Romney has chosen Paul Catholic Randroid “Tax Cuts for the Rich” Ryan for his running mate? I guess the American Plutocracy has decided there is no point in pretending anymore.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
So a VP pick designed to make sure his own party votes for him? That will help a lot in the general election.
Tax Cuts For The Rich!*
*Because it only crippled, not killed the economy last time.
A Romney/Ryan ticket? Holy crap. It’s the start of a new book: Atlas Wanked.
To be fair, they haven’t exactly done a good job of hiding their plans for a second Gilded Age, even before Paul Ryan was selected.
The last 12 years were them pretending?!?! WTF, we’re DOOOOOMED!
As a naturaluzed Wisconsin resident may I personally pronounce Paul Ryan an unadulterated slime-ball.
PZ, are you saying you don’t want a theocratic plutocracy in the United States?
I knew it. The entire Republican party is accidentally poe’ing itself.
It’s like alien hand syndrome, except it’s a party platform.
is this the evidence needed to prove that the republican party and the putative nominee are dead from the neck down?
That they have no idea but one to every problem no taxes on the upper classes and a bigger military with which to “deal” with other nations.
is this really just dropping the pretense and embracing the illusion that any “makes it on their own” and it is not “We The People”.
They really do not seem to see that they have any social responsibility at all. If you are not wealthy it is your fault and do not deserve any help what so ever?
word fail me
Gee, on a one to ten scale, this will make me think about voting for Romney/Ryan about a minus 10. Blech *shivers with disgust*
It’s the Fuck You We Got Ours ticket. Bound to be a big fave with the entitled crowd.
This might be a blessing in disguise. By passing over Portman, Romney is at risk of losing Ohio, which he needs to win the election, sparing us a full blown theocratic oligarchy for another 4 years.
Ryan was the only other guy left in the clown car.
To the people (using the term VERY loosely!) behind the foisting of Ryan [heh! heh! heh!] on the utterly empty-of-anything Rmoney, the USA had finished serving any, in their {omnipotent) view, real purpose since the death of Reagun.
According to the internal (and divine) calculations of the flinthard little adding machines that operate inside them in place of what you or me would call our “hearts,” maximum profit and advantage has pretty much been attained, and any remaiining profit is in dismantling the operation and selling of the land and equipment, lest people without white skin, loveless Protestestism and Northern European ancestry become wealthier than themselves.
It’ll be interesting to see if money alone can buy an election like this, even against a man with dark skin. A horrible and obviously true thing to say about this now disgusting nation is that any “white man” would be elected if faced by a ticket as awful in every way as Rmoney/Ryan.
If they DO buy it, America can at least say to themselves, like in the Frankenstein movie, “We deserve to die.”
You all have it wrong. Romney/Ryan is a Chinese Communist plot to destroy any remaining US manufacturing industry, thus reducing the US to a PRC dependency. The US military will become mercenaries working for the PRC as the US economy will no longer support them. Why do you think the Republicans want to keep political donations secret if not to hide the foreign government funding?
And I hope that my 16 is seen as sarcasm. The tag has got lost
…you did see what they did to Ohio?
“Ohio headed toward extra voting time for Republicans only”
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/the-rachel-maddow-show/48582101
This is awesome! The Ryan Budget is amazingly unpopular among independents, and Romney just made sure we’ll be talking about it for months.
For some reason, I suddenly have an overwhelming urge to play Bioshock.
“Ryan, they all look like overgrown kids who got nipple-twisted in the halls in high school, worked as Applebee’s shift managers in college, and are now taking revenge on the world as grownups by defunding hospice care and student loans and Sesame Street. They all look like they sleep with their ties on, and keep their feet in dress socks when doing their bi-monthly duty with their wives.”
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/tax-cuts-for-the-rich-on-the-backs-of-the-middle-class-or-paul-ryan-has-balls-20110407#ixzz23H66zZxY
Except he never worked at Applebees or anywhere else for that matter.
Maybe Ryan can be made to hang as an albatross around Romney’s neck much like Palin did around McCain’s. We can only hope.
@AndrewD
This is where Poe’s Law is in effect. I know you’re joking, but seriously, I could see a lizardmen conspiracy person saying something like that.
Psychic predictions:
1) Obama wins in a landslide in November.
2) Tea Party tears itself away from Republicans and forms a third party.
3) Republicans and Tea Partiers continually split the conservative vote, allowing Democrats easy wins and control of the Supreme Court for the next 50 years.
4) America’s slide into mediocrity takes a few years longer than it otherwise would have.
I can dream, can’t I?
Paul Ryan has denounced Ayn Rand after he found out she was an atheist.
“I reject her philosophy… It’s an atheist philosophy. It reduces human interactions down to mere contracts and it is antithetical to my worldview.”
What really sucks is Paul is one of my brother’s best friends, and I don’t like Paul’s worldview, but I love my brother, so ya, it sucks.
It will also suck living here for awhile. Lots of cameras everywhere.
@ #19
It seems that both parties have written off the so-called independents and undecideds – there are just too few of them to matter. It’s all about getting your own people to the polls now. For that reason Ryan may be a smart choice.
Chuck, here’s what’s more likely to happen:
1) Obama wins in a landslide in November.
2) Tea Party tears itself away from Republicans and forms a third party.
3) Democrats and Republicans form one second party, and progressives are permanently shut out of the national conversation.
4) America’s slide into mediocrity is less steep, but still inevitable.
Surprised?
It’s all Rebecca Watson’s fault, don’t you know?
Ryan is one of the biggest nails in the coffin of Rmoney’s campaign.
http://www.electoral-vote.com/
The same was true for Palin. And like in Palin’s time, there are too few of the Reptilians’ own people for them to win.
@A3kron
If you believe that you’re…naive.
Ryan has not changed his philosophy at all. He’s distanced himself from an atheist figure.
I dont think people will care as much as last time, romney isn’t as likely to die in the next 4 years as mccian. I am sure ryan will say some stupid bullshit to add to the heap from the origial campaign though, that ought to be fun.
Why? How in the nine hells do they think Ryan is going to help? He isn’t going to win them many independents. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops denounced his budget. (and most U.S. Catholics are quite to the left of the bishops) This is only going to keep the focus on tax cuts for the rich, which is only going to keep the pressure on Romney to release more of his tax records…
I don’t get it. The Tea Party and Randroids are not going to compensate for Obama’s lead with indy’s, women, blacks and latinos. And the whole vouchers for Medicare thing? Ya just lost Florida there buddy. Maybe Arizona too.
Of course, Ronmey could denounce all of Paul’s ideas. Which brings us back to: Why?
Paul Ryan = Rand Paul – just another Libertardian who wants to eradicate all government spending except for the Welfare for the Wealthy which obviously needs to be increased at least tenfold.
Romney has a similar problem that McCain had in 2008. Romney was the choice of the Republican leadership, someone who appealed to the money side of the party. However many Republicans aren’t thrilled by Romney, so he had to pick someone who would meet the cultural needs of the Religious Right and their hangers-on.
Condoleezza Rice wouldn’t have caused James Dobson, Pat Robertson, and that bunch to support Romney. He needed someone who was obviously Christian (Ryan is a Charismatic Catholic like Santorum), anti-abortion, anti-contraception, anti-same sex marriage, and otherwise anti-people like the Religious Right. Plus Ryan, as an economic know-nothing, is acceptable to the Republican leadership.
I suppose this is the acid test for American politics – if the Republicans actually manage to win the presidential election, despite a ticket that is so obviously configured to further augment the privilege of the most wealthy by gouging everyone else, then it will be proof positive that the bulk of the Amereican electorate truly are incapable of recognising their own interests, and are ripe for whatever panic mongering, xenophobic line the Republicans want to feed them. If that comes to pass, then I really do fear for the future of the US.
Hopefully, David Marjanović is right @ 29, and Ryan’s ultra conservative, small government not-Randianism will prove as toxic to Romney as Palin’s gross ignorance of international affairs, ‘death-panel’ blather, and ridiculous pre-election sabre-rattling did to McCain.
I’m cross-posting several comments I added to the Lounge thread earlier today.
That’s him. Paul Ryan has learned to back off a bit on his worship of Ayn Rand, and he has learned that he can feed half-baked economic plans to all manner of right wing organizations and they will call it a gourmet treat. He hasn’t learned to live a reality-based life.
He wants to shrink entitlement programs, and the wants to turn Medicare into a voucher program. Highly unrealistic.
He has been seen sipping Jayer-Gilles 2004 Echezeaux Grand Cru with lobbyists/economists. Source.
Think Progress posted a good piece on Ryan’s budget plan. The link above is to the part about decimating city and state budgets.
Here’s the Think Progress article that details how Ryan’s budget would hit poor and low-income Americans.
Ryan’s budget gives $3 trillion in tax breaks to the rich, and despite Republican claims, does not solve the deficit problem. Link.
There’s more, but I think there is a link limit per comment and I don’t want to exceed it.
Debunking Paul Ryan’s Bizarre Claim That Food Stamps Are ‘Unsustainable’
More detailed fact check on Paul Ryan’s budget. This is from March 25, 2012.
The New York Times calls Ryan’s budget “careless,”The Careless House Budget
The GOP is trolling the USA, but someone forgot to inform the republicans.
Dick Cheney, “I worship the ground Paul Ryan walks on.”
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/05/cheney-i-worship-the-ground-paul-ryan-walks-on-video.php
After Paul Ryan’s father died, he used his father’s social security benefits to help pay for college.
Other than that bit of direct help from entitlement programs, Ryan grew up as an upper middle class to rich kid.
Indirect help for the entire Ryan family came in the form of government contracts for construction work.
http://www.npr.org/2012/08/01/157716398/how-congressman-paul-ryan-is-shaping-the-gop
@tomh
I’ve never heard of this Ryan guy before now and have no idea how well he chimes with the republican base (i’m not american). If he does though (chime) and this was a politically calculated move to get people out to the polls it seems like it would be a disastrous strategy for a couple of reasons off the top of my head.
1. The republicans have been incredibly effective in fostering anti-obama sentiment during this administration. To the point that the base doesn’t need shoring up. This is an Anyone-But-Obama election. They might not be crazy about Romney but they were already guaranteed to show up at the polls.
2. If this guy is further to the right than Romney or seems more politically dangerous than Romney that has an effect in galvanising the opposition. There’s a lot of people especially on the “far left” spectrum of the democratic party who aren’t too enthused about voting for Obama again. They will vote against a (potential) objectivist nutcase.
3. They have tried this strategy before with Palin at a time when the base actually needed shoring up. It seems clear that they cannot win without either diminishing democratic party support or appealing to swing voters. Like I say I haven’t heard much about this guy before but even a brief amount of research has uncovered a wealth of stuff that a democratic campaign strategist could use to turn swing voters off the guy.
I personally applaud Romney’s decision and will look forward as ever to seeing the crashing of his presidential campaign.
Paul Krugman on the Republican’s culture of fraud.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/10/culture-of-fraud/
Excerpt below:
Still on vacation, but I have internet access for a bit, and have checked in on a few matters. The big story of the week among the dismal science set is the Romney campaign’s white paper on economic policy, which represents a concerted effort by three economists — Glenn Hubbard, Greg Mankiw, and John Taylor — to destroy their own reputations. (Yes, there was a fourth author, Kevin Hassett. But the co-author of “Dow 36,000″ doesn’t exactly have a reputation to destroy).
And when I talk about destroying reputations, I don’t just mean saying things I disagree with. I mean flat-out, undeniable professional malpractice. It’s one thing to make shaky or even demonstrably wrong arguments. It’s something else to cite the work of other economists, claiming that it supports your position, when it does no such thing — and don’t take my word for it, listen to the protests of the cited economists….
Ryan has the most important thing the Republicans need that Obama lacks. He is white
Not another Palin. On NPR this morning one of the pundits interviewed said that the race was now between Ryan and Obama. This may say more about the undefined character of Romney than the strength of Ryan, but Ryan is a lot stronger than Palin.
The NPR interview also included a comment about Ryan’s budget plan, with lots of laudatory adjectives, and one throw-away “but” in that Ryan doesn’t specify the loopholes he would cut. That’s a bigger missing piece than the Republicans and most pundits are admitting. There are not enough loopholes to make up for Ryan’s $3 trillion tax cut. You will have to cut “loopholes” that benefit middle class familes and you will have to do what Republicans have been accusing Obamacare of doing — throw grandma under the bus.
Pell grants, tax credits for lower income families who contribute to the education of their children, food assistance for poor families, etc. — all that stuff has to go.
Republicans are saying one thing, “We don’t raise taxes on anyone,” and doing another. They are ignoring the consequences of their budget plans which do effectively raise taxes on the lower and middle classes, while giving breaks to the rich.
I know this budget stuff bores a lot of people, but economics will affect our culture and not just our pocketbooks. In another thread our own economist, ‘Tis Himself, said that he would not be voting for Romney because Romney’s economic policies will damage the USA.
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities looks at the Romney plan, Romney Budget Proposals Would Require Massive Cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, and Other Programs: http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3658
Ezra Klein on the Romney budget:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/08/09/mitt-romneys-wrong-you-can-balance-the-budget-through-taxes-but-you-may-not-want-to/?print=1
Ing: The World is Dying @ 30;
Well, at least Ryan was smart enough to find out that Rand was an atheists – most of the Randroids are christians who lap up her poisonous objectivist philosophy without ever twigging that she was godless.
It really is the measure of how utterly toxic Republicans find atheism that even a figure as revered on the Right as Rand – practically the patron saint of small government conservatism – has to be publicly disavowed by someone like Ryan when the whiff of elections floats on the air. Though, as you say, he has not changed his philosphy one iota; this is about avoiding any possibility that his image with the god-fearin’ good ‘ole boys could be tainted by association with any atheist.
It’s not just the economy, stupid.
The pro-choice group NARAL called the Mitt Romney-Paul Ryan ticket “a serious threat” for women. From NARAL President Nancy Keenan:
“Rep. Paul Ryan’s extreme anti-choice record shows just how serious a threat Mitt Romney’s presidency would be for women. He has cast 59 votes on reproductive rights while in Congress and not one has been pro-choice. Rep. Ryan has also repeatedly voted to defund family-planning programs and supported the ‘Let Women Die Bill,’ which would allow hospitals to refuse to provide a woman emergency, lifesaving abortion care, even if she could die without it. It comes as no surprise that Romney would choose a like-minded running mate who is just as out of touch with our nation’s values and priorities as he is. The Romney-Ryan ticket is dangerous to women’s health.”
Uh-oh. I smell trouble brewing. Well, trouble has already been brewed and scorched, but more is on the way.
Romney is already trying to distance between himself and Paul Ryan’s budget. Not gonna work.
The Obama campaign responds:
Yep, no daylight between the two. Ryan’s plan contains more details, but the bones of the two plans are pretty much the same.
Obamacare saves us money. Eliminating it will cost us money.
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/07/03/510349/study-medicaid-expansion-saves-states-billions/
“Join me in welcoming the next president of the United States, Paul Ryan.” — Willard Mitt Romney
Yep, he actually said that.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/08/11/13233102-the-significance-of-a-slip-up?
Romney called Paul Ryan “the next Vice President of the United States” at the beginning of his speech, and then as “the next President of the United States” at the end of his speech.
I’m sure the irony-deficient Romney didn’t notice how odd his choice of a mission-accomplished setting for his VP announcement was. Way to remind us of one of Bush’s more embarrassing moments.
Folks, you’re discounting the fact that Ryan is a favorite of the “liberal” media. He’s a “deep thinker” because he presented a plan with numbers… fake numbers, but numbers that the media can pretend could possibly be valid. He’s apparently an affable guy in person, and our “liberal” media values being personally likable at fancy cocktail parties to be the single most valid measure of a person and their politics. NPR and the NY Times and the Washington Post are going to bend over backwards to give Ryan a positive spin, because he’s the sort of guy they can have a happy conversation with at the Whole Foods or while summering in some gated vacation spot.
On the Paul Ryan subject, journalist Paul Begala calls it like it is. Excerpts below:
I would add that the figures from The Tax Policy Center give Romney every benefit of the doubt, letting Romney get away with projecting unrealistic economic growth, for example. I think that $86 billion shift of the tax burden to those making less than $200,000 would turn out to be much worse under the Romney plan.
Damned stuck / key…
Lynna, OM @ 47;
I suppose that it is scant surprise that Romney’s running mate would fit snugly in to the ongoing Republican war on women, but that doesn’t make me hate the little cretin any less.
What kind of person can vote for a legislative abomination like that and still sleep at night?
…Oh, of course, silly me – we are talking about Republicans here. Having your conscience surgically removed is an entrance rerquirement.
Learning more about Paul Ryan:
Here’s a video of Paul Ryan saying what he really thinks about Ayn Rand and the “moral case for capitalism” — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XYw9RtDbU8
Ryan puts both feet in his mouth.
@AndrewD #17: WordPress is apparently very very hungry for HTML tags. Or even tags that aren’t actually HTML tags but still look like them. If you really want to put fake tags into a comment you can use HTML entities, like so:
</sarcasm> becomes </sarcasm>
(and to actually get that first one, I had to type: &lt;/sarcasm&gt; … and to actually get that… you get the idea; can’t we just get a Markdown plugin or something?)
@Lynna #37:
That analysis fails to take into account that socialism will make everyone lazy and then nobody will work and then there will be no more food.
Steve Benen, writing for The Maddow Blog, excerpts below:
…And what is the vision crafted by a man who credits Ayn Rand for his involvement in politics? It’s one in which Medicare would be replaced with a voucher scheme; Social Security would be privatized; taxes would be cut even more for the very wealthy; and Washington would “take food from poor children, make it harder for low-income students to get a college degree, and squeeze funding for research, education, and infrastructure.”
What’s more, the Ryan plan does not reduce the debt, either.
This has always been less of a budget plan and more of a right-wing fantasy. As of this morning, Romney not only endorses this right-wing vision, he owns it — and in the process, he’s presented the electorate with a dramatic choice, not a referendum.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/08/11/13232078-so-much-for-the-referendum
Wait, also, he is catholic? Mitt’s church doesn’t take too kindly to the catholic church, being “the whore of the earth ” that should be cleansed with fire and everything……
http://www.exmormon.org/mormon/mormon327.htm
Journalist Michele Goldberg addressed Ryan’s extreme view on abortion in more detail.
Excerpt below:
That’s just religion and the absolute truth of the universe and afterlife, THIS is business! This trumps petty concerns like that
One of the puzzles in modern political economy is why anyone bothers to vote. Very few elections actually turn on the ballot of a single individual. There is a cost to voting—no state has an explicit penalty for staying home, but it takes time and effort to get to the polls—and there is seemingly almost never a benefit. Modern political and economic theory assumes the existence of rational, self-interested actors. On that basis, why anyone would vote is a mystery.
The answer is that we’ve been inculcated with notions of “civic virtue.” It is our responsibility to vote. But civic virtue is fragile. If the belief takes hold that the political and economic systems are stacked, individuals will feel released from their civic obligations. When that social contract is abrogated—when trust between a government and its citizens fails—disillusionment, disengagement, or worse is sure to follow. In the United States today, and in many other democracies around the world, mistrust is on the ascendant.
It’s even built in. The head of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein, made it perfectly clear: sophisticated investors don’t, or at least shouldn’t, rely on trust. Those who bought the products his firm sold were consenting adults who should have known better. They should have known that Goldman Sachs had the means, and the incentive, to design products that would fail; that they had the means and the incentive to create asymmetries of information—where they knew more about the products than the buyers did—and the means and the incentive to take advantage of those asymmetries. The people who fell victim to the investment banks were, for the most part, well-off investors. But deceptive credit-card practices and predatory lending have left Americans more broadly with a sense that banks and other financial institutions are not to be trusted.
Economists often underestimate the role of trust in making an economy work. If every contract had to be enforced by one party taking the other to court, the economy would be in gridlock. Throughout history, the economies that have flourished are those where a handshake is a deal. Without trust, business arrangements based on an understanding that complex details will be worked out later are no longer feasible. Without trust, each participant looks around to see how and when those with whom he is dealing will betray him.
Widening inequality is corrosive of trust: in its economic impact, think of it as the universal solvent. It creates an economic world in which even the winners are wary. In every transaction—in every encounter with a boss or business or bureaucrat—people see the hand of someone out to take advantage of them.
Nowhere is trust more important than in politics and the public sphere. There, we have to act together. It’s easier to act together when most individuals are in similar situations—when most of us are, if not in the same boat, at least in boats within a range of like sizes. But growing inequality makes it clear that our fleet looks different—it’s a few mega-yachts surrounded by masses of people in dugout canoes, or clinging to flotsam—which helps explain our vastly differing views of what the government should do.
Today’s widening inequality extends to almost everything—police protection, the condition of local roads and utilities, access to decent health care, access to good public schools. As higher education becomes more important—not just for individuals but for the future of the whole U.S. economy—those at the top push for university budget cuts and tuition hikes, on the one hand, and cutbacks in guaranteed student loans, on the other. To the extent that they advocate student loans at all, it’s as another opportunity for rent seeking: loans to for-profit schools, without standards; loans that are non-dischargeable even in bankruptcy; loans designed as another way for those at the top to exploit those aspiring to get out of the bottom.
Many, if not most, Americans possess a limited understanding of the nature of the inequality in our society. They know that something has gone wrong, but they underestimate the harm that inequality does even as they overestimate the cost of taking action. These mistaken beliefs, which have been reinforced by ideological rhetoric, are having a catastrophic effect on politics and economic policy.
Speaking of document dumps, isn’t the timing of his VP choice about the same as the timing usually used for releasing incriminating documents and such?
Avoid the news cycle, let things die down over the weekend, etc?
Curious.
The people I don’t understand are the Log Cabin Republicans and GOProud, both of whom praised the choice of Ryan this morning. “A bold and inspired pick,” said Jimmy LaSalvia, GOProud Executive Director. This is the same Ryan who voted to ban gay adoptions, voted against repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, voted yes on a Constitutional Amendment to ban gay marriage, voted yes on Constitutionally defining marriage as one man, one woman, voted no on enforcing against anti-gay hate crimes, and was rated 0% by the gay rights group HRC.
What’s the source for the info that Ryan used Social Security survivor’s benefit to go to college? My husband paid for college that way, after his dad died, but I noticed that Reagan eliminated that benefit in the early 80s, shortly after my husband graduated. Ryan is 42, my husband is 55. Something is inconsistent, unless this program was reinstituted. (It’s not available past the age of 19 now.)
@TisHimself
Good post. I’d be interested to know how aware you think the average american voter currently is to just how badly Wall Street has screwed them over in the last few years and if they realise how complicit both political parties have been in this.
Over here in europe rage against the bankers is well, all the rage. The inequalities in our societies seem to have been brought to the fore far more so than in the united states as issues that campaigns can be fought on. These are issues that can be easily understood, even through a media/news system that also mostly relies on soundbites and info-graphics.
I don’t think Americans are any stupider than the average european. So it must be something else. There does seem to be more of a consensus between the political parties that some subjects, such as financial regulation are off-limits leaving differences in social programs as the only real battleground for political debate.
Just a note. Unlike “idiot”, “moron” or “imbecile”, “cretin” is still just about a technical term, although “person suffering from cretinism” would be more common. Probably best avoided as an insult.
Voting is an expressive act. I enjoy going to the polling station, usually with Ms. KG, and making my mark(s) against my preferred candidate(s), although I am perfectly well aware it is very unlikely to affect the result. It’s only a puzzle to economists because they have such a (professionally) limited imagination.
That’s basically what the Occupy movement is all about. The trouble is the media, which many people forget is corporate owned, have denigrated, misrepresented, and even lied about the Occupy folks. The American public is being purposefully misinformed about economic, sociological and political realities. The actual information is available, if one does a little (often very little) digging. But many people don’t know how to get information and rely on the media, which includes some very unscrupulous people (I’m looking at you, Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes), to keep them informed.
As for the two political parties, Americans have the choice between a conservative party and a batshit insane reactionary party. Romney may be worse than Obama, but in several instances there isn’t much between them. The only reason I’m voting for Obama in November is because I know Romney and Ryan would be a disaster for both the U.S. and world economies.
Citation needed.
I find this all very depressing as I am old enough to realize that there is no place in this world or this time to go that will escape this catastrophe we seem to be obstinately trying to bring about.
I do not know how accurate this is but I read this art. and continue to watch things. 10 years? lot of things to watch
http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/savvy-scientist/cliodynamics-a-science-for-predicting-the-future/545
uncle frogy
I disagree. They are not inherently stupider, but much more money and effort has been put into making them stupid. Faux News, for example, has no real parallel in most of Europe, nor are televangelists allowed to pump out lies in the same way.
An economist apparently unable to imagine that people can enjoy voting, and testifying that other economists also show this lack of imagination.
I get all of my Romney campaign news from Bane Capital’s twitter feed.
KG, I’m not sure if you’re trying to be funny, if you’re trying to be insulting, or if you have an actual point to make. Please explain the joke/insult/point.
I got an email about this and read it as “Rand Paul” at first.
Is there a difference?
‘Tis Himself,
The point is quite simple: you were evidently unable to conceive that people might actually enjoy voting, and according to your testimony, other economists are similarly afflicted with a lack of imagination in this regard.
Paul Ryan. Because one empty suit on the ticket isn’t enough.
Somewhere, Paul Krugman is licking his chops.
‘Tis, you normally have pretty cogent things to say, so I don’t get why you reposted this silliness from Joseph Stiglitz. It’s true that when there’s mistrust and a sense that all the choices are equally bad there’s a feeling that there’s no point in voting, but I at least don’t think we’re quite there yet, and the way it’s framed in the post is patently ridiculous. You might as well ask why someone would collect rainwater, since it takes effort to stretch out a tarp or build a roof to drain into a bucket, and a single raindrop isn’t worth drinking.
pilot:
In a way, that’s good. I think we’ve already seen most of the counterfactual bullshit the right has been able to dig up on Obama; how much more do they have? It’s possible they’ll find (or fabricate) something new between now and the election, but they’ve been scrutinizing Obama for years, and I doubt that they’ve been holding anything back.
On the other hand, I’ve been surprised at the ferocity (and effectiveness) of the democratic attacks. It’s almost as if some superpac bought them a spine.
Yep.
They’re running Richie Rich and his mean cousin.
In 2020, Scrooge McDuck and the white-moustachioed dude from the Monopoly cards.
By the way, here’s a good place to start trying to figure out Paul Ryan: Roots
@ #64
It comes from an interview with Ryan from 2010. “With his father’s passing, young Paul collected Social Security benefits until age 18, which he put away for college.” He was 16 when his father died, so that would be 25 years ago.
Just wow. You know, in a normal year I would be thinking to myself, “these guys have gotta be kidding me. there’s no way in hell they have a shot at winning!” But with all between new voter suppression laws, unlimited super PAC funds, and the idiacy of the general masses, I’m genuinely afraid of what’s going to happen this November. Not that a re-elected Obama would be a tremendous step up, I would just rather have the far lesser of 2 very poor choices.
I hope this means that Paul Ryan will NOT run for his House seat this year. If he does run for re-election for his House seat, that says to me that he thinks they can’t win for POTUS/vPOTUS. Either way, I hope Paul Ryan is not in an elected office come January 2013.
One more thing… Fuck John Galt!
Okay, you were trying to make a point. Yeah, you put me in my place. Along with every other economist. I’m really impressed by how insightful your point was. Yes sir. I sure am impressed. I cannot express my gratitude of the point you made. I’ll put a note, with proper attribution, in the next issue of the Journal of Political Economics explaining that some guy on a blog likes to vote and he thinks this is important for economists to know.
(Hello Leukocytes, I am a Creationist. You are wrong about existential and metaphysical conclusions you’ve conned yourselves into believing since they can’t be proven.)
Regarding Paul Ryan, it would appear that the Romney campaign is sufficiently confident about Florida so that Rubio is unnecessary, and therefore they are coming after you in Wisconsin! Wow, if Obama loses Florida and Wisconsin, that wouldn’t look good for his re-election bid. Paul Ryan – a fiscal conservative – brings the Tea Party to Romney’s feet. How is that not a good strategy for ol’ Mitt?
And since this is a political thread, I’m going to jump outside the Veepstakes and ask this to the atheist brain-trust in here: the bluest state in our union is California, and California is bankrupt based upon decades of Obama-like spending, Obama-like economic policy, and Obama-like immigration policy. Obama is trying to reinvent the United States of America as a Johnny-Come-Lately member of the European Union. Sadly, it looks like Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and Ireland are flat broke based upon decades of Obama-like spending. Do we want food lines in the USA in an election year?
Would one of you well-read intellectual heavyweights care to chime in about why Obama deserves four more years? (Hint: Don’t use unemployment, Chick-Fil-A, closing Guantanamo Bay, jobs saved, jobs created, General Motors, Bank of America, recovery summer, Solyndra, green jobs, ending wars in the Middle East, extending Bush-era tax cuts, or “you didn’t build that” in your answer; otherwise you’ll just look like an idiot. Additional hint: For you idiots tempted to attack Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, the Koch brothers, W., Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Fox news, Sarah Palin, the Wall Street Journal, please reread my question before angrily pounding away on your keyboard.)
@raymondkoepsell
Romney already had the tea party. Who else were they going to vote for?
Because it’s better than the alternative.
raymondkoepsell
Overseeing the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is enough for me.
Been in them most of my life.
My mother has been in them for 10 years now. Ditto her husband. Most of our friends and people we meet have been in them.
Plenty of Americans are suffering, starving and dieing. Fuck “in an election year”, we shouldn’t have any food lines ever.
Replicians are actively fighting the ways to help poor people. Instead they want to create more of them and let them die. Hence the “Fuck You I’ve Got Mine” platform.
Because with Obama I and millions of Americans have a chance to live. Our chances of survival, as low as they are now (which is not due to Obama), goes down to almost guaranteed death. Millions more Americans will join us in the pit. Women will become breeding cattle and die due to the Republicans refusal to treat women as people.
With Obama there is a chance. With Republicans, any republicans, especially the ones running for president, my family will likely die on the streets.
*sigh*
Forgive those typos please. My apologies.
California is bankrupt because they made it so that the only way taxes can be raised is through an item voted on in a popular election. This means people vote for all the lovely things they want, and then vote against paying any additional taxes for it. It’s a recipe for bankruptcy, which is why ALEC pretty much wrote it (aka “Starve the Beast”).
If California had sane tax policy, they might not be bankrupt.
KG @ 66;
Noted, and I will edit the old lexicon accordingly. For the post in question, I would like to subsitute ‘git’ in place of the offending term.
@Ray
Obama is the choice that better defends the support and safety net for the middle and lower classes, better protects us from financial problems due to low regulation, better keeps the tax burden balanced and progressive, and protect homosexual rights.
Also California is not the “bluest state”. California has its own problems that are unique to it in how it’s budget is decided and its own fuck ups. Mitt himself seemed very happy with Obama like spending as you call it when he was Gov. Your knowledge of the state of European economy is also grossly misinformed. The situation had nothing to do with social welfare programs.
This question vexes me enough to make a separate response. If there are to be the need for food lines it will be regardless of president (and its more likely under Paul’s moving of the tax burden to the poor which does nothing to affect debt). If Paul and Romny prevent food lines it’ll only because they want to shut down such programs. Why are you so eager to let your fellow man suffer?
raymondkoepsell @ 84;
Most people on this blog are progressives, and most progressives aren’t exactly dancing in the streets about Obama’s track record in power. We are not arguing that Obama deserves four more years in office, so much as the alternative is far worse.
It is imperative to prevent a Romney presidency using the next four years as an opportunity to turn the US into a theocracy/plutocracy. The Bush administration was an unqualified catastrophe for the US and the broader world that embroiled us in two illegal wars that acheived little – and proved immensely costly in economic terms and, more importantly, in terms of lives lost – while also laying the foundations of the economic crisis we currently find ourselves in.
Given the track record of the last Republican administration, one shudders to think what a Romney/Ryan ticket would do in power.
It’s the only Christian thing to do? If the poor and downtrodden want help they can grovel to the nearest church or charity, and hope they are deemed sufficiently worthy. We can’t have people happy, safe and comfortable in life — that leads to them thinking they don’t need religious dogma.
Obama wins = I get health insurance for the first time in a decade
Romney wins = I do not get health insurance.
And that’s just the most proximate reason, of course.
imthegenieicandoanything — That’s Raygun, pard’ner, Ronnie Raygun and His Tiny Little Handguns. Shoot!
lol. exactly backwards. those EU states that are in trouble are the ones that most tried to be like the USA, or bought money from the USA. Germany for example is doing fine, Teh Ebil Soshulizm notwithstanding.
I wonder if Mr Paul Ryan knows that Ayn Rand is an atheist.
there are more food lines in the US than in Europe already. just sayin’
so, so, shocked that a creationist would be a fan of dishonest quotemining.
he does, which is why he “repudiated” her, by which I mean he said he did to appease the godbots, but his policies and philosophy haven’t changed one iota as a result.
‘Tis Himself @61, great post. Lot’s of good points in there. I’ll add to this point you made:
The co-chair for the fundraising team for Mitt Romney in Florida is the CEO of Full Sail University, a for-profit company. Romney touts Full Sail University as a good example of offering a good deal to students, and as offering an excellent education. “They hold down the cost of education by competing.”
Full Sail University charges $81,000 for a 21-month program. Depending on the program, graduation rates range from 14% to 38%. The median debt for students (all students, even those who don’t graduate) is $59,000.
The chairman of the private equity fund that owns Full Sail University is a major donor to the Romney PAC, Restore Our Future.
You can see Romney shilling for for-profit universities in this video:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#48603715 Maddow also provides a detailed look at the way such universities rip off our veterans, rip off tax payers, and just fucking fail in the field of education. Where they do succeed is in marketing. Marketing themselves is all they do well.
More on Romney’s financial connections to for-profit universities here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/us/politics/mitt-romney-offers-praise-for-a-donors-business.html
A particularly hilarious jab coming from a Creationist.
far more hilarious is that laundry list of Faux News lies we’re not “allowed” to use in our responses to the precious creationist
Amusingly you know who agrees with the “you didn’t build that” sentiment? Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations where he argues for a progressive tax rate with that justification.
If Creationism is supposedly a scientific theory about how the universe and human life came to being, why are virtually all creationists extreme conservatives?
There are plenty of scientist (REAL scientists, I mean) who are not at all progressive.
Shouldn’t there be a fair amount of liberal creationists?
Unless, of course, it’s NOT about thinking at all, but rather simply about accepting doctrine without question, packaged along with a lot of other fake doctrine?
(I think maybe I’ll started referring to the so-called Faith-Based Community as the Fake-Based Community).
Romney is doing what he needs to do to excite his base. Not sure if Independents or unhappy Democrats will be attracted to a Romney/Ryan ticket.
I expect an initial bump in the polls for Romney, but doubt it will last.
I see RK is doing his job playing Heinlein’s “
well meaningfool”. The slackjawed fool one asks on what they should believe, and then the opposite of what the fool says is the way to go. RK defending Romney? OBAMA IS THE MAN.Of course, there is a way for RK to stop this. He can choose to stop posting.
@Kayden
If the news accurately reports Ryan’s plan there shouldn’t be a lot of independent support. That’s a big “if” though. The news seems to like the idea that he’s the “deficit guru”
I’m surprised that Lynn gave a huge dump of reasons why Paul is a horrible person (not just candidate)…yet this was ignored.
smhll @64:
The source is journalist Ryan Lizza. The information was provided in an NPR Fresh Air podcast. You canlisten to the podcast to hear that bit.
http://www.npr.org/2012/08/01/157716398/how-congressman-paul-ryan-is-shaping-the-gop
Or, you can check the transcript here:
http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=157716398
raymondkoepsell @ #84
Where did you get that from? You been smoking some of that funny Humboldt loco-weed? Or buying your crack on Melrose? I don’t know what “California” you’re talking about. This place as been run by Republicans and for the rich for decades. It’s bankrupt because of Prop 13…a Republican anti-tax idea. The last governor was a Republican for the better part of 8 years. In fact, California has been led by Republican governors for most of the last 112 years. Now put down that pipe and pick up a history book.
@Robro
Not surprising. A common republican tactic has been “break the system then run on the platform that the system is broken and doesn’t work”
1. He saved the US from going over an economic cliff. His economic policies turned around a financial free-fall and pushed the job growth rate in the private sector back into the positive.
2. The economic policies he continues to propose will improve the US economy even more, and would have already done so if they had not been obstructed by the Republicans.
3. He lead the US to actually finally join the rest of the civilized world in terms of policy regarding access to healthcare.
4. Osama bin Laden. He made the call.
5. He ended the misadventure in Iraq, and is in the process of ending the one in Afghanistan.
6. HE IS NOT MITT ROMNEY.
7. HE IS NOT REPUBLICAN.
(Number 6 and 7 alone would have been enough even if he was a plastic cut-out with no achievements whatsoever)
California isn’t bankrupt. It remains one of the richest states in America, and is richer than most first world nations.
I just started White House Burning, a book that would make Paul Ryan nervous. From the Introduction:
I can’t think of a better example of a politician “peddling meaningless and contradictory slogans” than Paul Ryan.
epikt @78
Doesn’t matter if we’ve seen and identified the bullshit as bullshit. No new bullshit is needed for the Faux News crowd. They do very well chewing over the old stuff. There has been a resurgence of birtherism and of birther-related news stories. More right wing nutters believe now that Obama is not an American citizen than believed that bullshit when he took office. All that is required is constant repetition. Trump is a high profile Romney surrogate, and he is still on the birther band wagon.
This video begins with other subjects, but birtherism is discussed beginning at about 1:30 and ending at 6:22.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlcOtaR1akM
Statistics here: http://today.yougov.com/news/2012/07/11/birthers-are-still-back/
Amphiox — Maybe raymondkoepsell meant “morally bankrupt”. I’m sure you know, the state is in tough financial straits, mostly because of the economic stagnation (thank you, Prez Dubya, and your damn “Obama” programs) and several cities have declared bankruptcy. But true, the state doesn’t seem likely to go that far.
You know, I just realized that raymond is blaming everything on Obama in the same way some people blame everything on Rebecca. Maybe it’s genetic.
If Romney/Ryan get elected, I’ll be a billionaire.
My new company will deliver food, blue plastic tarps, do-it-yourself medical manuals, and bibles to the millions of old people living in our parks.
People forget what it was like before social security, medicare, and so on. The average lifespan in the USA a century ago was 47, 30 years less than today.
Okay. I’ll bite. I carefully checked your list of reasons that you think are off the table. We certainly wouldn’t want to use perfectly valid arguments if you have forbidden them.
I don’t think this was on your list. I have a vagina. I would like to remain in charge of my vagina. Republicans have been passing vagina-control laws at the state level and I am hoping to prevent them from passing vagina-control laws at the federal level.
Women’s rights.
Historically that is true.
1. They both have Popes who talk to god, the LDS one is “First President, prophet, seer, and revelator.
2. Two Vaticans, the LDS one is SLC.
3. Both One True religions destined to rule the earth.
What is going on is obvious. Both churches are struggling. And they hate us more than they hate each other.
Because the best thing the opposition party could cough up is a man who believes secular is a religion (yes, he said that). He subscribes to a religious faith that is notorious for trying to influence and, when possible, control politics wherever they gain power. A religion that was so obviously invented out of whole cloth that a third-grader should be able to see it.
He belongs to a party that gave the bulk of its votes in the primaries to three candidates who made no bones about their desire for theocracy, and another who thinks presidents can pretty much arrest federal judges for rulings they don’t approve of.
We are dealing with people who have no idea how the Constitution works or why this country was ever successful, and so wedded to platitudes and dogma that “cutting taxes” is seen as a positive policy no matter how low they might be now, no matter what past experience and evidence tells us, and no matter how gigantic the deficit gets.
The Republican party has been taken over by dangerously thick, information-resistant dogmatists and plutocrats. Shall we reward them with power?
I’m not sure “deserve” is the operative term, but four more years of Obama is the better choice.
I’m curious why a creationist would support Romny, a man who believes that an alien god that is an exalted moral from a distant star system, created Earth and mankind to give corporal bodies to his many many children he sired via fucking his wives, where Jesus and Lucifer are feuding brothers, and Adam may have been the mortal form of god himself.
One would think that Obama with his mainline Christianity, albiet not YEC would be closer to biblical literalism than an entirely different take on genesis
1. Obama is cleaning up the Bush Catastrophe, aka as the Great Recession. The Federal Reserve is projecting it to be done by 2018. He isn’t done yet.
2. I don’t want to live in a third world banana republic. I don’t want my kids or anyone’s kids to do so either.
There is no bottom.
Have they got to the Space Reptiles yet?
Seriously Creationists…Islam is closer to your religion than Mormonism!
OMG…they’re going to Wisconsin tomorrow! Is Mitt just being nice or are they worried they won’t carry Ryan’s state? I’m wagering a good many folks there will be glad to be rid of him.
raymondkoepsell@84,
Wow, where to begin? How about we start with your first big assumption-passing-as-question and move through them one at a time?
Okay, first we have the rhetorical “Paul Ryan – a fiscal conservative – brings the Tea Party to Romney’s feet. How is that not a good strategy for ol’ Mitt?”, which is a clueless assumption on an almost epic scale all by itself (and you’re just getting started, I know, but I’ll admit that you do manage to top this later on in the comment.) It assumes that what brings in the Tea Party diehards is actually good electoral politics, which is wrong on almost every level. A host of polls over the past year (starting with Pew and extending to every other reputable pollster who asked the question) show that the Tea Party and its ideas are now slightly more unpopular with the American electorate than even atheists. So while Mitt may rally the Tea Party by tapping Ryan, he simultaneously scares off many from the middle who might otherwise have voted for him. So bad is this effect that when Priorities USA tried to run a focus group of independents to see how they reacted to Romney’s proposals, they refused to believe that he was backing Ryan’s Medicare “reform” proposals (even though he has been) because they were so radical and (to the focus group’s minds) wrong. So no, this is not an electoral plus for Mitt; it’s a sign that he’s so desperate that he thinks he needs to shore up support in his own party’s base.
Your second (and even more epically clueless) assumption is that California is going bankrupt because the “liberal policies” of the state have made this happen. To begin with, you seem to have forgotten that Until very recently, the Republicans were essentially running the state (does the name Schwarzenegger ring a bell?) and even when they aren’t the very specific and limiting rules of the state make balancing budgets almost impossible. These were rules pushed, by the way, by Republicans. Then there’s the fact that you glossed over the other state that has recently declared bankruptcy: Kentucky. While it may not be the reddest state in the union, Kentucky is certainly no hotbed of liberalism (and I speak from experience, having lived there) and has approximately nothing in common with California except that they’re both states in the U.S. But since you’re a creationist, I don’t suppose that cherry-picking evidence bothers you.
As for your last “question”, I can answer it in one sentence:
President Obama actually gives a damn what happens to people who make less than $1 million a year and tries to act on their behalf, unlike his opponent.
America’s productive beta males now have a leadership team: Two patriarchal family men who offer to represent the interests of middle-status men who feel disenfranchised by liberal policies which enable women to marry the state as surrogate husband (like the fictional Julia), reject beta males as lovers and potential husbands, and indulge in their appetites for alpha male bad boys and cads. Men know on some level that premarital sexual experience ruins women for marriage and family stability, and the ones who want to turn this around would like to see restrictions on abortions and Malthusian Belts for the Sandra Fluke types to increase the supply of sexually unspoiled women who would make good wives and mothers.
They have my vote.
I honestly can’t tell if Markplus is serious.
Ing, I can’t even tell if markplus is actually saying anything coherent enough to call “serious” or “not serious”.
That is just a ripoff.
My old state university, one of the better ones, charges tuition now of ca. $8,000 for a 9 month year, instate. Facilities are new and excellent, swimming pool, intramural recreation, and so on.
This isn’t unusual for state system schools.
He seems to be saying the Tea Party will enslave all the women. And then finally he will get one, in the unlikely event he can raise the purchase price.
Unfortunately for him, his slave will likely run away or kill him. Slavery has always had those problems.
I wonder if Canada can absorb 100 million or so American women slave runaways?
@raven
It’s quite the friggin’ ripoff. University of Washington, my prospective university, is an excellent public school and charges roughly $11,000 annually and has some of the best research facilities in the country. Mind you, I probably won’t be using them (I’m not a biologist or a physicist), but it’s a fair price for good stuff. $81,000 for less than two years of school is more expensive than frickin’ Harvard.
You guys need to cut him some slack:
Paul Ryan on Bailouts and Government Stimuli
-Voted YES on TARP (2008)
-Voted YES on Economic Stimulus HR 5140 (2008)
-Voted YES on $15B bailout for GM and Chrysler. (Dec 2008)
-Voted YES on $192B additional anti-recession stimulus spending. (Jul 2009)
Paul Ryan on Entitlement Programs
-Voted YES on limited prescription drug benefit for Medicare recipients. (Nov 2003)
-Voted YES on providing $70 million for Section 8 Housing vouchers. (Jun 2006)
-Voted YES on Head Start Act (2007)
-Voted YES on extending unemployment benefits from 39 weeks to 59 weeks. (Oct 2008)
Paul Ryan on Education
-Voted YES on No Child Left Behind Act (2001)
Paul Ryan on Civil Liberties
-Voted YES on federalizing rules for driver licenses to hinder terrorists. (Feb 2005)
-Voted YES on making the PATRIOT Act permanent. (Dec 2005)
-Voted YES on allowing electronic surveillance without a warrant. (Sep 2006)
Paul Ryan on War and Intervention Abroad
-Voted YES on authorizing military force in Iraq. (Oct 2002)
-Voted YES on emergency $78B for war in Iraq & Afghanistan. (Apr 2003)
-Voted YES on declaring Iraq part of War on Terror with no exit date. (Jun 2006)
-Voted NO on redeploying US troops out of Iraq starting in 90 days. (May 2007)
raymondkoepsell@84,
In addition to all the excellent reasons given by the others, Obama and the Dems get my vote for ending Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and for coming out (at least sort of) in favor of marriage equality. It’s kind of refreshing to see a major political party actually start to treat me like a full citizen.
In the GOP corner, let’s see… we have a man who once claimed to be more pro-gay than Ted Kennedy (as if) but now supports a federal marriage amendment, and who tithes to a church that bankrolls anti-gay campaigns. And his veep pick has a dismal voting record according to the Human Rights Campaign. These weasels’ potential effect on the federal courts (including the Supremes) would pretty much fuck over my family and friends.
So yeah, on just this one narrow social issue alone, the decision is easy for me.
shripathikamath @135:
I can’t decide if you seriously think these votes honestly all show Ryan in a positive light, or if my sarcasm meter is broken. (NCLB, really? The frickin’ Patriot Act?)
Sorry what slack is there to give?
Also no we do not have to give the idiot who says he wants to cut food stamps (starve people) cut taxes to the hyper wealthy and increase tax burden on the poor for the sake of NOT lowering the deficit and do other bullshit while publicly worshiping Christ and Rand any slack.
robro
You should check the maps on 538. Nate Silver, the statistician who runs the place has put together an electoral predictions model based on polling and economic indicators. Last election his model’s final prediction correctly identified 50 of 51 states (DC is treated as a state in presidential elections).
His model currently gives Obama an 80.4% chance of winning Wisconsin.
Obviously things will change between now and November, but he actually doesn’t have a very good chance of winning the state. He probably should have picked someone from Ohio or Virginia if he wanted his VP to swing a state that went blue last time.
Incidentally, to the moron creo upthread:
Silver’s model gives Obama a 55% chance in Fl. If Romney is confident there he is as dumb as you are. He probably just figures it is worth the risk trying to pick off one of the bluer states since he can win Fl and still lose the election.
[meta]
Ouigui, perhaps you should recalibrate your sarcasm meter. :)
“Last election his model’s final prediction correctly identified 50 of 51 states (DC is treated as a state in presidential elections).”
should read
” Last election his model’s final prediction correctly identified the winner of 50 of 51 states (DC is treated as a state in presidential elections).
(he missed Indiana if you are wondering)
markplus, what are you smoking?
Eh, he’ll prolly bogart it all anyway.
raymondkoepsell:
Well, let’s see.
Federal spending under Bush increased from $1.9 trillion to $3.2 trillion, a $1.3 trillion increase. Bush took over during a thriving economy.
Federal spending under Obama has increased from $3.2 trillion to $3.8 trillion, a $600 billion increase. Oh, and $800 billion of that was TARP, to correct the mess left behind by the Bush administration.
You keep using that phrase. I do not think it means what you think it means.
raymondkoepsell
Yes, because the bedrock of my self esteem is intellectual validation from people who believe that a magic man pulled the universe out of his ass in just over 100 hours.
Incidentally a few of those reasons are not that bad. You can thank the Obama stimulus package for the fact that the economy is as well off as it is at this point. I know we aren’t well off, but the economy is actually recovering in spite of the fact that the congressional republicans’ top priority for the last 4 years has been stonewalling everything that has come into congress.
That last bit gets at the real reason that I will vote party line democratic ballots no matter what for the foreseeable future. Because the republican party is full of death worshiping paskudnyaks , and I would like nothing better than to see it thrown into the pit of sarlacc to be slowly digested to death for 1000 years.
John Morales:
Well, yeah, but then shripathikamath mentioned the social safety net votes, the ones that actually make Ryan look a little less like a soul-sucking dementor. So color me confused.
Ouigui, good point.
Ing
Its a difficult call. I’m leaning toward parody though, on account of creativity.
*squint*
not sure if joke or cross-contamination from Manboobz…
that wasn’t creative, that was cribbing from MGTOW and other “dudes who hate women” internet sites
Maybe strangeness is a better description; that wasn’t mean to sound complementary. Now that you mention it, the bizarre obsession with “beta males” is familiar from PUA and MRA trolls.
democracy has come to Gor!
@ Ing
It is worth pointing out that Joseph Smith was particularly inspired by mohhamad and sought to emmulate him.
Indeed.
Spending has increased less under Obama than it did under Bush Jr, Bush Sr, or Reagan.
The only recent President that beats Obama in fiscal responsibility is the other Democrat, Clinton.
It doesn’t actually matter if Ryan is actually, individually, pure as the driven snows of January.
The fact that he is part of the Obstructionist Republican ticket is reason enough to vote against him.
For reasons I have already described many times before, it is absolutely imperative for the practical health of US democracy that the Republican Party loses in 2012, so that the political strategy of obstructionism not be validated at the polls and gain credibility as a viable strategy for political parties to engage in and mimic.
The Democratic ticket could be fronted by mongooses and it would still be imperative to vote for them, assuming one cares about the continuation of functioning democratic government in America.
Think of how the GOP might think of this. Consider that they’re picking the best of the options in front of them. Regardless how you might feel about it.
Paul Ryan can motivate their base to go out and vote. This is not independents. This is simply the people who always vote Republican IF THEY SHOW UP. This guy might MAKE THEM SHOW UP.
However, on our side, liberals and progressives are disillusioned with Obama. Yes. He’s way better than Romney/Ryan. But we are disillusioned with him. The liberal base is disillusioned.
If people think “Obama isn’t that great. I don’t care that much.” but the far, far right thinks “Paul Ryan is sent from Jesus direct to us, we lose. Because they show up. And we don’t.
And that’s a possible angle. And it could work.
jeromehaltom, you’re only presenting half of the picture.
You’ve referred to the positive incentive Ryan might have with Republicans and the negative incentive Obama might have with Democrats, but ignored the converse.
(Not everyone is votes for, some vote against)
@158 John Morales
I witnessed the voting against phenomenon last election with my mother. I was not of voting age (and still am not… I get to miss the 2012 election by four months) and my mom was on the fence between McCain and Obama before Sarah Palin was picked for VP. This was helped by her remembering McCain as the moderate war hero of the 2000 primaries. Given Sarah Palin’s… being Sarah Palin, though, my mom was instantly turned off to the McCain campaign, recognizing her as a anti-woman idiot and religious nutter.
The republican party wants everyone to become rich, so they need to make being rich more attractive. What’s so hard to understand about that? As always, the ftb mob has shown a left wing, liberalist-communist view that only stands in the way to prosperity.
@160 crocodoc: The first two sentences of you post sound exactly like some inane parody of a right-wing nut-job. Your last sentence confirms the “inane” part.
Unless you were joking. I seriously can’t fucking tell anymore.
crocodoc — According to the Legatum Prosperity Index, the ten most prosperous countries in the world in 2011 were Norway, Denmark, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Canada, Finland, Switzerland, Netherlands, and at #10 the good ol’ USofA. You’ll note that most, if not all, of these countries ahead of the US are known for their “liberalist” socialist leanings, high-taxes, great educational systems, generous and effective pubic health policies, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. You’re accusation that “left wing, liberalist-communist” stand in the way of prosperity is not based on evidence. Furthermore, you’re assertion that Republicans, by which I mean the Republican party leadership, want everyone to become rich is not borne out by their policies and agenda which clearly promote the interests of the wealthiest people in this country at the expense of the rest of us.
Why vote for Obama? Because apparently, this is the alternative Romney wants to offer us:
I’m rather fond of the FDA, the EPA, national parks, and Medicaid and Medicare and a bunch of other things. This report doesn’t make it clear whether Ryan would suspend federal spending on transportation infrastructure. Anyone have information on that?
@ robro
crocodoc is just taking the piss. But it does raise the interesting question of why someone who is not rich would want to vote for the Rmoney camp. Especially when they are clearly not out to help any group other than their own (as you indicated).
It is a bit of a hard one. Other than the strange (to my mind, though well documented) effects of Authoritarian thought patterns, it might be a case of wannabes imagining that they on the 1% side of the fence and refuse to attack their own delusions. Stronger, they actually defend this delusion against all comers.
(Attempt at analogy: I cannot afford a yacht, and never will, but that does not mean I cannot find joy in all things yachting. If I attack the institution, I attack my own aspirations.)
So, does anyone have a picture of Ryan with the Wienermobile?
Or Romney in his Mormon missionary suite? There is this Photoslop shot of he and Ann in their pioneer undies. Amusing idea, though poorly executed.
Incidentally, I learned recently that Romney spent his 30-month mission in France. Tough assignment, hunh? I guess that will help him be at ease with Catholics, which is probably a good thing now that Ryan is on his ticket.
People need convincing that it would be nice to be rich?
theophantes — Thanks for the clarification. Didn’t mean to get all uppity. I get a little sensitive with those kind of lines. I have an uncle who is a staunch Republican who’s just another working class plow boy from Georgia…I can’t figure out what he sees in them, other than he’s quite the racist and the Republican’s “Southern strategy” has always been about that.
The choice was obviously made to appease the fascist/libertarian wing of the republicans, but they’ll never admit to it.
“Ain’t Pandering” is what they’ll say.
@ robro
Did you see the pictures of his trip to the planet Kolob? Linky.
You can get a lot from the oft linked: The Authoritarians (I can’t imagine he would read it, but it may help.)
Yeah its funny how mormon royalty (millionaire mormons) are never the ones who go on missions where they can catch regional diseases and parasites, eh? what a craaaaazy coincidence!
Beta males are further along in development and less buggy than alpha males.
Then there are the release candidate males which are a whole ‘nother matter.
Reading Jared Diamond, most previous societies declined due to depletion of natural resources and deforestation. The US is exceptional once again in its decline, in that it comes mainly from dumbfuckery caused by religious fundementalism, and the lust of a clique of privileged rich people to ruin the whole place for more personal wealth.
I really do hope that this is enough of a glimpse at the warning track for the ‘moderate’ voters (despite the Overton Window being ridiculously shifted) that the culture of greed and ignorance has to be confronted and halted right now. If the polls stay at the statistical dead heat, I can empathize with the US progressive voter, as I would be outraged and disgusted if this party and platform and candidates had that much serious consideration in my home country of Canada. I would be in a state of detesting half my countryfolk for being inhumanitarian, greedy, sanctimonious zealots and shits-for-brains. The concepts of the “American Dream” and “Exceptionalism” also have to be hunted down, beaten to death, stuffed in a weighted sack and dropped in the middle of the Marianas Trench, because a lot of the traction the GOP a-holes get is from these delusions, in addition to the Jebus-ly ones (but those are constitutionally protected).
Voted YES on making the PATRIOT Act permanent. (Dec 2005)
oh yes, we should cut something off politicians for that.
slack is not what I was thinking of though.
On the plus side, this is, I think, going to be the first ticket where neither pres or VP is a member of a mainstream WASP church. That’s some sort of progress and might lead to people being open to an atheist candidate in the future.
Also, 538 is calling this a despairation move, that is, a sign that Romney doesn’t think he can win 50.1% of the vote and so is trying a risky move in the hopes that it will pay off big.
So, while the glass is by no means half full, there’s at least a few molecules of water vapor in it somehwere.
Well, I’d have thought that, given their state of puzzlement (as you report), economists might actually have tried asking people why they vote; so far as I can discover from a quick google scholar search, they haven’t – or if they have, in an article I haven’t found, other economists have not taken any notice of the results. Of course, one would not accept people’s answers uncritically, but it would be an obvious place to start if economists in general were interested in how people actually make decisions, rather than in how economic theory says they should. From what I can discover, economists’ work on why people vote begins with Downs’ 1957 treatise An Economic Theory of Democracy. I don’t have immediate access to this, but WikiSummary’s summary concluded that a “rational voter” should almost never vote, because of the “costs” of doing so. This treatise seems to be the root of the puzzlement you report. But of course if a considerable proportion of potential voters in enjoy voting, the puzzle disappears. Might it not be worth some effort to find out whether this is actually the case?
Yeah its funny how mormon royalty (millionaire mormons) are never the ones who go on missions where they can catch regional diseases and parasites, eh?
No, no. You’re reading it all wrong. Rmoney’s soul was in deep danger in decadent France and he volunteered for the assignment to save other, poorer and therefore less trustwrothy, Mormoms from having to take the risk of being corrupted by the evil French. (/snark)
Excuse the stupid question, but can anyone explain to me why the US needs a LARGER “defense” budget? Who are they expecting to attack? We can already turn any invader into a pile of radioactive glass without trying and even if we play “nice”, like in Afghanistan or Iraq, destroy a country’s infrastructure and culture without working up a sweat*. What more do Ryan and Rmoney want?
*Always necessary disclaimer: Yes, I’m aware that the Taliban is not a nice group and that Hussein’s government was crappy and all, but numerou social indicators such as the total death rate and infant and maternal mortality have actually worsened under the US-backed regimes. An impressive achievement given the starting conditions.
the rest of government would largely have to disappear. That includes everything from veterans’ programs to medical and scientific research, highways, education, nearly all programs for low-income families and individuals other than Medicaid, national parks, border patrols, protection of food safety and the water supply, law enforcement, and the like.
Wow. If he manages it, I may have to carry out that long standing threat to leave the US. My partner and I both depend on research funding to keep our jobs and I’m paranoid as crap about food and drug safety. OTOH, less money for law enforcement…does that mean ditching the “drug war” and homeland security? Could get behind that plan…
For those of you who were going to Hold your nose and vote for Obama, does this make the choice less malodorous ?
It’s a bit confusing. The “tea-party” (a corporate created astroturf movement if there ever was one) has run on fiscal conservative and been legislating culture war social conservative. And the approval rating of congress right now doesn’t seem to faze the GOP in the least.
So they’re running Romney/Ryan. Could it be they realize they can’t win and are just running to show the colors ?
Or maybe their 10 million a week strategy will work. Time will tell.
Veering off-topic a moment…
@ Rip Steakface 134
My oldest is starting her second year at UW (Tacoma campus, but will move to the main uni next year, as the satellite campus can’t accommodate her pre-med major) and frankly I was amazed when we went to the orientation last year, and they broke down the numbers for us. I expected MUCH higher tuition for a University with that kind of reputation. Seeing the costs listed for a shitty for-profit program compared to that just made my jaw drop.
Good reasons to support Obama over Romney:
(1) Obama’s recent announcement that his administration will not seek to deport young undocumented immigrants who would have been covered by the DREAM Act, had it been passed, is an important step forward. Obama also says he will sign the DREAM Act if Congress passes it. Romney opposes both of those measures.
In saying this, I’m not pretending that Obama is great on immigrants’ rights – his administration has deported more people than Bush’s did, and continues to imprison thousands of undocumented immigrants a year in appalling conditions simply for having crossed a border without papers. But Romney’s position is markedly worse. Romney has been taking advice from racists like Kris Kobach, and refuses to support even the DREAM Act, let alone a better immigration reform package.
This is not an academic issue. Undocumented immigrants have to live in fear every day of being arrested by ICE, separated from their families, and deported. Immigrants’ rights are important, and electing Romney, with his racist anti-immigrant positions, amounts to throwing undocumented immigrants under the bus.
(2) Reproductive rights. Obama supports them, Romney doesn’t.
(3) Health care. I’m not going to pretend that the Affordable Care Act is wonderful, or a satisfactory long-term solution, but it’s much better than doing nothing. Millions of Americans currently suffer and die without adequate health care, and this is a crisis that Romney and Ryan propose simply to ignore.
And that’s just for starters. Yes, there are areas where the candidates are equally awful – foreign policy, for instance, and the erosion of civil liberties in the name of “fighting terrorism”. But there are enough areas where Obama is better to make it worth voting for Obama.
your vote has not counted for at least 10 years, what make you think it will count this next election?
You are given 2 pair of candids to choose from and both sets are psychopathic.
Voting the lesser of two evils is evil in itself.
People voting the lo2e’s theory is what has created the mess the u s is in.
the solution is to vote for a person you want to be president, write-in is available in every state.
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/130177-Kurt Vonnegut on Psychopaths and the Pathocracy (Interview)
“What has allowed so many Psychopathic Personalities to rise so high in corporations, and now in government, is that they are so decisive. Unlike normal people, they are never filled with doubts, for the simple reason that they cannot care what happens next. Simply can’t. Do this! Do that! Mobilize the reserves! Privatize the public schools! Attack Iraq! Cut health care! Tap everybody’s telephone! Cut taxes on the rich! Build a trillion-dollar missile shield! F*** habeas corpus and the Sierra Club and In These Times, and kiss my ass!”
What makes you think that would make your vote count?
Is it known that Biden is going to be the Democratic VP nominee?
I’m surprised the rich still pay taxes. How many elections till the phrase ‘tax cuts for the rich’ becomes purely allegorical?
KG: I know of no evidence that he’s not going to be the VP nominee.
dianne @ 179;
It is not a stupid question at all. It is one that needs to be asked loudly and often enough that we actually get some kind of answer.
The Republican panic-mongers will probably go with a nice, nebulous ‘terrorist threat’ without ever nailing down exactly what form this supposedly massive existential threat will actually take. If that doesn’t do it, they will add in Iran’s nuclear program, and possibly do a combo with the idea of Iranian or Pakistani nukes falling into terrorist hands.
That a larger military will not in and of itself prevent terrorist attacks – and indeed that greater militarism on the part of the US will likely further radicalise people on the receiviong end, thus fostering the next generation of terrrorism – will be quietly ignored.
Of course, if you run into the real tinfoil hat brigade within the Republican party, you will encounter people who will, in all seriousness, tell you that the US should be thinking ‘outside the box’ in military terms, and so the fact that no terrestrial adversary could credibly threaten the US with invasion won’t help if the threat hails *dramatic, ’50s style announcer voice* from beyond the stars! */dramatic, ’50s style announcer voice*.
The fact that – in the laughably unlikely event that any race advanced enough to acheive rapid interstellar travel was even aware of us/could be bothered to invade our little ball of mud – they actually believe that the combined militaries of the world would be more than a minor annoyance to such a powerful species is kinda cute…
no, it means privatization of prisons and cops on minimum wage. what could possibly go wrong?
Rip Steakface @134:
Correct. The main point here is that Romney touts Full Sail University as an example of for-profit schools keeping the cost of education down though good ol’ capitalistic competition.
Romney is so far removed from reality that he uses examples that make the opposite point he thinks he is making. And he can’t be educated.
I’m responding to comment #135 that lists all the things Paul Ryan voted for, and that asks us to cut him some slack.
Well, as it turns out, the big bad meany leadership made Paul Ryan vote for those things. He didn’t want to do it.
http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=157716398
I’d be very happy with “less money for law enforcement” if it were achieved through sensible measures: legalizing drug possession and other victimless crimes; cutting down the use of imprisonment; and defunding ICE and putting a moratorium on all immigration enforcement (and, preferably, providing a path to citizenship for all undocumented immigrants). Of course, no Republican would ever dare suggest that.
Seconding what Jadehawk said about privatization. Also, one of the fundamentals of the “drug war” is routine seizure of property on SUSPICION of drug charges, which the seizing officials then use to fund their departments.
(emphasis mine):
http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/forfeiture
—
…
http://reason.com/archives/2010/01/26/the-forfeiture-racket
The Tenaha legal case is ongoing.
Some months ago, Charlie Pierce took a look at Ryan and his policy ideas, and dubbed him the Zombie-Eyed Granny-Starving man. It seems quite apt.
(Pierce’s response to Ryan’s selection as Mittbot Rmoney’s V.P. candidate is here.)
With Ryan on the ticket, the lesser evil just got the go-ahead to become a whole lot more evil.
In being the first Democrat to say publicly that “entitlements” had to be cut, Obama did more damage to Old Age Security Disability Insurance, Medicaid and other social safety nets than any Republican possibly could have done.
By enacting ACA, Obama did more damage to the possibility of Medicare for all than Republican possibly could have done. (Heck, Ryan’s care is basically “replace Medicare with Obamacare.)
I don’t live in a swing state anyway, so I can’t effect how the electoral college will vote. I disagree with all the politicians who are working to cut our social safety net – Republican and Democrat – so I’m voting Green.
SallyStrange @164 asks:
Protect your irony meters. First the back story from journalist Ryan Lizza:
Paul Ryan grew up in a well-to-do family thanks to a construction fortune that depended, in part, on government-funded projects.
Paul Ryan’s budget proposes $871 in investment cuts.
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2012/03/budget_disinvestment.html/
The cuts include cutting transportation infrastructure investment per capita by 28 percent.
I wonder if Ryan’s cuts would make Republican business owners take a second look at the speech Obama gave about supporting and maintaining our infrastructure. Maybe they would read for comprehension and realize the “that” in “you didn’t build that” refers to Obama’s previous sentence in which he specified roads and bridges (and also to earlier comments about infrastructure in general that we fall build together).
skeptifem @171
Romneys missionary assignment in France was also longer than normal for mormon young men. Being in France that long kept him from being drafted and serving in Vietnam.
I have the luxury of voting for smaller parties here in Australia (where mandatory voting means that getting your members to vote isn’t the issue) because we don’t have first past the post voting. I vote for who I want first, and if they don’t get enough to be viable then their ballots get split along the 2nd preferences, and so forth and so on. So usually one of the bigger parties wins, but every so often one of the smaller parties wins because people can and do vote for them without worried about their vote being wasted, and while still being able to put the person they like least at the bottom of the list.
And yet we still might get the right wing looney at the next election because most of the media are bought and paid for if not outright owned by big business that wants a government that they have paid for. At least that is the impression I’m getting.
If that happens I’m not entirely sure where I could move.
Then you are effectively voting for Romney/Ryan. That’s a problem with our two-party system, and won’t change until we get instant run-off like Austrailia.
Is there any possibility that the intent of plans like Ryan’s is what we call downloading in Canada? That is the idea is that instead of the feds paying for things it will be up to the states to pay for them if they want them. And hence take the blame when taxes go up, or for that matter when services are reduced.
Could someone explain to this ignorant Canuck why the obsession with the presidential candidates?
The Prez’s two most important powers are his veto and the appointment of Supreme Court judges. No. 2 is the most important – we don’t need any more Thomas’ or Scalia’s there. But I believe that the current ages of the judges means that there will be no openings in the next 4 years, barring illness or accident. (Which is why I would like a Dem as Prez, to make sure more liberal judges are appointed, just in case something does happen.)
The real power to make and rescind laws (like the Patriot Act) is held by Congress. Surely, what party holds these seats is of far greater importance?
And with so many powers being devolved to the states, focusing on your state and local representatives is of the utmost importance. That is where the religious right have being putting their energy in the last few years. (Having discovered to their chagrin that the federal Rethug party got their votes by making promises to them they had no intention of keeping.)
BTW, the “power to the states” is a clever bait-and-switch. Whoopee, more state power and lower federal income tax! Oh. Wait. That means that that the tax burden has merely shifted to the state and local governments. And the taxes at this level are frequently hidden as increased fees, such as drivers licenses, building permits, dog tags, park entrance fees, toll roads, etc.
Living in Illinois, I have no “effective vote”. I’m in a blue state and my vote will make no difference in terms of how electoral votes are allocated in my state, nor will it affect the general election.
By voting Green in a non-swing state (whether it’s a Blue state or a Red one) you have the power to inject into the political discussion viewpoints that are not reflected. In the United States, when third parties have become large enough to be a drag on the “centrist” part, the “centrist” party generally takes up the issues that the third party wanted.
Basically, I’d like the Democrats to steal ideas from the Greens instead of the Republicans. And they might do that, at least within my Blue State, if they find that they’ve lost 10% of the vote.
In other words, when Democrats like Obama start talking about how important it is to cut cost of living raises for Social Security, there is a perceived cost for reaching out toward the Ryans of the world. There is a possibility that the losses might actually add up enough that the benefits of Obama’s “Nixon Going to China” moment of “reforming” Social Security won’t be worth the cost.
Also, I think that “the American Plutocracy” is quite good at this game of lesser evils. Given that financial fraud prosecutions are at a 20-year-low, the investigations into ongoing fraud by mortgage banks have gone nowhere, we’ve got Democrats calling for cutting our social safety net too (just a little less), we’ve got Democrats calling to privatize schools, prisons, we’ve got Democrats calling for more “clean coal” and the rest of our infrastructure and the great liberal achievement that resulted from the 2008 election was the Bob Dole health care plan, I think it’s fair to say that all the evils are evil.
So when you are in one of the 30-40 states where your vote will have NO impact on the winner presidential election, you are only expressing the will of the electorate. In that case, voting against your will is wasting your vote.
@theophontes #165: It seems to me to be a lot like buying lottery tickets. Somewhere inside you know it won’t happen, but you cling to the dream. Honest dreams (like grinding out legislation to incrementally improve the mundane nuances of real life) just aren’t as much fun as dishonest dreams (like someday I’ll be rich too and then I’ll sure want low taxes on me).
@203
The thing is the dems can rely without fault to receive all semi left leaning votes due to this “lesser evil” mentality. Knowing they have the left vote in the bag they are always going after the center, right voters. As time goes the democrats keep going to the right and take right side stances (cut medicare, social security…). This makes perfect sense for them as no matter what they do, their blind followers will never vote for anyone else and they want to sway the other side’s voters. Notice that the republicans actually don’t bother trying to get the left leaning vote. They take stances that actually support the follies of their base.
If progressive voters ever started voting en masse to alternative parties like the Greens, the democrats might actually wake up and start pretending to be somewhat progressive and realize that they have to win their bases votes, it’s not a given. By taking more progressive views, younger voters (typically less conservative) might actually be bothered to come out and vote… now that would be something, wouldn’t it?
dianne asked:
Dem evil Ruskies and evil Muslims are comin’ to git’cha. And don’t ferget dem evil Martian demons. Actually, the real reason is to move more money from our pockets into those of big defense contractors who donate to the campaigns.
People act like the only election in the fall is for president. I have the chance of electing a progressive democrat to congress (versus the teabagger incumbent) this fall due to redistricting. Everybody’s vote counts in more ways than one.
Really? I’m not convinced that Ruth Bader Ginsburg will hold on for another four years. She’s not in a great state of health. And her replacement by a conservative would be something of a disaster.
Anyway, it’s not just the Supreme Court that matters. Most federal cases are resolved at District Court or Court of Appeals level, and federal judges at that level (who are also appointed by the President) have a lot of power and influence.
Slightly OT, but at #135, shripathikamath mentioned ” federalizing rules for driver licenses to hinder terrorists”.
Anyone tried to renew a driver’s license recently?
In Georgia, this now requires EVERYONE to personally go to the DoT office with picture ID (your old license doesn’t count) and two proofs of your current address. How many pieces of ID, besides your drivers license, do you have with picture ID? How many proofs of address do some people have? They told me to bring a utility bill and the lady gave me a quizzical look when I told her they were all in my husband’s name. She hadn’t thought of that. (I have to return and will try my bank statement and my SS statement and see if they will work.) This is an enactment of anti-terrorist laws that were put into place under Bush.
Why the fuck does the average American have to prove to the government where he lives? Why are his fingerprints on his driver’s license? Why is his drivers license only permitted to have to have his full legal birth name – or proof that is has been changed through marriage or by a judge?
The last bit is an absolutely ingenious way to block voters who are poor, elderly or simply unaware of the law. Your voter registration must also use the name in full on your license if you use it as ID when you go to vote. They can deny you a ballot and accuse you of voter fraud if it doesn’t. That was the reason that many people were cut off voter rolls in the last election; and where the accusations of voter fraud came from. For example, PZ may use legally use PZ on his mortgage, his utility bills, his bank accounts – but his drivers license and his voter registration MUST use Paul Zachary, as on his birth certificate. I had a friend who never used her birth certificate name and had to go to court to change her name to the one she had always used because the DoT would only issue a drivers license in her birth certificate name. Clever way to cut down on the voter rolls, eh?
The fallout from 911 is that Americans’ basic constitutional rights are being put through the shredder while the the average dopey American cheers on “the War on Terrorism” – and buys guns to protect himself from the evils of the Democrats and Obamacare. If only these idiots knew where the real threats to their freedom from government was coming from.
hypatiasdaughter,
I agree supreme court judges are most important, but the second might not be the veto. Consider the appointment of cabinet members and others in the executive. The US is different under Holder or Reno than Gonzales or Ashcroft.
Hard to guess Kennedy and Scalia are now the age that O’Connor was when she retired, Breyer isn’t far behind, and Ginsburg is older than O’Connor was.
If I were Scalia, I would deliberately retire “early” under the next Republican, just to avoid accidentally dying under a Democrat. Souter seems to have done just that sort of maneuver, waiting for Obama.
In theory, but not so much in practice. For instance, the president now has the ability to go to war unilaterally, without relying on congress.
And since tremendous executive power doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon, best to have someone who frequently uses it for good instead of evil.
+++++
But yeah, congress is still important. As are state legislatures, governors, courts, et cetera. One hopes that mekathleen will consider all of the down-ballot races separately, since they’re not all going to be blue shoo-ins, even in a blue state.
@ 58 skeptifem- “Mitt’s church doesn’t take too kindly to the catholic church,”
I think Romney uses his religion like he uses everything else: as a tax avoidance strategy.
http://timesandseasons.org/index.php/2012/01/mitt-romneys-tithing-problem/
And a Robomormon victory would considerably increase the likelihood of an attack on Iran – or support for one by Israel.
#209 Thanks, Walton. I had forgotten about the Prez appointing the other federal judges – and federal DA’s, too (I believe). And there was such a big stink about that when Clinton was elected, though I cannot remember the details.
Thanks for the feedback, folks. It gives me something to chew on.
It just frustrates me that Obama gets accused of not doing things that are the bailiwick of Congress. He can rescind “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, but not pass legislation guaranteeing LBGT rights, for instance, because only Congress can do that.
Of course, I would prefer a Dem in the Oval Office. But I just don’t think people pay enough attention to the power that “lesser” legislatures have to make our lives hell. And that is where religious right are focusing their time and money.
Should have been a period after that –> “Hard to guess[.]”
I’m looking at #196 now. mekathleen is kind of an idiot, eh?
Sigh. Reply forthcoming anyway.
Living in Chicago, I look at all the down ballot races separately. And between the Democrat who’s going to get a minimum of 60% of the vote and the Green, I generally choose the Green.
In our last Mayoral election, the most conservative candidate won, which is who Obama’s former Chief of Staff is our mayor.
One of these days the good guys might win water commissioner.
There is a lot of name-calling from Democrats who feel owed a vote here, but even if every single person in Illinois who voted for Nader had voted for Gore, Gore still would have lost the general election and his home state.
Among Obama’s many defining choices was the failure to appoint federal judges to fill the dozens of vacancies that remain. These vacancies existed even when there were 59 Democrats in the Senate and have continued through every single recess, despite the President’s ability to appoint judges during recess.
Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid could call a vote to at least call the Republicans out. But without appointments for those dozens of vacancies from the President, there obviously can’t be a vote.
A huge majority was squandered, whether on purpose or due to incompetence. My view is that it was because the plutocracy can afford to buy both political parties and that it was on purpose.
@Lynna, OM:
Great posts. A Romney/Ryan administration would be scary as hell: For women’s reproductive rights, for gays, for minorities, for the elderly. I guess heterosexual White males should be okay — unless they’re progressive.
Obama hasn’t been perfect, but the ACA is a first step towards an improved healthcare system for the non-insured. And he’s made several steps in the right direction for gay civil rights. I can only see R&R taking the country backwards, with the assistance of the Religious Right. Not good.
This being a nearly completely white-people-who-vote-Republican state and fairly worthless anyway, it took maybe 30 minutes to renew my expired license, and I’m not even a citizen (don’t quite remember if they asked for the green card, but I get the feeling they didn’t. they did last time, when i was switching from WA to ND license)
oh, and the license had a non-current address. no one bothered me with “bring proof of your current address”.
The choice as I see it is voting for Obama and having him push and get cuts to Social Security and Medicare passed with the help of the Democrats, or electing Romney and having Ryan’s radical plan die in the Senate with no votes from Democrats.
oh, and while I’m at it. There is no voter registration in ND. you can just go and vote.
I want to highlight what Obama uses as the signature example of his argument about the false equivalence of the press:
“The news media have played a crucial role in Mr. Obama’s career, helping to make him a national star not long after he had been an anonymous state legislator. As president, however, he has come to believe the news media have had a role in frustrating his ambitions to change the terms of the country’s political discussion. He particularly believes that Democrats do not receive enough credit for their willingness to accept cuts in Medicare and Social Security, while Republicans oppose almost any tax increase to reduce the deficit.”
So Obama blames the media because he wasn’t given enough credit for wanting to cut the social safety net. Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/08/us/politics/obama-is-an-avid-reader-and-critic-of-news-media-coverage.html?_r=1
I see mekathleen is a true believer™ that there is no difference between the democrats and republicans. Sorry, I see a huge difference. Vote green, and make yourself happy. Just don’t complain if the rethugs win a close election and put into effect cuts several times what Obama is trying to hold them to. That’s why before I cast a vote, I look at the real alternatives, not slogans, jingos, and what appears to be practical politics.
That’s magical thinking (demonology, it looks like).
Obama pursues the policies he wants. If he wanted to pursue more conservative policies, he’d already be doing so.
Wrong.
More magical thinking.
Voucher systems as proposed by Bush and Ryan would do tremendous functional damage, rather than rhetorical damage.
This is probably the perfect solution fallacy. There isn’t much evidence to suggest that any single payer system would have been an option anytime soon. The ACA is much better than continually wishing for a single payer system that never arrives.
Anyway, you give no evidence for your claim, and there is reason to think otherwise:
+++++
Not actually. Nor “basically”.
But in any case, Medicare plus Obamacare is better than what we had prior to Obamacare: Medicare alone.
As a communist, I sympathize, but strategies of “heightening the contradictions” do not have a good track record — making the world an even worse place for the poor does not reliably produce a progressive backlash.
As Noam Chomsky says: “Choosing the lesser of two evils isn’t a bad thing. The cliché makes it sound bad, but it’s a good thing. You get less evil.”
So which is it? 30? or 40? Evidence matters, and you shouldn’t encourage people to underestimate variability.
Liar.
This is such a tired fucking line.
All I’m saying is study carefully and be sure that you really are voting strategically, don’t just wing it.
Yes, Obama will win Illinois. You can safely vote Green on the presidential ticked, mekathleen. I’m not arguing with you about that. Note again: “But yeah, congress is still important. As are state legislatures, governors, courts, et cetera. One hopes that mekathleen will consider all of the down-ballot races separately, since they’re not all going to be blue shoo-ins, even in a blue state.”
But a lot of your other arguments are not only wrong but stupidly wrong — and that’s why I’m calling you an idiot, idiot.
re 184;
First of all, the Democrats and Obama are not evil. And even if they were, if my choice today is between lawful evil that will oppress me, and chaotic evil that will completely destroy my country and kill me, then today I will choose lawful evil, and today I will help lawful evil destroy chaotic evil.
Tomorrow I will join the resistance, but today I do what I must to defeat chaotic evil, so that there actually will BE a tomorrow and a resistance to join.
Choosing the “lesser of two evils” is SURVIVAL. Those who sanctimoniously say that it is an evil in itself like you do, are wallowing in the unrecognized privilege of being sufficiently protected that they can hope to survive the triumph of the greater evil.
Well not everyone has that privilege, so please take your sanctimony and stuff it.
And don’t forget that Obama wanted a single payer system. The ACA was the compromise that he managed to get, and it was the best available compromise that the circumstances would allow. If it had been possible for Obama to get single payer, he would have done.
Perhaps a more politucally skilled progressive presudenr might have gotten single payer, but perhaps Jesus could have walked on water too, if he had existed.
I’m fully willing to concede that the marginally less evil of the Democrats is less evil than the slightly greater evil of the Republicans.
My point is that when you are somewhere where the Republicans will win anyway, there is no reason to concern yourself with these battles. If you are in a state where Democrats have \won by a margin of error of more than 15 points since 1992, there’s no reason to add one more vote to the tally of the guy that Chase Bank owns.
There are 2 functions of voting. One is the decision of who gets to sit in the chair and the other is to express the views of the electorate. The “lesser evil” function where you call yourself practical and scoff “true believers” makes some sense when there is any question of who will sit in the chair, but there is no need to worry about that when the seat-filler is a sure thing.
If you are from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Hawaii, Vermont, Maryland, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, New Jersey, California, Washington, Illinois or Minnesota you don’t need to worry about your vote being “a vote for Romney”. Obama’s got your state. Even if every single person in those states who preferred the platform of the Green Party voted for the Greens, he’d still win. And the margin doesn’t matter, he would get all of the electoral votes.
So if you are in those states, and you are going to the polls anyway because you are interested in down-ballot races that are less of a blow-out, why not indulge in the SECOND function of voting when choosing which lever to pull at the top of the ticket. Why not vote for what you believe in? It can influence future discussion if there is a greater number of people voting for it and if Romney gets anywhere close to winning Vermont in November, then Obama has screwed up so badly that there is no way your little vote is gonna save him.
I hope mekathleen is helping get out the vote and register voters in their district. Heck, they could be registering green voters! Depending on laws in their state they have at least a month, possibly two, to get on that. I am out registering voters and encouraging voter turnout because local progressive/Dem (they’re not always the same, but there’s enough progressive Democrats to make it worth it) need all the help they can get.
I don’t appreciate being told that just because I try to vote strategically rather than in blind futile protest, I must think the Democrats are somehow owed votes. I vote Democrat because then the Democrats owe ME. I may vote third party at the presidential level, but really, even if I don’t, having the numbers that indicate the depth of support for the non-regressive faction can’t be a bad thing.
I have to say, mekathleen, I’ve encountered many, MANY people who simply refuse to register to vote–even though it takes less than a minute and I’m standing right in front of them saying, “all you have to do is sign here,” and I submit that attitudes like yours are a direct cause of this apathetic refusal to get involved. And these are people who could be voting in local elections, for politicians who won’t, for example, raise bus fares. Basic stuff. And they end up screwed because they have this totally wrong idea that voting makes no difference.
I wish you’d stop.
You’re an idiot. Taking your assumption seriously, what we should have seen instead is Obama appointing a bunch of judges who’re sufficiently conservative to satisfy the plutocracy.
So you admit you actually do want Romney to win. Fucking idiot.
Despite all the other damage they would do, even if your silly assumption holds that they would never be able to do anything like the Ryan plan or a watered-down version thereof. Again, I suggest you look up the track record of “heightening the contradictions.”
Likewise, I doubt anybody here will contest that. If that is the only point mekathleen is trying to make, then consider the point made. No need to argue it further, you’ll encounter no resistance to that idea.
You should, however, apologize for spreading the wrong and damaging idea that voting is useless and pointless and makes no difference. If it wasn’t your intention to communicate that idea then you failed pretty badly at basic communication.
re 225;
The context of that willingness to accept (note the word accept, not advocate) cuts to Medicare and social security was in NEGOTIATIONS, in exchange for REVENUE INCREASES from the republicans (ie raising taxes on the rich). It is not something they want, but something they were willing to give up in exchange for concessions of equal value.
An argument as deceptive and dishonest as what mekathleen just presented in #225 I have not seen except from teapartiers and libertarians.
I wasn’t calling Democratic voters idiots or their votes worthless. I think if you look through this thread, the name calling all came from Democrats.
I said that the statement that if you don’t “vote strategically” you are wasting your vote is invalid. There is no justification for focusing on lesser evils in an area the margin by the dominant party wins presidential elections is great. When you are in a +20 Democratic state or a +20 Republican state, “a vote for third party is a vote for the other side” doesn’t hold water.
I also never said “don’t vote”. I am voting Green because even in a town like Chicago, where politicians win by margins that would make Putin blush, I believe in voting. I believe in expressing “the will of the electorate”. And to do that I actually have to vote for what I would like to see happen. Which is why I don’t vote for the guy from Chase Bank.
Also, Obama not appointing judges at all is not really different than appointing conservatives. As soon as a conservative gets into the Presidency, those seats that he’s kept so conveniently vacant through his inaction will be filled by conservatives.
I saw a great Paul Ryan quote today on Facebook and I’d love for it to go viral:
“I can see the end of Medicare from my front porch”
—Paul Ryan
When you say things as spectacularly silly as this, it makes it really hard not to call you names. Like, the things that happen now don’t matter because worse things will happen in the future. That’s just fatalism, and it is, I’m sorry to say, dumb.
If you don’t like being called “dumb” I suggest you stop expressing patently stupid opinions.
mekathleen continues to speak from the privileged position of someone who can afford to risk the greater evil winning.
No mekathleen, Obama and the democrats are NOT a lesser evil, because they are NOT evil. And the Republicans are NOT a “slightly” greater evil, they are an ENORMOUSLY GREATER evil. The damage that the US democratic process would accrue even from a competitive if unsuccessful republican showing in 2012, through validation of their odious political tactics (not even policies) would be substantial. Ideally the republicans need to be more than beaten in 2012, they need to be CRUSHED. The Tea Party and the other obstructionists need to be electorally wiped out in landslides in order to discredit obstructionism as a strategy and prevent all sides from adopting it in order to restore the spirit of compromise to American politics. This is why it is dangerous to vote for third parties even in safe democratic districts, because even if the democrats win, a closer than expected showing for the republicans will encourage them to double down on these political strategies that they have pioneered that are so destructive to the nuts and bolts functioning of the democratic process itself.
This is FAR more important in fact than any individual policy, of any kind. More important even than the question of going to war.
Also, nobody said this. I suggest you constrain yourself to arguing with positions that have actually been expressed, if you enjoy being taken seriously and not called terrible awful names.
When I think of the Democratic Party, I think of Sun Tzu.
“Draw them in with prospect of gain, take them by confusion.”
The health care fight morphed from universal to public option to individual mandate where now the supposed “liberals” are defending a mandate to buy a defective product that creates profit through human suffering.
And so “liberals” vote for Obama, the president who took away some of our constitutional rights and fires drone missiles at the drop of a hat because some how, that is going to teach the Republicans a lesson.
If the democrats normally win Chicago be 65%, but thanks to voters like mekathleen they only win this time be 55%, the republicans will see that as a validation of their obstructionist tactics, and will double down on them. Remember that one of the primary goals of the strategy was to force Obama rightward to compromise with them and to prevent him for achieving anything progressive in order to disillusion the progressives who flocked to him in 2008, and either drive them to third parties or make them less enthusiastic about voting at all.
mekathleen has fallen right into their trap, hook, line, and sinker, as a very useful idiot for them indeed.
This will result in more polarization, more obstruction, more gridlock, and the Overton window will move another notch rightwards.
Stopping this requires the discrediting of obstructionism as a tactic. This needs Obama to win by more than he did in 2008. If the voters of America want obstructionism to stop then they have to show that it doesn’t work, that it will actually drive MORE votes to the obstructed side. That they understand that it is the obstructors who are really at fault for the gridlock and punish them for it.
Yawn, mekathleen, you haven’t convinced me of anything, as you are thinking tactics, not strategy. Here’s a hint, there is no way other than progressives doing grass roots organizing and taking the democratic party back through that organizing that they stand a chance of electing a truly progressive ticket leader to the presidency. I really don’t see the greens as a viable alternative in the US; they have some bad baggage for this country. That’s what the conservatives did back in the ’70s to bring Reagan to the forefront of one of the major parties. Which, up to then, had people like popular governors George Romney and Nelson Rockefeller, and some other progressives in elective office and party leadership positions.
You should put down Sun Tzu and pick up a math book
X-6 (>) Y-6 == X>Y
Obama did more than what Romny wants to for health care and his negatives are shared or exaggerated in Romny. By the math you exclude the negatives and positives that both options share because they are equivalent. X>Y
Seriously criticizing Obama for constitutional rights and drone attacks when Romny has stated an eagerness to be even WORSE is moronic.
And I have lots of reasons for thinking that Obama has actively moved political discourse in the wrong direction and that voting for him is voting for something harmful, though possibly less harmful, than his opponent.
I have some housework to do, so I haven’t got time to compile a list, but this is from a blog post with 21 reasons I agree with, and over 300 things worth holding against Obama. http://my.firedoglake.com/barefootaccountant/tag/reasons-not-to-vote-for-obama/
“1. He did not even propose the public option healthcare system: he had campaigned on that system, promising to propose it. “…
“2. He has appointed countless Wall Streeters to his top economic team, failing to appoint labor voices like Robert Reich.
3. He has bailed out Wall Street instead of Main Street: remember TARP? And then the banks dispensed $6 billion in bonuses in that year to its executives.
4. He failed to attack the mortgage crisis, leaving an elephant still in our “room”, with one-third of home mortgages now underwater.
5. He failed to veto the National Defense Authorization Act, doing away with habeous corpus, allowing the government to arrest and detain indefinitely without a trial or hearing.
6. He agreed to an extension of the Bush tax cuts for the rich, and on top of that, he agreed to an egregious reduction of the estate taxes on the rich, exempting as much as $10 million from any estate taxes and lowering the estate tax rate down to a ridiculous rate of 35%, when our country has a $15 trillion debt. That alone saved the Walton heirs $17 billion in taxes.
7. He has failed to indict and imprison any of those banksters involved in all of that fraud on Wall Street from the subprime mortgage, including robo-signing, and selling shit-backed mortgage securities known to be worthless.
8. He appointed Jeffrey Immelt to head his Jobs Council when GE has been saying “China, China, China,” and shipping all jobs overseas while closing plants here in the US.
9. President Obama is now considering and proposing to lower the corporate tax rate to 26%, when corporations are not only at a low-time rate of paying taxes but getting billions in tax subsidies from our government and opening up offices on the 19th floor of one building on the Cayman Islands to avoid taxes altogether.
10. President Obama spoke in favor of PIPA and SOPA, when the internet is the last vestige of free speech and the availability of free information to the general public.
11. There were no indictments by President Obama of all the contractor fraud reported on by Bernie Sanders and Ron Paul in a Congressional Report released over a year ago. Whenever the rich and big corporations are caught in fraud, Eric Holder adopts a policy of “looking forward”, instead of holding them accountable.
12. President Obama agreed to the “grand bargain” (thank, God, Boehner did not accept it) to cut over $2 trillion in spending, including social security, medicare, medicaid, and other social safety-net programs merely in return for hypothetical “revenue increases” of $800 billion relying on “dynamic scoring”.
13. President Obama has done nothing to level the trade treaties, where corporations are shipping labor to Cambodia (22.5 cents per hour), China, Philippines, etc., where labor is paid 25 cents per hour. This is exporting slavery to other countries. Where is the level playing field for Americans?
14. President Obama in 2009 only proposed $140 billion in infrastructure spending when Paul Krugman and other economists predicted that $1.5 trillion was needed for our economy to recover. And last year only proposed a paltry $108 billion in infrastructure spending.
15. President Obama praised the recent JOBS Act, which allows corporations to go public and raise capital without audited financial information in their public presentations for the first five years, allowing them to present fictitious numbers and defraud investors?
16. President Obama has failed to propose the return of Glass-Steagall, separating commercial and investment banking, which will soon plunge us back into another mega-bailout of Wall Street.
17. President Obama has failed to propose the break up of the big banks and corporations. What ever happened to the Sherman Anti-Trust Act?
18. President Obama touted a $25 billion robo-signing settlement when a trillion dollars of our pension and retirement funds were stolen.
19. While campaigning, President Obama promised to put on his walking shoes for labor, but failed to even show up in Wisconsin and walk the picket line against Governor Walker.
20. President Obama has not declared war on the Supreme Court, as President Roosevelt did, to oppose the corporate/rich posture of Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, Alito, and Roberts. Why not take them on?
21. President Obama has arrested and raided more marijuana users in less than four years than George Bush did in eight years. Why is President Obama proposing cuts to social security, medicare, and medicaid while spending more on marijuana arrests and raids, especially when a majority of Americans are for legalization of pot and for the open sale of marijuana for medical use?”
Do you not fucking understand math?
I see quite a bit of discussion that includes Medicare up-thread, including this from comment #196 by mekathleen:
Sounds like right wing talking points. Here’s Reince Priebus, Republican National Committee Chairman, speaking today on Meet the Press:
This is a standard Republican tactic, take your own weaknesses and foist them on the opposition. “We Republicans aren’t backing budgets that damage Medicare, Obama already bloodied Medicare. Look over here! Don’t look at what we actually plan to do.”
Reince Priebus is guilty of the same intellectual dishonesty as mekathleen, oversimplification.
Um maybe because of the balance of powers and he can’t fucking do shit about the court accept appoint members?
Seriously this just shows you apparently don’t understand what the President can and cannot do. A good number of your criticisms are valid, but are WORSE FOR ROMNY, or are criticizing a dog for now meowing
Gregory Greenwood @91 11 August 2012 at 8:23 pm
Git, from the anglo-saxon geat, I think, meaning “a worthless person”. Nice!
I was THRILLED by obstruction when Obama wasn’t able to get his Grand Bargain to cut Social Security and Medicare. I was thrilled again when they weren’t able pass the Cybersecurity bill earlier this summer.
And I’d LOVE it if Obama won’t be able to extend those Bush tax cuts again.
You’re probably wrong to include Minnesota in that list.
So what? This is a rude blog, and you’ve been saying a lot of idiotic things. People who say idiotic things get called idiots here. There may be a sorites problem in that, but tone-trolling isn’t going to fix it.
(And what makes someone a Democrat? Are you a Democrat when you vote for some Democratic candidates, as you say you do sometimes, mekathleen? I am a Communist, not a registered Democrat. Where I live, every vote counts (and often recounts), so I haven’t voted against a Democrat in several years. But if I lived in a solid blue state I would probably vote differently. So am I a Democrat, or am I a pragmatic Communist?)
As Sally points out, nobody said this. You’re doing the idiot thing again.
You’re an idiot.
Remember, your premise was that the Democrats deliberately did not appoint judges, at the command of the plutocracy.
That doesn’t make any sense. If, on this issue, they are acting at the command of the plutocracy, then they would just go ahead and appoint judges conservative enough to satisfy the plutocracy. The fact that they haven’t done this is evidence against your reasoning.
I’m not a liberal of any sort, with or without scare quotes.
I’m defending the ACA because it is better than what existed before it. And given the choice between more suffering (and less profit on that suffering) on the one hand, or less suffering (and more profit on that suffering) on the other hand, I choose less suffering.
No, you’re the one who wants to teach the Democrats a lesson by voting for the Greens.
It’s telling that you project your thinking onto others. I’m not interested in voting to teach anyone a lesson. I vote Democrat because the world is better when Democrats are in power than when Republicans are in power.
So, have you been doing any voter registration, or helping GOTV efforts?
to #248 My reference to Obama proposing cuts to Medicare refers not to PPACA, but to those proposals for a “Grand Bargain” that would include raising the age of eligibility for Medicare.
Obama is not above criticism just because Romney is far worse in pretty much every possible way. This isn’t the oppression olympics and this statement totally puts my hackles up.
Here is a link regarding Obama’s offer: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/11/obama-medicare-eligibility-age_n_894833.html
Here are few more details pertaining to changes already made to Medicare by Republicans. What you can see from the math is Republican belief in magical private enterprise efficiency too often results in higher costs for everyone. (Private prisons, anyone?)
This info is from commenter Paul D. French, commenting on a TalkingPointsMemo article:
Please note that the Affordable Care Act made cuts to Medicare Advantage so that insurance companies would have to stop ripping off the taxpayers. Oh, look, reasonable cuts made by Obama’s plan.
Also, please note that Republican privatization plans result in significant cost increases. I wonder who benefits?
Read for context. Obama is not above criticism but when we’re talking about who to fucking vote for the criticisms he and Romney share or that Romney is worse at are irrelevant.
X-Z and Y-Z when comparing those two you can remove Z from both sides and see whether X or Y is greater. Obama should be criticized, but not at expense of his votes.
And as people point out voting against him swings over all votes (because by the two party system in the national election a third party vote is basically not counted) towards Republicans which means that the data looks like it says “The Republican method and ethos is most popular, everyone adjust your politics accordingly”
I am not voting for Greens to teach anyone a lesson. I am voting for Greens because I support their political platform. I have done canvassing.
And the prospect of trying to beat the Democratic Machine in Chicago is laughable. There is more than one way to make change, and in an environment where it’s easier to help people through a food kitchen than it is to combat the League of Dead Democratic voters, I’d rather focus on feeding people today than the chimera of somehow beating Rahm in 50 years.
not voting strategically means you are voting unstrategically which yes that does by definition mean you are wasting your vote. Just like not eating healthy means you are eating unhealthy.
Voting for Obama in a +15 state (whether Democratic or Republican) is NOT about the math. Your vote will not turn that tide. What it can do is change discourse.
Voting for Obama in Vermont when you don’t agree with him is not some sort of strategic imperative. Yes, the downticket races matter. But who you vote for for that top line isn’t going to change ANYTHING.
Context? Ing, I quoted that entire post of yours. I’ve been following the discussion and I get your math argument, but you phrased that statement extremely poorly.
I am giving you a word of caution to watch how you write things, because that could have been a “Dear Muslima” moment.
@260 My point was the “vote for the candidate who you don’t like because the other guy is worse and might win is voting strategically” argument is not applicable to states where there is a +10 or more margin for one party or the other because it isn’t close enough for your reluctant “strategic” vote to turn the tide.
I don’t think it’s good strategy to vote for the guy you don’t like when the winner is a sure thing either. I think it’s better strategy to vote for a third party and get discussion of other issues into the news. But for some reason “holding your nose and voting for this guy” is generally called “voting strategically” and I went with the vernacular.
Clearly, mekathleen does not.
We’re seeing Jehovah’s Witness logic in action.
If voting for Obama is less harmful than voting for Romney — and since one or other will become president — then it is necessarily true that voting for Obama is not something harmful.
It could only be said to be harmful in comparison with hastening the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Since we have no good evidence that the Kingdom of Heaven may be hastened by voting Green in a first-past-the-post voting system, voting for Obama cannot be considered harmful.
@Alukonis
But you didn’t quote the rest of the discussion around it which provides the obvious context and topic.
No it fucking couldn’t.
Except that the parties look at the state results you fucking idiot. If they see they’re losing to Republicans in the state or are losing more of the vote they’re going to assume that your state is become MORE conservative not more liberal. DOY!
It’s like talking to a chatbot.
Many Democrats do a lot of evil shit. Start denying that, and the point which you really need to make (that Republicans are much, much worse) will probably get ignored.
Somehow teaching Republicans a lesson isn’t the reason liberals vote for Obama, nor is it the reason Obama took away rights or fired drone missiles. Try again. But if you just want to whine without making any sense, don’t try again.
If the Democrats see that they are losing 15% of their regular voters to the Greens, I don’t see how that drives them to become more like Republicans.
Whereas if they don’t lose those votes, then they can say “hmm. Nothing to lose in supporting fracking this year, let’s get those donations.”
@SGBM
I may be wrong but I don’t buy the “if your state is safe you can vote your conscience for the magical fairy option” argument because I’m not convinced any state is safe. I think that if the numbers start to show shifts towards the other party democrats will take that as a sign to start fronting more centrist or more conservative candidates there. Obviously it’s not the only metric used but my impression was that they do look at how well they did with over all vote not just whether they take the state or not.
Also you know what is a good way to tell the Democratic Party what you think and what you want from them? To actually tell them. Leaving cryptic clues via voting for Green Party doesn’t actually compare to actually getting involved in your local gov and participating and working to build the narrative directly.
@Ing
Okay the context for “Seriously criticizing Obama for constitutional rights and drone attacks when Romny has stated an eagerness to be even WORSE is moronic,” is that mekathleen doesn’t want to vote for Obama because ze disagrees with some of Obama’s policies and things that he has done, and you think that it’s moronic to criticize Obama for those things because Romney is so much worse.
Is that it? Because you might not want to read Ed Brayton’s blog then, he criticizes Obama frequently.
I fail to see how this isn’t a “shut your piehole about your petty concerns, we’re trying to win a culture war here and you criticizing the guy that’s running against these horrible Republicans isn’t helping the issue, gosh can’t you see that he’s on our side, even though he’s not really that progressive, so you should just swallow shit and vote for him for The Greater Good!” type of argument. And I don’t see how that’s substantially different from “okay that guy made one sexist comment but gosh he fights against Sharia law so shut up and stop whining about it there are bigger issues here and we have to show solidarity!”
So, mekathleen, do you want Obama to work with Republicans, including making painful compromises, or not?
A good argument can be made for judging Obama to be naive in thinking that he could work with Congress in a bipartisan way, and in thinking that Republicans had the country’s best interest at heart even if they were wrong on the facts.
So, a lot of grand bargains were attempted. Most failed. Obama learned that most Republicans were simply out to destroy Obama, no matter the cost. To our dismay, Obama learned this too late.
The fact that Obama met some of his goals is laudable in the obstruct-everything environment.
“The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” ~Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Leader
Voting for a platform that supports your beliefs is not voting for “a magical sky fairy”. It is voting for a candidate who supports your belief.
I am sure there will be Texans voting for Obama. He hasn’t a shot of winning the state. Nevertheless, they will come out to vote for him – to reflect their values and beliefs.
This is the reason I am voting Green and encourage others to do so.
In context of who to vote for you fucking idiot. You don’t understand the context. No one else is confused on this but you.
Comment by Alukonis, metal ninja blocked. [unkill][show comment]
Illiterate moron
Not true:
(I apologize for calling you a liar earlier, though. Your earlier bullshit can be explained by simply being an idiot who parrots talking points without evaluating their truth value.)
This is not mutually exclusive with voting for Greens to teach the Democrats a lesson.
It’s apparent that you are doing both.
What’s fucked up, though, is that you accuse people here of voting Democratic to teach the Republicans a lesson, when you have no evidence for that claim — and since you appear to (erroneously) think that having any other reason to voting for a party means the voter is not voting to teach someone else a lesson, it’s fucked up that you won’t extend the charity of your error to others.
No the reason is that you’re a fucking idiot who can’t grasp game theory and basic math.There is a reason people say a 3rd party is a wasted vote and it is not because they are jaded and have lost their idealism the way the fucking system is set up determines this outcome. the game is checkers and you’re trying to play bridge. You’re putting your idealism and your selfish childish view of how the game should work over the actual concerns of your fellow citizens.
There is massive problems with “voter fraud” where people are getting cheated out of their right to vote…and it’s probably the people on your side. Encouraging more of them not to vote is insanely stupid and irresponsible.
You are encouraging others to play the game poorly because it makes you feel better about yourself. You’re being the Hare from Aesop’s fable, slowing down to give the other side a sporting chance.
Texas is a lot closer than you think for one. For two it is an important goal if of itself to show to the Democratic party that Texas is worth campaigning for and trying to win.
Yes it is. The system is set up in a way that removes such parties from being possible winners. It sucks but that’s the reality, focus on campaign and election reform later. You shouldn’t vote for a candidate that supports your beliefs, you should vote for a candidate that has the best chance of reaching the goals you want. That’s why it’s a magic sky fairy vote because you’re focused on beliefs and not outcomes.
@272 – Among the many things I said about Obama that I didn’t like, most were executive actions that had nothing to do with Republicans. The decision to give banks amnesty for trillions in foreclosure fraud for $25 billion, for example. The 20-year low in investigations of financial fraud, as another example. Drone killings. These were all executive branch things. So they are pretty much 100% Obama.
And even in cases where congress is involved, I don’t like a negotiator who begins every negotiation with the other side’s previous position. To me, when you combine his negotiating style with his executive branch actions, it looks like taking a dive. But my guesses at bad faith and your guesses at good faith are both guesses. We can only see the results of Obama’s actions, we can’t see what he really wanted, deep down, on the inside.
I think people are welcome to vote for whatever political platform they want.
*eyeroll* Well I guess that conversation is over. In the context of who to vote for it’s moronic to criticize Obama? Yeah okay player. FSM forbid we ever try to look honestly and critically at candidates even if we are voting for them.
Sigh. I know this is unseen, but I find it rather disappointing that I’m suddenly an “illiterate moron” just because I don’t think it’s legitimate to suppress any criticisms of a candidate just because the other guy is so much worse. If you disagree with the criticism then attack the criticism, don’t try to silence people.
Whatever.
But is no different from Romney so it shouldn’t be a concern when voting. You don’t like Bank amnesty (well actually you should because banks failing is horrifying; it is rarely banks who starve after all) so vote against the plutocrat Romney. You don’t like the low financial fraud investigations? Romney is for even lower, he made his money via fraud. You don’t like drone killings? Romney is for more war.
All these complaints you will not even get a fucking chance to address if Romney is elected. They will be set in stone and off the table for discussion.
Each long term goal is built up of smaller goals and steps. I agree that your criticisms are what the long term goal should address but it helps not one bit to try to jump over all the smaller goals so you can feel like you’re accomplishing the big one. The first step should be voting in anyone but Romney, then the next 4 years should be about changing the narrative more to the left.
@276
One thing I recall from game theory is that in the prisoner’s dilemma, if you keep quiet in every round while the other prisoner sells you out, you just get screwed indefinitely.
And that’s what I’ve found voting for Democrats who propose raising eligibility ages and slicing benefits for SS & Medicare, make deals on women’s choices, spy on US citizens, expand drone killings and give banks a free pass on fraud has proven to be.
Somehow, supporting Democrats no matter how often they enact Republican strategies hasn’t moved them to the left. In fact, it’s brought us a Democratic President who is now far to the right of Nixon.
Alukonis,
I agree with Ing, what Ing said wasn’t confusing, and it can’t reasonably be construed the way you’ve done.
I understand you reacted to Ing’s wording and you wish there’d been a different phrasing, and that’s fine, but you’re wrong to suggest that Ing meant what you’re getting out of it.
This is what Ing was responding to:
and in the context of everything else mekathleen has said.
There is no reason to believe that Ing doesn’t think Obama should be criticized for drone attacks. I happen to know for certain that Ing does believe he should be criticized for such, because I have argued with Ing about this — I’ve actually taken the position that you’re ascribing to Ing — I’ve said he should not be criticized for it during an election season. And I know Ing doesn’t agree with me on that.
Ing’s meaning was that it doesn’t make sense to vote against Obama for drone attacks when Romney will be worse on that issue, and it doesn’t make sense for mekathleen to bring this up here in this discussion as a reason for not voting for Obama, which mekathleen has done.
Truly, nobody else is confused on this but you.
For fuck sake you idiot, can you acknowledge the context at all?
Even one fucking bit?
I’m not fucking suppressing any criticism, I am saying its not relevant to the fucking election. It is relevant to the long game.
@279 – Only a banker would like a bank amnesty plan that protects those who’ve engaged in fraud from prosecution for their crimes.
Well, a banker or a loyal Democrat.
Actually, Ing is calling you an illiterate moron for attributing that viewpoint to Ing, which is not what Ing said, nor can what Ing said reasonably be construed that way.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say you’re an illiterate moron, but I’m less exasperated than Ing, since it’s not my words that are being twisted. You’re wrong. Please just that you’re misunderstanding (I’m the one who actually holds the viewpoint you’re attributing to Ing).
… Please just [accept] that you’re misunderstanding …
This would only be true if the Democratic party wasn’t showing you ANY benefits for voting for it. This is not so. You’ve learned the wrong lesson from game theory. Also if you recall from the prisoner’s dilemma your choices are Betray or Ally. You’re choosing Ally and they’re choosing betray so you lose. If you now chose Betray…YOU STILL FUCKING LOSE IT DOESN’T CHANGE ANYTHING. You’re just ensuring that others lose now out of spite. You suck at the game. Choosing betray everyone someone else chose betray ALSO gets you screwed indefinitely in the prisoner’s dilemma? Did you even check to see what the winning strategy for that game was? It’s Tit For Tat With Forgiveness. Like I said before you don’t know the game and you don’t know how to play it. You are playing wrong.
Also if you do the fucking math equivalency like I told you to you would see that voting for democrats is getting you a fucking win. That’s the alternative democrats or republican. republican is far worse and actively fucks you and democrats fuck you in passing but provide places for you to hide. In this binary choice Not-Republican is a victory. You don’t understand the rules, you’re mad that victory isn’t having the outcome you think it should. Voting to screw the pouch does not ensure victory is ensures losing.
How many “blue states” are there which are so solidly liberal that we could safely lose 15% of the liberal voters without handing the election over to Republicans? Unless the Greens actually stand a chance of winning, you don’t want to be too influential, so you shouldn’t try to convince lots of others to vote for the Greens.
Nope. There’s nothing magical about voting for a candidate who will not win. Hoping that will magically “send a message” to the right people isn’t actually quite as magical as it sounds, either. If all you do is vote, then just vote and shut the fuck up about it every other day except Election day. Fortunately, voting isn’t the only way to make the Democrats more progressive.
You constantly display ignorant binary thinking.
Yes bankers who commit fraud should be prosecuted but banks should not be allowed to fail due to said fraud. That’s my point.
The “shut up, you are stupid, vote for Democrats, you have to” view is why I left the Democratic Party.
Democrats may campaign on social justice and the like, but when they are in office, they aren’t measurably different from Republicans in their actions. They are as corporate as they can get away with without going to jail. They are in line with their local area on social issues and not a bit to the left of their constituents (gotta draw that change out otherwise how will they differentiate themselves in the future).
The campaign cycle is continuous now. I heard people saying “don’t criticize Barack or the Republicans win” in 2009. The idea that somehow, after the election, he’s going to go to the left is ridiculous.
More likely he’ll do what Democrats did in 2010 after the election was over. He’ll just extend the Bush Tax cuts and cut some social programs.
*headdesk*
If you meant:
Then you should have said that. And you did here:
And I totally agree, and my POINT was only that the way you phrased it in that comment set off an alarm bell and I wanted to call you on it, because all on its own like that it really looked like a “shut up and stop whining” comment, and I KNOW you didn’t mean that, but that’s what that comment looks like even in context to me.
I’m not “confused” about your point of view, and I didn’t want to make a big fight out of this, and I really thought that my first comment would get something like a “yeah sorry I could have been clearer” (if anything) and we’d all move on from it.
I’m enjoying reading this conversation a lot and that phrasing really bothered me, so I said so. That’s it. I don’t want to fucking derail this conversation any more so can we move on now please.
@288 That wasn’t the settlement. The settlement exempted the bankers from prosecution. That’s why I felt it was evil.
More people should get involved in their local politics. For one local politics actually have a bigger impact on daily life than state or national for most people and for two you can use that to start to influence your party. The barrier to entry is also lower and it’s easier to win even in an entrenched colored state. This is the tactic the teaparty used and the republicans used and the religious right used and it works.
Local school board, local assembly, etc etc are not just glorified student counsels. They have a big effect on your community and it moves you from constituency to member of the party.
What an asinine statement.
Your criticisms of Obama are largely correct. Nevertheless, you are wrong for discouraging people from voting for Democrats. Why? Not because Dems are super awesome, but because Republicans are truly horribly awful, as demonstrated by the Ryan budget, and you are endorsing a “strategy” that isn’t really a strategy but rather a protest, which ultimately does more to help Republicans than it does anything to help move the Democratic party to the left. If you want to move the Dems to the left, get involved in your local politics. Force a primary against a Democratic city councilor or county legislative candidate. Even losing this primary will have more of an effect than casting a vote for the Greens in the presidential election (which, it should again be noted, is not something that people here really disagree with much). Your fatalism about the Chicago machine is a handy excuse. It used to be like that in my small upstate NY city. Things have changed a lot in the past ten years. It really is not beyond the realm of possibility–but if people adopt your attitude, it will never become reality.
Every gay and bi person and ally would be totally justified in slapping your ignorance face right now.
And woman
Again, I haven’t called you stupid for voting Green in Illinois.
All I’m saying is study carefully and be sure that you really are voting strategically, don’t just wing it.
Yes, Obama will win Illinois. You can safely vote Green on the presidential ticket, mekathleen. I’m not arguing with you about that. Note again: “But yeah, congress is still important. As are state legislatures, governors, courts, et cetera. One hopes that mekathleen will consider all of the down-ballot races separately, since they’re not all going to be blue shoo-ins, even in a blue state.”
But a lot of your other arguments are not only wrong but stupidly wrong — and that’s why I’m calling you an idiot, idiot.
I would love to vote for my local school board. And to that effect, I have been working with those who fight against Democrat Rahm Emanuel. Right now, our school board is appointed by him and we don’t get to vote on that.
They are measurably different, but you haven’t bothered to measure anything.
Ing @292
Good point. Case in point: Ohio Republicans engaging in voter suppression, but only in counties that usually vote Democratic. How did they manage that? By electing wingnut conservatives for county and state offices, by electing or appointing Republicans who could be counted on to be unfair when it comes to voting rights.
This video covers voter suppression tactics in Pennsylvania, Iowa and Ohio:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#48621094
Ing beat me to it.
Twice.
Seriously, if you can’t tell the difference between the Democrat and Republican implementation in the real world, then you’re quite frankly too ignorant to speak about politics.
Sorry, but that’s just true.
@276 – I do look down ticket. And there have been times when I’ve voted for a Democrat. I have voted for Democratic judges. When I’ve looked at my ballot, that was the only time that I got to vote in anything where a Democratic win wasn’t a foregone conclusion.
Where I live, anything that is based on geography, is pretty much Democrat. There isn’t even an other guy likely to get to 15% for the Republicans. Greens have done better than Republicans in races. We’ve had Democrats who were in comas win the election.
If you live somewhere different, then I can see being more engaged. I get to choose which of my 20 hours a week I can spend trying to change my community. Do I do it somewhere nonpartisan, like at the park district? Do I do it outside of electoral politics, volunteering? Or do I spend my limited hours and funds trying to fight the Chicago political machine?
I can see why some would say, “Sure, Rev. King couldn’t beat the Chicago Machine and he left, but really, you’re an idiot if you don’t devote yourself to doing what he couldn’t and give up on those areas where you are able to demonstrably affect individuals lives.” But I’m just not buying it.
Geez, it sounds like your district sucks. So the question is, why are you spending so much time haranguing people for lacking your fatalism, when they don’t live in your horrible, impossible-to-change district?
Also any college students who aren’t independently wealthy, anyone who’s ever relied on food stamps or home heating assistance, anyone who is or could be eligible for Medicare or Medicaid… Soldiers who would like to not be sent to Iran… Shall we go on?
To summarize, you have to be fucking idiot to vote for the green party.
You must also vote for Obama regardless of the fact that he gave up on any left leaning policies due to his apparently “naive” desire to negotiate with the republicans on everything. Of course Obama never had any intent in changing anything. His policies are fairly consistent with the desires of his top contributors. The two party thing is terrible but you are a moron if you vote for a 3rd option or try to get 3rd parties to become more meaningful.
“Every gay and bi person and ally would be totally justified in slapping your ignorance face right now.”
I’m sure most gay and bi persons are not complete assholes like that. Obama didn’t give a crap about the gay community until recently for obvious reasons.
Personally, all I’ve ever been saying is that jacklewis is a fucking idiot.
@302 I don’t think troops who don’t want to be in Iran, or Afghanistan, are going to much differently off with Obama or Romney in office. There are more troops in Afghanistan than when Obama came into office and the schedule for pulling out of Iraq followed the Bush timetable. Our government was negotiating for more time, but the Iraqis refused to give immunity to our people and that was the dealbreaker that lead to our not staying longer.
@302
I’m still waiting for Obama to give back his Nobel peace prize… I can’t believe he even accepted it with a straight face. Still that’s when you see what Obama is all about and has always been about, like most politicians, he’s about one thing: me, myself and I. Clearly if he gets a second mandate he will truly show is real colors and become every progressive’s wet dream… probably not. At least when Bush was in power, there was an anti-war movement and people seemed to care about due process…
mekathleen, there still is a significant difference between Democrats and Republicans on a number of issues that affect marginalized people’s lives. People have already mentioned healthcare, reproductive rights, LGBT rights and the economy, so I’ll mention another one: immigration. Obama supports the DREAM Act. His administration has already said that DHS will stop deporting young undocumented people who would be covered by the DREAM Act. These are important steps in the right direction. (Not nearly far enough, but steps in the right direction nonetheless.)
Romney has been getting friendly with racists, is taking advice from arch-racist Kris Kobach, and has said that he would veto the DREAM Act. He thinks undocumented people should “self-deport”, and is opposed to any measures giving them the right to remain in the country. His administration would be extremely hostile to undocumented immigrants.
I’m not saying Obama has a great record on immigrants’ rights. He doesn’t – his administration has already ramped up the numbers of deportations, for example, and rolled out the misnamed “Secure Communities” program across the country. But things could be worse, and they would be worse under a Romney administration. This is just one of the reasons why the election matters.
Walton @307
I’d like to back Walton up on this. I am affected by both the healthcare and reproductive rights issues. Paul Ryan in particular and the Republican party in general promise more disaster when it comes to women’s rights.
When a guy signs on as a co-sponsor for legislation you know that he means it. These bills Ryan backed represent his
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/romney-ryan-abortion-women-voters.php?ref=fpb ideology.
Here are some statistics, and a nifty chart, showing the record number of abortion-restriction laws Republicans passed at the state level.
http://www.guttmacher.org/media/inthenews/2012/01/05/endofyear.html/
If you still think it makes little real difference if you vote for a Republican versus a Democrat … well, you must not be a woman. Or perhaps you do not have empathy for the women in your life.
Of course, this flood of bills restricting women’s rights is bad for everyone, and not just bad for women. It’s even bad for the economy.
Here’s the latest in a long line of anti-woman legislation proposed by Republicans:
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/colorado_abortion_ban_measure.php
15% in addition to the losses that will already happen due to voter intimidation and restriction of voting rights. Uber-conservative states are probably the only places where voting for a 3rd party candidate is safe. And I’d very much encourage people there to do so.
fuck.
ok, that’s just not true, on a state-by-state, office-by-office basis. You can say there isn’t enough of a difference for your taste; you can say that the Overton Window is shifting in the wrong direction. But you can’t say that there is actually no difference unless you think McCain would be giving me insurance come 2014, and would have let DADT become history. Or that Elisabeth Warren and Scott Brown are the same; or that a Democratic Wisconsin Governor would have killed union rights in the state; etc.
There are good arguments to be made for how voting 3rd party in safe/unwinnable states can shift the Overton Window in the right direction, but you are not making good arguments.
I haven’t read the whole thread (migraine, ugh) but I just have to chime in to state the obvious that this guy is loathesome to the nth degree and the fact that he is an “asset” to the Romney ticket says sickening things about the Republican base. Urgh. Back to my hole of darkness and ice packs.
*sigh* Not caught up. I got busy in meatspace. :-(
What is more…
1) The US is deeper in the red numbers than Greece, from what I hear. The big difference is that the US isn’t pressured by the European Central Bank, whose purpose is to keep inflation down come hell and/or high water.
2) The apparently biggest reason of why Greece is in such a bad shape is the fact that its military expenses are so unusually high. Sound familiar? And it makes extremely little sense; yes, Greece and Turkey have disliked each other for close to a thousand years now, but they’re both frigging NATO members, and while Turkey isn’t an EU member, it’s an official candidate. They’re not going to have a war.
What? Surely it isn’t like in Europe, where the government knows where you live, so your official existence as a citizen who’s more than 15 to 17 years old (depending on the country) is your voter registration?
All seconded.
Paul Ryan is loved by the right in part because he comes off as so being so likable, so reasonable in person. In other words, they love him because he can sell the draconian, screw-the-poor policies that Mitt Romney likes.
Mark my words, a lot of independent voters will be taken in by Paul Ryan. Unless you are the type of voter who looks into exactly how Ryan will “fix” and “sustain” Medicare for instance, you are likely to believe him. He has been called “The Beltway Charmer.” And he has good hair and rock hard abs — all important to Republicans. Go to Politico sometime and search for “Paul Ryan fitness.” They say he makes conservative hearts flutter and makes liberals sputter.
The quality of skepticism which is par for the course on Pharyngula is hard to come by in the population at large.
Paul Ryan is not controversial on the right. He is loved. And he is lauded as their kind of intellectual. It’s as if the right wing is saying, “See, we have smart people too. You can’t argue with Paul Ryan, he’s too good.”
Paul Ryan has the same kind of narrow intellect that Robert P. George possesses.
http://www.salon.com/2012/08/11/paul_ryans_not_so_nice/
@Lynna
I was unaware of all that, thanks for the explanation. Your quote in 317 chills me to the bone. There’s a Congressman out here in Illinois who is like that, handsome, chiseled, loved, and hateful.
mekathleen,
While there are some valid aspects to your arguments, I agree third party candidates should be supported when possible and when they better represent your interests and beliefs, there are some serious flaws to your argument.
While Obama and the Democrats have moved disturbingly to the right, your argument that they are virtually indistinguishable from Republicans, or marginally better, etc., is patently false. Your examples fall apart once one takes the time to examine them:
The ACA was a compromise that barely made it through the senate after more effective liberal and moderate programs were shot down over and over again. The fact that the Republicans and the media have dubbed the act “Obamacare” doesn’t make it his. Given the circumstances, this was the best he could do, that anything was accomplished in the current political climate is actually rather surprising.
Obama’s reluctant willingness to reduce the cost of living increases for social security and other social safety-nets is also a bleak bending to reality. The simple fact is that the Republicans are dedicated to utterly destroying those programs while at the same time ramping up defense to unsustainable levels and cutting taxes in a catastrophic effort to destroy any aspects of a functional government or economy. By presenting a willingness to cut programs to try to come to a compromise Obama should have put things completely on the Republicans because they, yet again, proved to be completely divorced from reality and refused to accept a victory, instead demanding complete capitulation. If we actually had a functioning journalistic system that did their jobs, Obama would be a dozen points ahead in the polls. Instead we have a close race between a Republican and a batshit crazy Romney.
Quite simply, if Romney wins, odds are good he’ll have control of both the house and the senate as well. You wrongly believe that the Democrats would be able to block his most devastating plans, but you fail to realize that the Senate has the ability to change its rules which could potentially eliminate the ability of the Democrats to filibuster Republican plans. If that happens, we’re likely to see the following:
1) Devastating fiscal policy implemented that will have much the same effect as the Bush administration tax cuts, namely that a flooding of money into the financial markets will lead to an investment bubble which, when it inevitably bursts will likely cause a depression that will make the Great depression seem like a holiday.
2) Equally devastating cuts into the very policies you attack Obama for not defending enough. Vouchers will destroy Medicare and Medicaid, private retirement accounts will destroy Social Security. Bumping infrastructure, education, and other key programs down to the state level will mean their de facto elimination as already struggling state governments will be completely unable to respond to the additional demands placed upon them.
3) Expanded military spending will virtually guarantee a war with Iran and potentially one with North Korea. What makes this almost certain is the combination of the “big stick” with the inclusion of some of the dumbest neocon advisors on the Romney team. These jackasses still believe Iraq was a good idea and that they’re going to find those WMDs any day now.
4) The Republican war on civil rights and civil liberties is quite disturbing. They’re talking about rolling back voting rights, womens’ health rights, education, and marriage equality. All of these stances are far, far worse than the most tepid support for equality expressed by the shittiest of the Democratic candidates (except for that wack-a-loon in Tennessee).
Also, don’t forget, in ’00 we had folks who did precisely what you advocate. They voted for Nader in “safe” states. Unfortunately it turned out that some of those “safe” states weren’t quite as safe as they thought. Had just 600 of them voted for Gore in Florida we wouldn’t have the massive debt we have today, we wouldn’t have thousands dead in Iraq, and we might have avoided some if not all of the events on September 11th. Imagine if that had been the case, no Patriot Act, no endless war, perhaps no Tea Party.
I teach Government/poli-sci. What I’m seeing in a lot of these polls is a disturbing vulnerability in all races due to nearly unlimited funding and airwaves flooded with ad after ad slamming the candidates with phony political talking points. As it stands now, two previously safe seats in the senate have become toss ups. Congressional seats aren’t the only ones that are vulnerable. Obama is getting slammed with bogus ads backed by millions in key states.
Frankly I think we’re seeing the tip of the iceberg and, even with a garbage Republican ticket representing the worst of the far right extreme, they have a viable shot. Again, Obama should be enjoying a double digit lead, currently he’s sitting at a 4.6% composite and actually tied in two recent national polls. Give a few billionaires the chance to plug a couple of million into a few key states and key congressional elections, and you might just find out how much worse the Republicans actually are.
not really. you bring proof of address with you to the voting booth (a bill, or your id, or something like that) to show you’re voting in the correct spot. sometimes you’ll be on the roster (dunno where they get the info, maybe from DMV) but you can still vote if you’re not on the roster, you just have to fill out a form so they can know you’re not voting in multiple places in the state (second-hand information, obviously, so that might not be quite 100% right; but that’s how bf says it works)
not the booth, the polling station. derp.
Wow. I wish I had some of your apparent insulation from the vast differences, at all levels of the US government, between Democratic and Republican stances on social issues. Sucks to be me I guess: LGBTQ, disabled, poor, mentally ill. I mean, it’s not like Democrats where I live actually fight for LGBTQ rights–oh wait, they do! And my local Democratic party is not committed to providing health care to everyone in the city, regardless of income, preexisting conditions, sexual orientation, gender identity–except, somehow, they are!
Vote however you want, but don’t throw out this bullshit that should be obvious to anyone who has ever given a thought to people who are not white, not straight, not male, not wealthy, and not in great health. I don’t know which of these you are or aren’t, although I have some guesses, but if you really think that Republicans and Democrats are indistinguishable on social issues, my main guess is that you don’t live on many, if any, margins.
On CBS’s 60 Minutes yesterday, Paul Ryan said that he will follow Romney’s lead when it comes to releasing his tax returns.
Also, Romney worked very hard to make Ryan sound like he’s not a career politician nor a Washington insider, though of course Ryan is both.
Q: “Ugly Bags of Mostly Hate.”
Obama please hammer in on this.
Anyone else still want to say Reid was wrong?
So, Paul Ryan is in Iowa making speeches to counter Obama’s campaign in Iowa. And Ryan is backing Romney up on the false welfare ads.
Luckily, the Koch brothers don’t own the Des Moines Register. The newspaper is greeting the Romney/Ryan campaign with a story about one of their lies.
Link.
In case you haven’t seen it yet, here’s an article that includes video of the second(!) false welfare ad from the Romney campaign:
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entries/romney-releases-second-welfare-attack-ad
Link to story that includes video of first false welfare ad.
These dirty dealings follow hard on the heels of Romney telling President Obama to get his (Obama’s) campaign out of the gutter, and of Ryan pumping up the myth that Obama does not address the issues but does make personal attacks.
Whining and lying.
Did you notice that Ryan had to give “several years” of tax returns to the Romney campaign during the VP vetting process? Romney needs to see more than two years of tax returns, but we the people can just fuck off.
Tis ‘Himself, #61
If the head of a company says to me, “You’re an idiot if you believe us when we tell you something.”, I know that I will be taking my business elsewhere. What Mr. Blankfein is doing is called “blaming the victim.”
An nicely detailed article by Sahil Kapur puts reality back into the Medicare debate.
Excerpt below:
Link.
The Maddow Blog sees the fight over the Medicare message as potentially very troubling. Paul Ryan is on deck to sell bullshit, and like Steve Benen, I’m afraid he will succeed.
Excerpts below:
@ Lynna, OM
The dauntless duo manfully hunting paper tigers of their own invention …
Thought I saw that Lyin’ Ryan was voted “Best Brown-noser” or something like that in high school. And we all know the only difference between a brown-nose and a shithead is depth perception. Seriously though, Ryan’s one of the reasons this transplant calls Wisconsin “The Arctic Alabama”. That, and the number of christains and bigots I’ve seen here.
Steve Benen is completely fed up with the political pundits worshipping Paul Ryan, and rightly so. I’m fed up too. If one more new story tells me about how serious, good looking, intelligent, and brave Paul Ryan is I’m going to upchuck.
Look beyond the facade people. Even his vaunted numbers don’t add up. This is not serious. It’s more like Ryan is still in college writing papers and needing a red pencil edit from a more knowledgeable professor.
Any sign of some intelligence is taken by the wingnuts as genius, but Ryan really is missing the mark. I guess love is blind.
Oohh, look, he actually did something all by himself — no matter that it is bunkum.
Excerpts from Benen’s article:
Why do we have so few intelligent, skeptical media people in Washington? Or is it just that most of them are lazy? Or perhaps the lazy fuckers get the center stage position?
The dauntless duo manfully hunting black paper tigers of their own invention …