while we may not much care for him, President Obama is still our President and we are still quite happily citizens of the United States. If we must drain this fever swamp that’s taken hold of a few people on the right over this past week before we can drain the swamp in Washington, so be it.

All others need not apply.

Sincerely,
Erick Erickson
Editor-in-Chief, RedState.com

November 14, 2012 9:45 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Barack Obama won. He won by turning out the most people in a well run campaign. In other words, he won fair and square."

actually, Erick, he started off with weeks of personal attacks on his opponent's character that weren't retaliated against

and then he ran a huge ad campaign with lies about his opponent's policies

yeah, real fair and square

November 14, 2012 10:19 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

All others need not apply. -- as Erick posted it.

November 14, 2012 10:27 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

the stock market is down 5% since Barry the Deceiver (BTD) was re-elected

this is likely because BTD is showing increasing sign he wants to go over the fiscal cliff

he says he wants to raise 1.6 trillion from rich people but insists it has to be done through raising rates

however, if itemized deductions were capped at 25,000 this would raise 2 trillion according to the Tax Policy Center, most of it from the very wealthy

this is what Romney suggested during the debates and Obama keeps claiming "the math doesn't add up"

so, why would BTD resist?

because it was Romney's idea and BTD doesn't care if we go over the cliff

he knows he can blame the resulting recession on Republicans

what does he care?

he and his family will be fine, with their White House chefs and a personal jet to tour the world, and he doesn't have to worry apout re-election

and, again, we see he couldn't care less about economic growth or jobs for Americans

November 15, 2012 9:11 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of people seeking unemployment benefits was up to a seasonally adjusted 439,000 last week, the highest level in 18 months.

The Labor Department says applications increased by 78,000. People can claim unemployment benefits if their workplaces close and they don't get paid.

Before the election, applications fluctuated between 360,000 and 390,000 this year. At the same time, employers added an average of nearly 157,000 jobs a month. That's barely enough to lower the unemployment rate, which was 7.9 percent in October.

November 15, 2012 9:58 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

sounds like no Mt Rushmore for Barry the Deceiver!!

November 15, 2012 12:38 PM  
Anonymous RR sore losers team said...

Mitt Romney has been publicly quiet since his brief remarks on Election Night, but he told his top donors on a conference call yesterday that Barack Obama had won by giving “very generous” freebies to key constituencies, including blacks, Hispanics and young people.

“The president’s campaign,” Romney said, “focused on giving targeted groups a big gift, so he made a big effort on small things. Those small things, by the way, add up to trillions of dollars.”

Romney surely didn’t mean for his remarks to become public, but he probably shouldn’t be surprised that they leaked. After all, the same thing happened when he told donors earlier this year that 47 percent of the electorate would vote for Obama “no matter what” – because they “believe that they are victims” and that “they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it.”

A tape of those comments emerged in September, and Romney eventually repudiated them and spent the rest of the campaign insisting that he would be a president for “the 100 percent.” That he’s still disparaging Obama’s coalition behind closed doors all but confirms that his campaign trail pleadings were insincere. It also reinforces the worst image of Romney, as a sneering plutocrat who has contempt for the common man.

But mainly, it’s just bad form. Romney was roundly defeated last week, and the man who defeated him has now publicly saluted him twice. This is the time for Romney to show grace, humility, and maybe some humor too. Instead, he’s coming across like a sore loser, one who’d rather make excuses than give his opponent any real credit.

The same can be said for Romney’s running mate, Paul Ryan. During a series of interviews on Tuesday, Ryan offered this backhanded compliment to the president: “Well, he got turnout. The president should get credit for achieving record-breaking turnout numbers from urban areas for the most part, and that did win the election for him.”

This too smacks of sore loser-dom. Ryan’s ticket lost in swing states without major cities, like Iowa and New Hampshire, and won another key battleground – Virginia – by racking up massive margins in affluent suburbs. And if Ryan was using “urban” as a substitute for “black,” he’s off the mark there too. Sure, Obama received overwhelming support from an unusually energized African-American electorate, but he won plenty of states with small to non-existent black populations. The Obama victory last week was far broader than Ryan’s comment suggests, and rooted not just in demographics but also a very basic advantage on most of the issues that mattered most to voters. As with Romney, this is bad form – the sort of thing that might sound good to conservative diehards but that comes across as tone deaf to just about everyone else.

November 15, 2012 12:45 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Mitt Romney told his top donors on a conference call yesterday that Barack Obama had won by giving “very generous” freebies to key constituencies, including blacks, Hispanics and young people"

actually, he was probably talking about Barry's help for unions by saving their overly generous benefit packages by bailing out GM and Chrysler

those other three communities got nothing at all from Barry the Deceiver:

blacks?

unemployment is at Depression level in inner city black communities

the schools are dangerous hellholes and Barry opposes giving them the choice to transfer their kids out because he wants to kiss up to teacher unions

and black religious folks were betrayed when he came out for gay marriage

youth?

50% of kids coming out of college can't get a job

Barry is wracking up debts they will pay for the rest of their lives, long after their elders have died, guaranteeing a lower standard of living

and if they want to put off buying health insurance for a couple of years, Barry has a nice new tax for them to pay

oh, and howsabout when Barry promised to look the other way about marijuana and then started cracking down on it?

Hispanics?

they were afraid of the Repub rhetoric but Barry didn't do anything for them

"Romney surely didn’t mean for his remarks to become public, but he probably shouldn’t be surprised that they leaked."

notice how that doesn't happen to Obama?

"That he’s still disparaging Obama’s coalition behind closed doors all but confirms that his campaign trail pleadings were insincere."

he's simply speculating and not necessarily in a negative way

that's how politics work

"It also reinforces the worst image of Romney, as a sneering plutocrat who has contempt for the common man."

and the 48% who voted for Romney are uncommon men?

"But mainly, it’s just bad form. Romney was roundly defeated last week, and the man who defeated him has now publicly saluted him twice."

actually, Romney publicly congratulated Obie too

some sketchy journalists are spying on his private remarks and publishing them

"This is the time for Romney to show grace, humility, and maybe some humor too."

he's done fine

"Instead, he’s coming across like a sore loser, one who’d rather make excuses than give his opponent any real credit."

he has given him credit, more than Barry the Deceiver deserves

"The same can be said for Romney’s running mate, Paul Ryan. During a series of interviews on Tuesday, Ryan offered this backhanded compliment to the president: “Well, he got turnout. The president should get credit for achieving record-breaking turnout numbers from urban areas for the most part, and that did win the election for him.”

This too smacks of sore loser-dom. Ryan’s ticket lost in swing states without major cities, like Iowa and New Hampshire,"

yes, but Romney could have won without them

the urban areas did make the difference in the election

Ryan's right

"And if Ryan was using “urban” as a substitute for “black,” he’s off the mark there too."

but, he wasn't

he was urban for urban

Georgetown and white elitist enclaves downtown all went for Obama

"Sure, Obama received overwhelming support from an unusually energized African-American electorate,"

yes, despite the fact that those people are not helped by Barry's policies

"but he won plenty of states with small to non-existent black populations. The Obama victory last week was far broader than Ryan’s comment suggests,"

not across the South and Plains and the heartland

"and rooted not just in demographics but also a very basic advantage on most of the issues that mattered most to voters."

Obama lied and told Americans that Romney was planning to raise their taxes and Medicare fees

November 15, 2012 1:49 PM  
Anonymous Whining like Turd Blossom said...

GOP strategist Karl Rove continued his effort to bury Mitt Romney's election loss under a pile of excuses on Wednesday, adding a new explanation to his growing list.

"Mitt Romney had what I scientifically call a butt-ugly primary,'' Rove told a crowd gathered to hear him speak at Northwest Pennsylvania Collegiate Academy, according to the Erie Times-News. He went on to explain that the lengthy contest featured "way too many debates'' and became overly focused on social issues instead of the economy.

Rove also offered a number of other reasons for Romney's failure in a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Wednesday, including what he argued was the most important -- a decline in voter turnout from 2008 to 2012. He repeated this claim at his speech Wednesday night.

But in his Journal piece, Rove also claimed that the party process had damaged Romney in ways beyond the primary.

"Holding the convention in late August made sense when candidates relied on public financing for the general election. That will never happen again," Rove wrote. "The Romney campaign had tens of millions it couldn't spend for months until he was officially nominated on Aug. 28. Future conventions should be held as early as late June."

Rove also addressed the failure of his super PAC, American Crossroads, which eventually spent more than $300 million in spending, mostly on losing candidates. He said they wouldn't be deterred by the disastrous showing, and that they were "in it for the long haul."

November 15, 2012 2:41 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Rove had several good points here

it's hard to know the F your complaint other than that liberal long-time strategy has always been the demonization of certain characters

the Bush elections are long past

you lost them

get over it

you can stop attacking Rove now

btw, he especially has a point about the convention

Obama has tons of money to spend on personal attacks irrelevant to the issues while Romney had to wait for the convention

btw, one thing that hasn't been pointed out is that the election basically supports Citizens United

liberals whined and whined that Repubs would be able to buy election and yet all the secret money didn't seem to matter

ready to admit you were wrong?

November 15, 2012 3:05 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

btw, Bill Clinton called Romney and told him he lost because of Hurricane Sandy

November 15, 2012 3:23 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The Romney election is over.

You, Karl Rove, voter ID laws, and all that Citizens United money lost the election.

Get over it.

Bill Clinton called Romney and told him he lost because of Hurricane Sandy

That's what Romney told his deep pockets anyway.

Exit polling by CBS News suggested that opinions of Obama improved after seeing how he handled preparations and post-storm response. A poll by the Pew Research Center just before the election also showed that 69 percent of all likely voters, and nearly half of Romney’s voters approved of Obama’s storm reaction as well.

November 15, 2012 4:10 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"You, Karl Rove, voter ID laws, and all that Citizens United money lost the election.

Get over it."

Karl Rove and voter ID laws?

not only am I over that, they were never in my way

those are obsessions with liberals

as for Citizens United, it's still an issue

Barack "I dislike America" Obama is planning to push for a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court

the fact that corporate money had no effect on the campaign is very relevant to that discussion

Repubs won the election for the House of Representatives, that must pass every law of our land

if Obama wants something, we have to approve it first

liberals lost in the House of Representatives

tax rates aren't going up

government spending will go down

get over it

get ooover it

November 15, 2012 5:08 PM  
Anonymous lcyclea12 said...

"Exit polling by CBS News suggested that opinions of Obama improved after seeing how he handled preparations and post-storm response. A poll by the Pew Research Center just before the election also showed that 69 percent of all likely voters, and nearly half of Romney’s voters approved of Obama’s storm reaction as well."

sounds like Clinton was right

if Sandy had even happened a little earlier, it might not have been the same

that close to the election, it had an effect

now, we're starting to see that Obama didn't really do anything to help anyway

November 15, 2012 5:13 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yes, it did help Obama when voters could see the difference in federal response between Katrina and Sandy.

November 15, 2012 6:25 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

And voters got to see Mittless once again flipflop from "severely conservative Mitt" to "more moderate Mitt.''

In a GOP primary debate in June of last year, moderator John King asked Romney if he would let states take on the responsibilities of FEMA, which was “about to run out of money.” “Absolutely,” Romney replied. “And every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that’s the right direction. And if you can go even further and send it back to the private sector, that’s even better … We cannot — we cannot afford to do those things,” he added. Mitt Romney called the federal spending on disaster relief for recent tornado and flood victims “immoral.”

And after Hurricane Sandy left millions suffering, the Romney campaign seemed to come around. “Gov. Romney believes that states should be in charge of emergency management in responding to storms and other natural disasters in their jurisdictions. As the first responders, states are in the best position to aid affected individuals and communities, and to direct resources and assistance to where they are needed most. This includes help from the federal government and FEMA,” Romney spokesman Ryan Williams said.

November 15, 2012 7:03 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The number of people seeking unemployment benefits was up to a seasonally adjusted 439,000 last week, the highest level in 18 months.

Hurricane Sandy Pushes Jobless Claims Up To Highest Level In 18 Months
AP | By CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER

WASHINGTON (AP) — Superstorm Sandy drove the number of people seeking unemployment benefits up to a seasonally adjusted 439,000 last week, the highest level in 18 months.

The Labor Department says applications increased by 78,000 because a large number of applications were filed in states damaged by the storm. People can claim unemployment benefits if their workplaces close and they don't get paid.

The storm may distort claims for another two weeks, the department has said.

November 15, 2012 10:57 PM  
Anonymous Dems pick up another House seat said...

Rep. Lungren loses reelection bid
By Cameron Joseph - 11/15/12 08:26 PM ET


Democrat Ami Bera has defeated Rep. Dan Lungren (R-Calif.) in one of the closest House races of the cycle.

Bera and Lungren finished within a few hundred votes of one another on election night, but Bera's lead has grown in recent days as mail-in and provisional ballots were counted. He leads Lungren by slightly less than 4,000 votes with some ballots still left to be counted.

The Associated Press called the race for Bera late Thursday evening...

November 16, 2012 8:02 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Poopy-heads and proctology exams. What will they come up with next?

LAS VEGAS -- Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney failed to offer a vision that connected with everyday Americans, failed to respond to an early and ultimately successful attempt to define him as an out-of-touch corporate raider, and failed to portray his party as anything other than the party for rich white males -- at least according to some of the prominent Republicans who served as his top surrogates just a few weeks ago.

Romney's campaign came in for a series of tongue-lashings at a meeting of the Republican Governors Association, where two dozen state chief executives hobnobbed with big-dollar donors and swapped notes on what they called a disappointing election cycle. And as several among their ranks privately ponder their own potential presidential campaigns four years down the line, they said there are lessons to be learned from this year's GOP shortcomings.

"We need to have a brutally honest assessment of what we did," said Haley Barbour, the former Mississippi governor and Republican uber-strategist. His party's entire political operation, Barbour said, needs "a very serious proctology exam."

...Several Republicans at the meeting credited the Obama campaign's relentless focus on a turnout operation that drove hundreds of thousands of new voters to the polls. "We can catch up in four years," Barbour told donors. "We can't wait and start in 2016."

The comments came the same day Romney himself attributed Obama's win to policy "gifts" the president gave specific interest groups, "especially the African-American community, the Hispanic community, and young people," Romney said, according to The New York Times. Republican governors, who spent the day considering how to reach out beyond their current coalition to attract more minorities, did not share that assessment.

"That is absolutely wrong," Jindal said at a press conference. "We need to go after 100 percent of the votes, not 53 percent. We need to go after every single vote."

The governors didn't pin the blame solely on Romney. They painted a picture of a campaign on the ascent after a strong performance in the first debate of the season, leading in swing state and national polling. That momentum, they said, was brought to a screeching halt when superstorm Sandy hit the East Coast, effectively freezing the race in place.

Most polling conducted even before the storm showed Obama leading critical swing states, however, and party strategists attending the meeting said they believed the impact of the storm was being overstated. They did not say the same for the governors' assessment of Romney's campaign.

November 16, 2012 8:55 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

suffice it to say that there were multiple reasons Romney lost and any one may have made the difference in a close race

also, suffice it to say when 48% of the citizens vote to remove their President, it's bizarre that he finds it a cause of celebration and not reflection

the goal should be a unified country instead of Obama claiming a mandate to tax a minority of citzens to bail out the majority

if we need to sacrifice to get the country moving, the sacrifice should be balanced

either everyone's taxes should go up, or no one's

November 16, 2012 9:09 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"suffice it to say when 48% of the citizens vote to remove their President, it's bizarre that he finds it a cause of celebration and not reflection"

Really? Then why did you think Bush got a "mandate" in 2004 rather than a signal to "reflect" when his opponent, John Kerry won 48.3% of the vote?

If Bush's 2004 win with 50.7% or 62,040,610 votes and 286 electoral college votes meant he won a "mandate" and political capital to spend, then Obama's 2012 win with 50.6% (and counting) or 62,611,250 votes and 332 electoral college votes means Obama won a "mandate" and political capital to spend too.

And since he won his race with more citizens' AND electoral college votes than Bush did for his second term, Obama's mandate and political capital dwarf Bush's.

Go reflect on that.

November 16, 2012 1:57 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Really? Then why did you think Bush got a "mandate" in 2004 rather than a signal to "reflect" when his opponent, John Kerry won 48.3% of the vote?"

this is so typical of the liberal mentality

I don't recall saying I thought Bush had a mandate

although I always thought criticism was hyped-up and he wasn't as bad a President as Obama, I really never thought he was that great

there were certainly many Americans who would have made a better President at the time

"If Bush's 2004 win with 50.7% or 62,040,610 votes and 286 electoral college votes meant he won a "mandate" and political capital to spend, then Obama's 2012 win with 50.6% (and counting) or 62,611,250 votes and 332 electoral college votes means Obama won a "mandate" and political capital to spend too."

as a matter of fact, Bush tried to use the 'political capital' argument to push for Social Security changes and fell flat on his face, as Obama will

I will say one thing for Bush though: he got more votes in 2004 than 2000, which is more than can be said about Barry the Deceiver

"And since he won his race with more citizens' AND electoral college votes than Bush did for his second term, Obama's mandate and political capital dwarf Bush's."

for one thing, the population has increased

for another, the electoral college is somewhat irrelevant for this purpose, the popular votes the thing and Obama is not much different there

most important of all, though, is that there is no mandate if no vision or program was annunciated during the campaign

Obama lied and used scare tactics during the campaign

Romney had no plan or proposal to raise middle class taxes

Romney had no plan or proposal to raise Medicare fees by 6400

Romney had no plan or proposal to cut taxes on the wealthy by 250K a person

Romney had no plan or proposal to cut taxes by 5 trillion

so, for all we know, people may have been voting out of fear rather than support for Obama

indeed, exit polls show that only 47% are that taxes on the wealthy should be raise, so even Obama one concrete proposal was not supported by the majority of Americans

"Go reflect on that."

what Obama needs to reflect on is coming clean about Benghazi and his other lies during the campaign

November 16, 2012 2:53 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

What Benghazi Is about: Scandal Envy

"If you're looking at the Republican harumphing over Benghazi and asking yourself, "Why are we supposed to be so mad about this again?" you're not alone. Let's review: There was an attack on our consulate that killed four Americans, including our ambassador. Amid confusing and contradictory reports from the ground, President Obama waited too long to utter the magic incantation, "Terrorism, terrorists, terror!" that would have ... well, it would have done something, but it turns out that he did say "terror," so never mind that. But that's not the real scandal! The real scandal is that Susan Rice went on television soon after and amid all kinds of "based on the best information we have"s and "we'll have to see"s, said one thing that turned out not to be the case: that after the protests in Cairo, there was some kind of copycat protest in Benghazi, which was then "hijacked" by extremist elements using heavy weapons to stage an attack.

A sane person might say, OK, she was obviously given some incorrect information at that time, but it's not a particularly meaningful deception. As people have been pointing out for weeks now, it's not as though not using the word "terror" or saying there was a protest before the attack gave the White House some enormous political advantage. If you're going to have a cover-up, there has to be something you're covering up.

But now, some Republicans, particularly John McCain and Lindsay Graham, are essentially saying that this horrifying cover-up was quite possibly the greatest crime in the history of the United States government, and if we're going to get to the bottom of it nothing short of a select committee—a "Watergate-style committee," as it is being referred to by reporters—will do. Who knows what it might uncover? Were there CIA whistleblowers whose bodies are now lying at the bottom of the Potomac? Was David Petraeus being blackmailed? Are William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright involved? Did Susan Rice fly to Tripoli, have a steamy liaison with a clone of Ayman al-Zawahiri created in a secret underground laboratory, then go to Benghazi where she personally killed Ambassador Chris Stevens with a hat pin? We won't know unless we spin this out into a multi-week story!

So what's going on here? I can sum it up in two words: scandal envy. Republicans are indescribably frustrated by the fact that Barack Obama, whom they regard as both illegitimate and corrupt, went through an entire term without a major scandal. They tried with "Fast and Furious," but that turned out to be small potatoes. They tried with Solyndra, but that didn't produce the criminality they hoped for either. Obama even managed to dole out three-quarters of a trillion dollars in stimulus money without any graft or double-dealing to be found. Nixon had Watergate, Reagan had Iran-Contra, Clinton had Lewinsky, and Barack Obama has gotten off scott-free. This is making them absolutely livid, and they're going to keep trying to gin up a scandal, even if there's no there there. Benghazi may not be an actual scandal, but it's all they have handy."

November 16, 2012 3:13 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This week, a number of Republican senators have strongly criticized the administration for failing to properly explain the circumstances surrounding the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi. Some of those senators failed to show up for a briefing on the attack Wednesday.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has been the leading congressional critic of the administration's handling of the Benghazi attack and what he sees as the administration's lack of candor with Congress on the matter. On Wednesday, he pledged to block the potential nomination of U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice to replace Secretary of State Hillary Clinton due to Rice's statements on the attack. That drew a sharp rebuke from President Barack Obama at Wednesday's press conference.

But although McCain had time to speak on the Senate floor and on television about the lack of information provided to Congress about the attack, he didn't attend the classified briefing for senators Wednesday given to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, of which he is a member.

Committee ranking Republican Susan Collins (R-ME) called out McCain for skipping the briefing and said his call for a special committee to investigate the Benghazi attack was not necessary because the Homeland Security committee could handle it.

Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), "who was there at briefing, and Senator McCain, who was not, are members of our committee, and I know they would play very important roles," Collins told Politico.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), another Homeland Security committee member who was on television complaining about the lack of Benghazi information, also did not show up for the Wednesday hearing. Paul did a CNN interview from the Capitol building Wednesday in which said he had questions about the anti-Islam video, the lack of Marines in Libya, and diplomatic security. At one point he says, "I don't know enough of the details."

The closed and classified briefing included representatives from the State Department, the Defense Department, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the National Counterterrorism Center, and the FBI, an administration official said. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a classified hearing on Benghazi on Tuesday and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence will hold one Thursday, but McCain and Paul are not members of either of those committees.

"If you want answers, a good first step is to show up and ask a question," an administration official told The Cable. "That's what a senator does."

UPDATE: According to his spokesman Brian Rogers, "Senator McCain was absent from the hearing due to a scheduling error."

November 16, 2012 3:34 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Rasmussen Reports:

57% Favor Tax Hike On Those Who Make Over $250,000

Friday, November 16, 2012

Most voters favor raising taxes on those who earn more than $250,000 a year but recognize that that won’t be enough to balance the federal budget.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 57% of Likely U.S. Voters favor raising taxes on people who earn more than $250,000 a year. Thirty-five percent (35%) are opposed. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on November 15, 2012 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence...

November 16, 2012 10:12 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Gallup: Obama favorability jumps to 3-year high

President Obama's favorability has jumped to a three-year high in the week following his reelection, with 58 percent of Americans now saying they have a positive opinion of the president.

The number represents a three-point improvement for the president since a similar survey conducted by Gallup in the days immediately preceding last week's presidential election. And it is Obama's highest mark since July 2009, when two-thirds of respondents said they had a favorable opinion of the president.

Obama's all-time high point was a 78 percent favorability rating shortly after his inauguration in January 2009.

Interestingly, former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has also earned a bump in popularity since Election Day. The former Massachusetts governor saw his favorability cross the 50 percent threshold — up from 46 percent before Election Day. That means Romney has actually gained more in his favorability ratings than the president, despite criticism from many in the Republican Party following his loss.

"Americans view both 2012 presidential candidates more positively now that the campaign is over, as Obama turns his attention to governing for the next four years and Romney to a future role outside of presidential politics," Gallup's Jeffrey M. Jones said in a statement.

Romney's bump mirrors that of Sen. John McCain in 2008. The Arizona Republican saw his favorability jump to 64 percent from 60 percent after being defeated in President Obama's first national campaign.

Both the Democratic and Republican parties also saw improvement since the bitter days before the election. Democrats posted a 6-point improvement following their victories on Election Day, improving from 45 to 51 percent. Republicans, meanwhile, gained a point, moving from 42 to 43 percent.

November 17, 2012 8:59 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

you do realize that 60% of the us tax bill is paid by the top 5% and that in Maryland if you have two wage earners making 100K the second person, assuming 3 kids, is working to keep just 30K of the second salary.

that's because the eic and child credits disappear, and if there kids are older their tutition credits disappear. so the numbers don't change much, and as that familty becomes a 125K each dual earner family the numbers get worse....

so this Thanksgiving, as my company is shut down for the holiday (it's one of the struggling little businesses throughout the country) I am trying to figure out if one of us should quit... just quit, because if you can only keep 20% of the second salary, well, why bother ? because you also kill any ablity for your children to get student loans by pulling in that second salary.

I actually have decided I am going to lease a creative domain name and publish the result of my investigation... one I never dreamed I would be doing for another 6 or 7 years.

now here is the really interesting thing... we have established that these 5% of the top wage earners pay 60% of the bill, (that's only over 100K)... and we know that of that top 5%, 77% only are in this bracket because both parents work... so since haven't found the numbers, yet, let's make some quick generalizations, shall we ?

say that top 250K to about 500K is paying 40% of the federal bill, which seems like a resaonable assumpting because once you go over that 500K number you really aren't talking earned income anymore, you are hitting capital gains rate, which as well all know because of Warren Buffent and Romney, are much lower. Earned income however, is not. and also assume that 1/2 of that 77% of dual earner spouses run the numbers or read the webpage I am getting ready to make and decide to just stop working, after all if you can only keep 20% of the seoond salary, it hardly seems worth it. So assuming my calculation is correct, .77*.5*.4 * 2.2 trillion, or 340 billion would be the lost income to the federal govt, though actually the fmailies wouldn't be affected anymore really then they would be by the increased tax rates, for one, we pay 70K now and if one of us quits we pay 20. 340 billion is 3x the cost of Obama care, the largest item on the budget. oh, and by the way, these are per year numbers..... no over 10 years. It will decimate the federal govt income .... wow. how perfect.

atlas shrugged. I will be sure to post my website later this weeek.

have a great day

November 17, 2012 2:55 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"I'm tired now of the elections," Bush, who had endorsed Republican Mitt Romney, said at a forum on America's first ladies. "People spoke. Move on, get on with it. I want to do other things and not to be ugly."

"They are going to have to compromise," said Barbara Bush, the wife of former President George H.W. Bush. "It's not a dirty word."

November 17, 2012 3:41 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

taxes have consequeences and people make choices.

November 17, 2012 4:43 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yes, taxes have consequences.

It might help you make your choice if you can remember the consequences of the taxes you paid during the Clinton Administration and compare them to the consequences of the taxes you didn't pay during the Bush Administration.

November 17, 2012 6:12 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

first of all.

the person that raised the spending up to over 1 trillion was Barack Obama. It was 500 billion under bush. It hasn't been under 1 trillion since.

the person that increased the fed deficit 6T, barack obama.

the person that decided to remove the work requirement from welfare and extend food stamps to folks without kids, raising them to 47 million and advertising in mexico for folks to cross our borders illegaly, barack obama

EIC to illegals and child tax credit to illegals, almost 5 billion last year.

what's another 300 billion from those of us that have no desire to support such irresponsibilty.

I am going back to finishing the dishes, making a fire (we keep our heat pretty low), gathering up and itemizing the rest of the stuff for good will, and then starting my research. most of that work hard are doing it to give the money to the feds, we are doing it to put our kids through college and make a better life for them, and you are not going to let enough of that income to be able to accomplish that, well, again, why bother ?

November 17, 2012 6:19 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

As Democrats continue to bask in the post-election schadenfreude of watching Republicans weep and gnash their teeth at losing the presidential election, the sense that conservatives are the architects of their own misery is only enhancing liberal glee. It seems the initial shock hasn’t warn off: In a conference call with his fundraising team, Mitt Romney is still blaming his loss on those freeloading Americans who wanted stuff.

Clearly, the only explanation for all this delusion is that conservative media and campaign consultants, steeped in years of confidently lying about everything from global warming to the causes of the deficit, got a little too bold about their ability to create their own realities. The only question is whether conservatives will learn their lesson and exhibit more skepticism about their self-selected news media in the future.

The answer is almost surely no, for a very good reason: Conservative credulousness is so baked into the culture of the right that it could well be considered a defining feature. This has been true for as long as movement conservatism as we know it has existed, and there’s no real reason to think conservatives are going to sharpen up about this now, as clearly demonstrated in the comment above this.

November 18, 2012 10:10 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

okay, you do realize that we had a trillion dollars spent on welfare programs this past year... not social security and no medicare, but medicad+food stamps + unemplomet + subidized housing.

1 trillion. total national income was 2.4, total spending about 3.5
the amount of the ANNUAL national debt. Up and amazing amount since your guy became the president.

we can't afford to keep doing this, because there isn't enough money to pay everyone to continue to sit on their dairy are, and those of us who continue to work won't tolerate it.

If we can't vote it out, we will stop contributing to it. You can't force us to work. And if consificate too much income, we will simply chose not too... and your fiscal situation simply gets works, and then we become Greece.

what about this don't you get ?

November 18, 2012 1:36 PM  
Anonymous Welfare was redefined by GOP Senators said...

"Welfare” traditionally refers specifically to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, the federal program that was created in 1996 to replace the Aid to Families With Dependent Children program — also known as “welfare” — that had existed since the New Deal. The federal government spends $16.5 billion a year on TANF and, combined, the states spend another $10-11 billion.

That's at most $27.5 billion a year.

So how did your pals, the Senate Republicans, crank the dollar amount so high? They are now counting 83 separate (and wildly different) programs as “welfare” in order to make the case that the government is spending more on poor people than old people. The majority of this money is Medicaid and CHIP, which are healthcare spending, which is increasing for the same reason that Medicare spending is increasing, which is that healthcare costs are increasing.

To your Senate Republican filibustering friends, many other things now also count as welfare, including Pell Grants, public works spending, Head Start, child support enforcement, the Child Tax Credit, Foster Care assistance, housing for old people, and much more. They’re also counting the Earned Income Tax Credit, which is, traditionally, the form of “welfare” that conservative Republicans actually support. Basically, all social spending (though specifically not spending on rich old people or on healthcare for veterans with service-related disabilities, which Republicans requested be excluded from the CRS report) now counts as “welfare.”

Twenty-seven and a half billion dollars was spent on actual TANF welfare for individuals. Whatever policy flaws might afflict it, welfare for individuals at least has a noble rationale: the alleviation of suffering. Not so corporate welfare—which has all of the disadvantages of social-welfare spending with none of the benefits.

Washington ladles out about $100 billion a year in handouts to the undeserving rich in the form of corporate welfare but only $27.5 billion for TANF.

Corporate welfare enjoys the support of Republican-leading corporate honchos and Chambers of Commerce, which are sometimes as allergic to a truly free market as your run-of-the-mill campus Trotskyite. Business leaders often like nothing better than a government-supplied leg up on the competition.

Republican politicians often happily oblige. Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, for instance, has doled out cash and assistance to a host of businesses big and small: Backcountry.com, an online retailer, received $300,000 last year. General Electric got the same amount to recruit and train workers for an IT center in Henrico. Virginia spent millions to bring a Microsoft data center to Mecklenberg, and doled out millions more to help billionaire filmmaker Steven Spielberg film a Lincoln biopic.

When he zeroed out funds for public broadcasting, McDonnell insisted, “We must get serious about government spending. That means funding our core functions well, and eliminating spending on programs and services that should be left to the private sector.” Recruiting and training workers for General Electric qualifies as a core state function?

I get this fine. You are the one falling for another trick by GOP Senators -- redefining what welfare is to make a bogus case.

But then you are only in stage two of the 5 Stages of Grief Over Mitt Romney's Loss. I do hope you'll get over it soon so you can quit whining and getting your facts wrong.

November 18, 2012 3:57 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"A series of polls conducted in recent days could give new ammunition to the Obama administration as it negotiates the "fiscal cliff," with Americans indicating they generally support raising taxes and are focused more on economic stability and job growth than immediately balancing the budget.

According to a poll released Friday by Rasmussen, 57 percent of voters say they agree with the president's proposal to raise taxes on those making more than $250,000 per year. Thirty-five percent of those surveyed say they oppose that move.

Meanwhile, a new poll of New Hampshire by Democratic-affiliated Public Policy Polling showed that nearly half of all voters there — 49 percent — say President Obama's mandate following his reelection is to focus on jobs. That's compared to only 22 percent of voters who say the president's mandate involved reducing the debt.

In the same survey, only 36 percent of respondents said that the president was tasked with striking a compromise with congressional Republicans. Voters were more likely to say that the president's mandate was to stand up for middle-class families, even if that meant a confrontation over the fiscal cliff of tax hikes and spending cuts.

"The mandate of 2012 was clear. Tax the rich, use that money to invest in jobs, and do not cut Social Security and Medicare benefits for regular people," said Progressive Change Campaign Committee co-founder Adam Green in a statement. "Americans want President Obama to fight for them if the Republicans stand in the way, not settle for a bad compromise."

On Friday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said that Republicans would be open to additional revenue from the wealthiest taxpayers — but only in exchange for entitlement reforms.

"I can say on the part of my members that we fully understand that you can't save the country until you have entitlement programs that fit the demographics of the changing America and the coming years and we're prepared to put revenue on the table, provided we fix the real problem, even though most of my members I think without exception believe we're in the dilemma we're in not because we tax too little but because we spend too much," McConnell said after a meeting at the White House with the president and other top congressional leaders.

The prospect of that fight also has Americans concerned that the country could plunge over the fiscal cliff. More than half — 51 percent — of respondents to a Pew survey released last week say they do not think the two sides will be able to come to an agreement."


Also:

"A new poll released Monday showed that nearly two-thirds of Americans believe President Obama will make a sincere effort to reach across the aisle as lawmakers work to avoid the looming "fiscal cliff."

But while 65 percent of Americans think the president is willing to compromise, less than half — 48 percent — say the same about Republicans in Congress, according to the Gallup survey. Meanwhile, some 57 percent of Americans say that Democrats in the legislature will make a sincere effort for compromise."

November 19, 2012 5:46 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"A series of polls conducted in recent days could give new ammunition to the Obama administration as it negotiates the "fiscal cliff," with Americans indicating they generally support raising taxes and are focused more on economic stability and job growth than immediately balancing the budget."

that's the problem with governing by poll

you get a bunch of contradictory crap

raising taxes would tend to reduce job growth and since they don't care about the deficit, why raise taxes

"According to a poll released Friday by Rasmussen, 57 percent of voters say they agree with the president's proposal to raise taxes on those making more than $250,000 per year. Thirty-five percent of those surveyed say they oppose that move."

that's the problem with governing by poll

you get a bunch of contradictory crap

the purpose of taxes is to raise revenue

from Calvin Coolidge to John Kennedy to Ronald Reagan to George W Bush, every President who has lowered tax rates on the wealthy has seen revenues to the government increase

it's a economic fact

I know what you guys will say: b-b-b-b-but Bill Clinton raised rates

but Clinton also slashed regulations and reduced government expenditures, unleashing economic growth

as a matter of fact, most of the stuff you say Bush did to wreck the economy, financial deregulation, was actually done by Clinton

"Meanwhile, a new poll of New Hampshire by Democratic-affiliated Public Policy Polling showed that nearly half of all voters there — 49 percent — say President Obama's mandate following his reelection is to focus on jobs."

mandate?

it's our demand

he ignored unemployment in his first term

but the CBO estimates that eliminating the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy will cost 250,000 jobs

that's the problem with governing by poll

you get a bunch of contradictory crap

"That's compared to only 22 percent of voters who say the president's mandate involved reducing the debt."

remember when Obama agreed to extend the Bush tax cuts last year?

he said the economy was too weak to handle raising taxes on anyone

the economic growth rate is lower now

"In the same survey, only 36 percent of respondents said that the president was tasked with striking a compromise with congressional Republicans."

that's funny

because a lot more than 36% voted to send a Republican to Congress

what do you think they wanted them to do?

rubber-stamp Obama's socialist agenda?

that's the problem with governing by poll

you get a bunch of contradictory crap

November 19, 2012 10:11 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Voters were more likely to say that the president's mandate was to stand up for middle-class families, even if that meant a confrontation over the fiscal cliff of tax hikes and spending cuts."

I hate to break it to you but Obama lied to get elected

he said Romney was planning to raise taxes on the middle class

Romney favored no tax increases

neither do Repubs in Congress

so what is Obama defending the middle class from?

the big bad Republican straw man?

"The mandate of 2012 was clear. Tax the rich, use that money to invest in jobs,"

Obama has been borrowing a trillion a year

why hasn't he invested in jobs?

"and do not cut Social Security and Medicare benefits for regular people,""

regular people?

like who?

everyone with any sense knows entitlement programs must be reformed

indexing to true inflation, raising retirement age to reflect higher life expectancy and quality, giving less benefits to the wealthy could make the system solvent

and yet, Dems must demagogue

they are endagering our way of life

"said Progressive Change Campaign Committee co-founder Adam Green in a statement. "Americans want President Obama to fight for them if the Republicans stand in the way, not settle for a bad compromise.""

one way for presidents to ruin their secind term is to listen to the fanatics who claim they elected them

"On Friday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said that Republicans would be open to additional revenue from the wealthiest taxpayers — but only in exchange for entitlement reforms."

and also not by raising marginal rates

obviously, the wealthy pay most of pour bills now and will continue to do so

but just raising tax rates will be self-defeating

if you want more taxes from millionaires, maintain economic conditions that will produce more millionaires

"The prospect of that fight also has Americans concerned that the country could plunge over the fiscal cliff. More than half — 51 percent — of respondents to a Pew survey released last week say they do not think the two sides will be able to come to an agreement."

do they even understand what they're talking about?

the fiscal cliff is a series of tax hikes

yet, you say Americans want to raise taxes

that's the problem with governing by poll

you get a bunch of contradictory crap

the only poll that matters is the one last week when almost half of Americans voted to send represenatives to Congress who promised not to raise tax rates

those elected representatives will, and should, do evrything in their power to keep those promises

after all, they were elected by telling the truth

and Obama was re-elected by lying

November 19, 2012 10:11 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Your side lost and you are a whiner.

November 19, 2012 10:19 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

fascinating way to dodge the truth

the election maintained the status quo

just because the worst fears of liberals weren't realized, didn't mean they "won"

Republicans maintained control over anything passed by Congress, Republicans maintained control of most state legislatures and givernors' mansion and Obama became the first re-elected President to win with fewer votes than his first election

yeah, I can see why liberals are dancing in the streets over this historic victory

you might try to get your news somewhere other than MSNBC

November 19, 2012 10:42 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The truth is your side lost and you are a whiner.

November 19, 2012 11:07 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

we have everything we had before the election

not many would call that a loss

meanwhile, Dems whine that rich people don't pay enough in taxes

and Obama whines that Congress won't do everything he tells them to

buck up, fellas

the rich will pay more in taxes when there are more rich people and Congress will do what Obama tells them to do when Obama proposes what's best for the country

of course, Congress would consider any proposal at all from Barry

ideas don't appear to be his forte', however

November 20, 2012 5:35 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Obama's "ideas" were strong enough to win election to be President of the United State of America, twice. You can't say the same about Romney's dismissive ideas about the 47%, dreamers he thinks should "self-deport," young people who do not have parents rich enough to give them college loans, and women who prefer making their own reproductive decisions rather than turning them over to some "limited government" officials who do not understand science and would force their religious views on everyone.

Explain Away the Gay
Opponents of same-sex marriage went 0-for-4 in the election. But they have lots of excuses.


"Until this year, opponents of same-sex marriage had never lost a statewide referendum. They’d won 32 straight times. Two weeks ago, the tide of public opinion finally overwhelmed them. They lost all four measures on the November ballot—one to ban gay marriage in Minnesota, and three others to permit gay marriage in Maine, Maryland, and Washington.

Are they humbled? Shaken? Worried that the country might be turning against them? Not a bit. The leading conservative lobby on this issue, the National Organization for Marriage, has cooked up a handy set of post-election excuses. Here’s the list.

1. We never really had a shot. Last year, when Minnesota lawmakers voted to put the issue on the 2012 ballot, NOM predicted victory, noting that “deep blue states” such as California, Maryland, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin had rejected gay marriage. In January of this year, NOM released a survey purporting to show that Washington state voters were “not in favor of redefining marriage.” When same-sex marriage advocates in Maine, stung by a previous defeat, filed signatures for a rematch, NOM President Brian Brown scoffed, "The people of Maine are not in favor of redefining marriage, as we showed in 2009. Gay advocates are fooling themselves when they say things have changed.” In February, when Maryland lawmakers voted to legalize the practice, Brown warned them, "The people of Maryland do not support same-sex marriage.” In May, NOM predicted a “clean sweep” of the four ballot measures.

On Election Day, the clean sweep went the other way. NOM snapped into action. Overnight, the four easy wins became, in retrospect, impossible uphill struggles. “We knew long ago that we faced a difficult political landscape with the four marriage battles occurring in four of the deepest-blue states in America,” Brown pleaded in a Nov. 7 statement. Tom Peters, NOM’s cultural director, told PBS, “Going into these four state fights, we had no illusions. These were deep blue states.” Indeed, Peters marveled, “It`s amazing, with all of the cultural forces trying to redefine marriage, that we’re still here in 2012, just barely seeing some footholds gained in deep blue states.” Those plucky defenders of traditional marriage, holding their ground against all odds as they defend our culture against our culture.

2. We have the momentum. All year, NOM said it was gaining ground. In May, Brown asserted:

"Actual vote percentages in favor of traditional marriage are rising. In 2008 in California, the Prop 8 constitutional amendment on traditional marriage passed with 52% of the vote. Then in 2009 in Maine, 53% of voters stood for traditional marriage and rejected same-sex marriage legislation. In 2010, 56% of Iowa voters rejected three Supreme Court judges who had imposed gay marriage in that state. And now more than 60% of North Carolina voters have passed a constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman. There is a clear trend line, and it is moving in our direction.""

November 20, 2012 7:27 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"In September, NOM touted a poll that suggested only 48 percent of likely Maine voters would support same-sex marriage. NOM’s press release crowed, “New Poll: Gay Marriage Under 50 Percent in Maine!” Citing this and other surveys, NOM argued that support for gay marriage was “falling further behind” in Maine and would fail again. On Oct. 26, Brown told reporters, "The momentum is clearly behind our efforts to protect marriage in the four states voting on November 6th. Pro-marriage activists have always won the closing argument and this November will be no different.” On Nov. 2, Brown repeated that in all four states, “the polls are trending in our favor.”

So when supporters of gay marriage topped 50 percent and beat NOM in all four states on Nov. 6, Brown had some explaining to do. Were NOM’s claims of pre-election momentum fake? Didn’t four losses after the previous wins in Maine and California signify a decline for his side? Not at all. “The polls were moving,” Brown assured NPR’s Neal Conan on Nov. 14, but “we weren't able to get over the finish line” because NOM lacked the “resources necessary” to prevail. In other words: We used to win these states, and we were ahead again this time, but somehow we ended up behind, though we were gaining all along. So send us more money.

3. It’s Obama’s fault. In April, NOM endorsed Mitt Romney for president. In May, when President Obama endorsed same-sex marriage, NOM declared war: “NOM Promises Pro-Marriage Americans Will Defeat Obama This November for Abandoning Marriage.” NOM named five “swing states” where marriage would be a “defining issue” against Obama: Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, Florida, and Nevada. On Nov. 2, NOM added Wisconsin and Pennsylvania to the list of states in which “we are proud to work” against the president’s re-election.

Four days later, NOM came up empty. Obama won six of its seven targeted states, plus the four states with marriage ballot measures. So NOM reversed its spin. Opposition to gay marriage hadn’t failed to defeat Obama. It had miraculously survived him. His re-election was a mysterious force of nature, like Hurricane Sandy. “This was sort of an Obama wave,” Brown told NPR. “A lot of people are looking up and saying, ‘I cannot believe the turnout.’ That turnout did help those that wanted to redefine marriage.”

November 20, 2012 7:28 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Inundated by this wave, opponents of gay marriage had proved their potency not by electing Romney but by outpolling him. In the four ballot-measure states, “we outperformed the Republican presidential candidate by over six points, on average,” said Brown. By adding this cushion to Romney’s 48.4 percent of the popular vote, Brown calculated, "Had marriage been put to a national vote, the evidence suggests that our side would have captured 55% of the popular vote.” Indeed, based on its privately commissioned poll of “800 randomly selected people who actually voted,” NOM reported that 60 percent of respondents agreed that "marriage is between one man and one woman.” These figures, of course, were far more reliable than the national joint media exit poll, in which a 49 to 46 percent plurality of more than 5,200 voters said yes to the question, “Should your state legally recognize same-sex marriage?”

4. We still have the blacks. In February, NOM warned Democratic state legislators in Maryland that they’d “have to answer to their constituents, including the upwards of 70% of African Americans who oppose redefining marriage." Later, NOM launched radio ads in North Carolina, promising to use black conservatism on gay marriage as a wedge to turn African-Americans against Obama.

Both threats fizzled. In North Carolina, 96 percent of blacks voted for Obama. In Maryland, the percentage of blacks opposing gay marriage fell to 54 percent—and black women voted narrowly to legalize it—fatally depriving NOM of the margins it had expected. “The majority still supported traditional marriage,” Brown argued, making the best of the debacle. That spin, too, was undermined by the national exit poll: Blacks supported gay marriage 51 to 41 percent, and Latinos supported it 59 to 32 percent. Yet Brown continues to peddle his issue as a bridge-builder for the GOP: “There are key groups like the African-American community, like Latinos and others, that we can reach out to.”

NOM is far from dead. Its record is 32-4. And when Brown says cultural change isn’t always a one-way street, he’s right. But the excuses he has concocted for this year’s skunking won’t survive further defeats. If same-sex marriage keeps rising in national polls, and blacks keep shifting, and NOM starts to lose in purple states when Obama’s no longer on the ballot, the myth of the fearsome traditional-marriage lobby will unravel. And there won’t be a closet big enough for NOM to hide in."

November 20, 2012 7:28 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"If same-sex marriage keeps rising in national polls, and blacks keep shifting, and NOM starts to lose in purple states when Obama’s no longer on the ballot,"

nice to fantasize

but none of this has happened

in baseball, you don't play the bottom of the ninth if the visiting team can't win

32 states have constitutional amendments banning gay "marriage"

time to stop dividing and degrading America

accept that the country is not going to endorse your lifestyle but will permit you to do what you want

that's a better deal than you get in most places

so, stop your whining

November 20, 2012 8:19 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Obama's "ideas" were strong enough to win election to be President of the United State of America, twice."

you mean his lies were

he ran ads that played on every commercial break for months that said Romney would raise taxes on the middle class and raise Medicare fees 6400 a year

yet, Romney proposed neither

and Obama had proposed no new ideas, for one simple reason: then, he would have to explain why he hadn't acted on them as yet

"You can't say the same about Romney's dismissive ideas about the 47%, dreamers"

actually, that's about how many people in America don't pay any income tax at all

"he thinks should "self-deport,""

does someone prefer forced deportation?

or should we not enforce immigration laws?

"young people who do not have parents rich enough to give them college loans,"

that would be most people

and Obama proposed nothing about bringing down the ridiculous costs of college

"and women who prefer making their own reproductive decisions"

you mean prefer to decide whether to murder their children

"rather than turning them over to some "limited government" officials who do not understand science"

the world is only safe when science answers to morality

if fiction, from Frankenstein on, doesn't convince you, how about real life examples such as the Nazis and eugenics

"and would force their religious views on everyone."

you mean like when Obama tells Catholics they have to pay for someone else's contraceptives?

November 20, 2012 8:34 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"you mean his lies were

he ran ads that played on every commercial break for months that said Romney would raise taxes on the middle class "


No, that was not a lie. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center concluded that, under the broad parameters Romney has set forth, the bottom-line tax bill for middle-class families would rise by about $2,000 in 2015.

So if lies matter to you, did you vote for Romney even though his pollster said this about the Romney campaign:

'We're Not Going to Let Our Campaign Be Dictated by Fact-Checkers'

November 20, 2012 2:47 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"No, that was not a lie. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center concluded that, under the broad parameters Romney has set forth, the bottom-line tax bill for middle-class families would rise by about $2,000 in 2015."

I'll be charitable and assume you you're not lying but just don't understand what you're saying

I don'tgive that benefit of a doubt to Obama, who knows just what he's saying

one thing is that the Tax Policy Center is not non-partisan

its partisan divide is not Dem-Repub but they advocate a big government and high tax society

that point being made, TPC did not use the broad parameters set by Romney

Romney set three parameters:

-reduce tax rates

-elminate tax deductions, credits and exemptions enough to make the reduction revenue-neutral

-spread the eliminated tax factors in a way that is neutral among the three economic classes

the TPC study assumes Romney will follow the first two and not the last

their basis is that the numbers don't add up to enough to do all three

even if that were so, there is no reason to think that the last would be the parameter sacrificed, other than bias

but it is not so

they only think the numbers don't add up because make assumptions about what tax factors are "off the table"

this can be easily seen by reading the appendix of the study

but, regardless, Romney proposed revenue neutrality between classes

you could argue that he wouldn't be able to accomplish that but to say he was planning to raise middle class taxes is a lie

"So if lies matter to you, did you vote for Romney even though his pollster said this about the Romney campaign:

'We're Not Going to Let Our Campaign Be Dictated by Fact-Checkers'"

I hate to break it to you but the "fact checkers" were biased and the more they went on, the more their "facts" became unproven assertions and opinions, if not quotes of fallacious studies, such as the TPC study

that's what their campaign was referring to

but, of course, with the bias of the mainstream media, you never hear the truth

November 20, 2012 10:06 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Now you've gone from Nazis and eugenics to attacking the nonpartisan messenger again, proving once and for all you are full of nothing but hot air.

The fact checkers were not biased and Nate Silver was not wrong. The American voters did not buy what Romney, the GOP, and the secret PAC funders were selling and now Obama has four more years with a large mandate to his credit and no upcoming election campaign to worry about.

Get over it, accept reality, and quit your whining.

November 20, 2012 10:57 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Now you've gone from Nazis and eugenics to attacking the nonpartisan messenger again, proving once and for all you are full of nothing but hot air"

attacking?

I just checked the facts and found the TPC study was flawed

you should try it sometime instead of letting everyone else do your thinking for you

TPC makes assumptions and calls them "facts"

and you haven't addressed that

because you can't and not reveal that you actually never looked at the study yourself

the example of Nazis and eugenics, btw, indeed speaks to an amoral reliance on science

science is a tool to use to make for a better life

when it drives moral choices, that's materiality

it's just the age-old golden calf and nothing else

"The fact checkers were not biased"

actually, all the various media outlets jumped on this bandwagon

usually, they'd have a list of about twelve items

the first, and sometimes the second, would be hits and the rest would descend into a bunch of dubious interpretations and opinions

maybe, if you're not going to read the TPC study, you should go back and read one of those "fact-checking" lists

if you had done that to begin with, you might not look so stupid

"and Nate Silver was not wrong."

I didn't actually bring him up

"The American voters did not buy what Romney, the GOP, and the secret PAC funders were selling and now Obama has four more years with a large mandate to his credit"

he has no mandate because he didn't present the country with any plan or proposal to move us forward

that's the problem with basing your campaign on demonizing your opponent

you present no vision of your own for the people to endorse

hence, no mandate

the Republican majority that Americans sent to the House of Representatives, however, clearly presented its vision

and they have a mandate to work toward achieving their promises

"and no upcoming election campaign to worry about."

no, he's the lamest of ducks

problem is, the people he can't achieve anything without, those in Congress, do have to worry about election

is this a great country or what?

"Get over it, accept reality, and quit your whining."

this seems to be the only thing you can say

you're really scared to read that TPC study, aren't you?

here's reality: Obama lost Congress in 2010 and didn't it back in 2012

he's a lame duck and an impotent politician

I know you're one of the few fools that actually believe the hype the media is currently selling

that the election was the greatest progressive victory of all time

meanwhile, life outside goes on around you

November 21, 2012 12:06 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

whoa!

anon really slammed that TTFer to the mat!!

guess TTers will read up before making stupid comments in the future

happy big day tomorrow!!

RGIII will make that turkey, Tony Romo, look like someone who should retire

November 21, 2012 7:41 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anon, the Tax Policy Center's analysis of the Romney plan is not difficult reading.

But the fact is, Romney's plan doesn't matter now, because he lost the election. All you're doing now is runnin' down my country, as Merle Haggard put it. I agree with those other anons, you are a big crybaby and a whiner. See if you can come up with something constructive.

November 21, 2012 9:47 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Anon, the Tax Policy Center's analysis of the Romney plan is not difficult reading."

I don't think so either

my guess is the TTFer who doesn't understand it just didn't read it

but, you do have to look at the assumptions to understand why their conclusion is fallacious, or at least, not meant to be used the way Obama did

"But the fact is, Romney's plan doesn't matter now, because he lost the election."

well, it matters quite a bit, for two reasons:

1. Obama claims the voters disavowed it, but if he misrepresented it, the claim is not valid

2. the Representatives that Americans elected to the House of Representatives support it, and if they accurately described it to voters, which they did, they have a mandate from voters to pursue its enactment as national policy

"All you're doing now is runnin' down my country, as Merle Haggard put it."

you're making the mistake of assuming Obama the Deceiver is the personification of America

far from it

what would really run down the country is if Obama succeeds in raising taxes while our economy is so shaky

double dip recessions destroy the morale of country and take a long time to recover from

"I agree with those other anons, you are a big crybaby and a whiner."

your repetition of this assertion is simply a cover for the fact that you know I'm right

Obama lied about Romney's proposals and, thus, has no mandate

Congressmen who told the truth were elected to a majority in the House of Representatives and Obama will have to learn to compromise with them if he wants to accomplish anything

marginal tax rates have to come down

we can bargain on how much, and maybe it won't be as far as Romney proposed, but that's what needs to be done

and Americans have sent Congressmen to DC to do it

if Barry sits in the White House and simply vetoes everything, he will be viewed as an obstructionist and Americans will elect a Congress that can override his vetoes in two years

"See if you can come up with something constructive."

we have a plan for growing the economy, which is more than Obama has proposed

his ideas begin and end with taxing rich people to punish them for succeeding

even if you agreed with this resentment of those who have done better than you, no one believes it will grow the economy

lame ducks have a very narrow window of opportunity to accomplish anything

if Obama wants to have a positive legacy, he needs to learn the art of compromise now

November 21, 2012 10:48 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

dim-witted TTFer said:

"The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center concluded that, under the broad parameters Romney has set forth, the bottom-line tax bill for middle-class families would rise by about $2,000 in 2015."

the TPC themselves say about their study:

"Because we have received no details on proposals to reduce tax preferences, the TPC analysis does not include those proposals."

"Governor Romney would permanently extend all the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts now scheduled to expire in 2013, repeal the AMT and certain tax provisions in the 2010 health reform legislation, and cut individual income tax rates by an additional 20 percent. He would also expand the tax base by cutting back tax preferences, but has supplied no information on which preferences would be reduced."

"The plan would recoup the revenue loss caused by those changes by reducing or eliminating unspecified tax breaks, thereby making more income subject to tax. Gov. Romney says that the reductions in tax breaks, in combination with moderately faster economic growth brought about by lower tax rates, will make the individual income tax changes revenue neutral compared with simply extending the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. He also promises that low- and middle-income households will pay no larger shares of federal taxes than they do now."

"Because Gov. Romney has not specified how he would increase the tax base, it is impossible to determine how the plan would affect federal tax revenues or the distribution of the tax burden. TPC has analyzed instead the effects of the specified proposals in the Romney plan. These estimates provide a guide as to how much the base broadening would need to raise taxes in different income groups to achieve the plan’s targets."

as you can see, the TPC themselves admit that Romney proposed to make the tax rate cuts revenue neutral

and nowhere did they say he was wrong

they said they couldn't determine whether the numbers worked because Romney didn't say which tax breaks he would reduce or eliminate

he proposed to do but, wisely, left the specifics to negotiations

Obama lied about Romney's plan and, thus, has no mandate

and Republicans aren't powerless to press the point

nothing can pass Congress without their approval

thanks to the American voter

November 21, 2012 12:54 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

as you can see, the TPC themselves admit that Romney never even said what his plan was!

November 21, 2012 1:04 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

his plan was to reduce tax rates and eliminate deductions, credits, exemptions and exclusions to make the taxes paid revenue neutral for all economic classes

they didn't calculate the exact amount because Romney said they were all on the table

such a calculation would be irrelevant because Romney favored making it revenue neutral and the final proposal would be designed that way

Obama lied and said Romney only favored reducing rates

I'm starting to think you're lying when you say you don't understand that

November 21, 2012 1:23 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Romney lost.

Americans did not vote for him or his plan.

November 21, 2012 1:44 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

actually, almost half of Americans did

and even more voted for a Congressman who supports his plan

but the big things is the American people were lied to by their President

Romney proposed tax rate cuts and finding a equal amount of tax preferences to achieve revenue neutrality

Obama lied and said Romney proposed to raise taxes on the middle class

if you say Dems won because they held their position, you'd have to say Repubs won too, because the positions are still the same

Dems have WH, Dems control Senate agenda but won't and can't pass anything, Repubs control the House

the election was a draw

but the Repubs have a mandate because they told the truth and half of America voted for it

Obama thought he could get away with lying, but it has consequences

now that we've settled that, let's move on to the next lie in all his commercials

that Romney wanted to raise Medicare fees by $6,100

November 21, 2012 2:46 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

ooOOOooo...

that's a big one

Obama definitely lied about that!!

November 21, 2012 2:48 PM  
Anonymous Hee-hee said...

"Almost half of Americans" voted for Romney! That is terrific, Anon. I love that.

MORE THAN HALF OF AMERICANS voted for the other guy, who won. That's all that matters, you can assert whatever you want about how wonderful Romney's plan would have been if he'd had one, but it doesn't matter.

He lost.

November 21, 2012 2:58 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

well, as you will find out, it matters a great deal

you are under the mistaken belief that the President has the power to raise taxes or cut spending

everything he does is subject to approval by the House of Representatives

and the representatives Americans sent support Romney's plan

so any tax and spending bill that passes will look an awful lot like Romney's proposal

all Obama won was the right to live in a nice house on Pennsylvania Avenue and go the Kennedy Center Honors Show

he could try to rally the American people to pressure Congress to do what he wants, but so could any citizen

and, honestly, he's not too good at that

November 21, 2012 3:25 PM  
Anonymous lame quackeroo said...

"The White House is whining about the idea, floated by House Speaker John Boehner on Wednesday, that changes to the president's signature health care law should be on the table during lame-duck talks over taxes and the deficit.

An administration official said that the president doesn't want to change his Affordable Care Act in the negotiations taking place to stave off the so-called "fiscal cliff."

A Senate Democratic aide, however, did concede that some big changes will be made to the Affordable Care Act as part of a grand-bargain deal that would replace the expiring Bush-era tax cuts with new tax cuts.

The comments came in response to an op-ed, written by Boehner for the Cincinnati Enquirer, in which he declared that the Affordable Care Act "has to stay on the table as both parties discuss ways to solve our nation’s massive debt challenge. Obamacare and tax rates are coming down whether the President likes it or not. We won the election for the House of Representatives and elections have consequences.""

November 21, 2012 4:12 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

As the TPC noted, Romney did not have a plan. So that is not an issue that requires a lot of discussing. Also, he lost.

You should be very proud as a Republican that the House of Representatives' successful and skillful gerrymandering allowed them to keep a majority of the House with a small minority of the votes. The American people do expect the House to continue to be unwilling to negotiate or to propose meaningful bills to get the country what it needs, and you can claim their intractable stubbornness as a huge victory for your point of view. I guess. To the rest of us, they just look lazy and selfish.

November 21, 2012 4:13 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

those TTF turkeys are something else

they keep on gobbling, even though they're hobbling

dim-witted TTFer:

"As the TPC noted, Romney did not have a plan."

excerpt from TPC:

"The Romney Plan

In his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, Mitt Romney has proposed permanently extending the 2001-03 tax cuts, further cutting individual income tax rates, broadening the tax base by reducing tax preferences, eliminating taxation of investment income of most individual taxpayers, reducing the corporate income tax, eliminating the estate tax, and repealing the alternative minimum tax (AMT) and the taxes enacted in 2010’s health reform legislation."

so the TTFer claims that TPC says Romney had no plan and TPC has a section describing Romney's plan

pretty blatant lie by a TTFer, but that's nothing new

"So that is not an issue that requires a lot of discussing."

not if you're enjoying our curent economy

if you want to see a growing economy with abundant job opportunities though, you might note that this plan worked for Coolidge, Kennedy, Reagan and W Bush

"Also, he lost."

he lost the presidential race but the President doesn't unilaterally determine tax and spending policy

if he did, Obama would have raised all our taxes long ago

Republicans have control of the body that determines tax and spending policy

"You should be very proud as a Republican that the House of Representatives' successful and skillful gerrymandering allowed them to keep a majority of the House with a small minority of the votes"

Repubs didn't have a "small minority of the votes"

the difference was miniscule

Dems draw district lines to their advantage when they can

the Repubs were able to draw lines to their advantage because the have won 3/5 of state legislatures and governorships

you lost

get over it

stop whining

"The American people do expect the House to continue to be unwilling to negotiate or to propose meaningful bills to get the country what it needs,"

the House has passed numerous bills since Repubs took over in 2010

Harry Reid won't bring them to the Senate

if he did, they could negotiate the difference

the House has passed what their constituents asked for

Dems need to learn to negotiate and compromise

"and you can claim their intractable stubbornness as a huge victory for your point of view. I guess."

that's called commitment

and since Reid won't even discuss the passed bills, he seems the stubborn one

"To the rest of us, they just look lazy and selfish."

BS. the do-nothing President and Senate are the ones that won't do anything

Repubs have passed their bills

the Dems need to drop their refusal and learn to negotiate

and I stop the pointless

November 21, 2012 11:46 PM  
Anonymous gobble it up said...

today, we can be thankful that FOX News is the highest rated cable news network and MSNBC is rotting at the bottom of the barrel

explains why Republicans control the House of Reprsentatives in Washinton and most state houses across the country

"NEW YORK –- MSNBC President Phil Griffin labels his network's sensibility as progressive, but the cable news channel could also be described these days as simply pro-Obama.

In the final week of the 2012 election, MSNBC ran no negative stories about President Barack Obama and no positive stories about Republican nominee Mitt Romney, according to a study released Monday by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism.

MSNBC's afternoon and primetime hosts kept their sights on Romney and the Republicans during the election cycle, while spending considerably less time holding Obama accountable on issues like civilian casualties from drone strikes, use of executive power and the Afghanistan conflict, the nation's longest-ever war, which escalated under the current White House. Instead, the network's top partisan hosts seemed to circle the wagons around the Democratic president during his reelection bid.

Former President Bill Clinton remarked earlier this year that MSNBC "really has become our version of Fox," the conservative cable network owned by Rupert Murdoch and run by veteran Republican operative Roger Ailes. While such comparisons invite charges of creating a false equivalency between the two networks, it's generally accepted in political circles that MSNBC hosts are likely to favor Democrats as Fox News hosts pull for Republicans.

That perception of MSNBC has gravitated into pop culture, too, with even NBC comedians recently piling on. Last month, "Saturday Night Live" mocked MSNBC hosts' reaction to Obama's poor first debate, which the show dubbed the "worst thing that ever happened anywhere." Jay Leno joined in last week on "The Tonight Show," joking that "the economy is so bad MSNBC had to lay off 300 Obama spokesmen.""

November 22, 2012 6:52 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Fox News Viewers Know Less Than People Who Don't Watch Any News: Study

November 24, 2012 10:13 AM  

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