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Bill's right. As a woman, I do want things. I want to be treated with respect and equal to men. I'm sure blacks and Hispanics want to be treated well in this country too.

So yes, we want "things".

I feel sorry for his two kids that they have a wacky dad like him.

This.

So good to see you've learned from the election results, Republicans :up:! Now who's whining and playing that evil "victim" card. Jesus Christ, wake up and get a damn clue already.
 
Well Karl Rove accused President Obama of suppressing the vote. Seriously. He claims that because Obama ran negative ads against Mitt Romney, conservatives didn't vote. :lol:
Karl Rove whinging about negative campaigning is astounding in its utter lack of self-awareness.
 
True, the election post-mortem on Fox News has been highly entertaining. Apparently, the GOP lost the election because Romney wasn't conservative ENOUGH. (that, and the unholy alliance between Obama/Chris Christie/Liberal Weather-Control Machine)
 
i think, ironically, and wonderfully, it was Megyn Kelly who completely summed up what just happened to the GOP:

“Is this just math that you do as a Republican to make yourself feel better?”

because that's what's been going on since January 20, 2009. from birth certificates to poll trutherism, the American Right has been lying to itself to make itself feel better for almost 4 years. and, worse, buying books and consuming media that's created specifically to assuage a reality they don't want to accept. they've paid people to lie to them.

hopefully, that's all over now.

but i bet it isn't.
 
And if you look at the last month or so it isn't even only the Republicans. We had people here who are intelligent and far more informed than your average Joe and they were all talking about how great Romney's chances are and so on. Frankly I started thinking that maybe I was insane for being so bullish on Obama but even when I saw tightening of the race I never, ever saw it going to Romney. Nor did I find his chances good.

I also don't understand the weird fascination with Karl Rove. He was successful in 2004 by shoring up the evangelical base, stuffing ballot initiatives with anti-gay marriage propositions and so on. But he also had the benefit of a wartime president. In 2000 he lost the popular vote and arguably the election as well. What was his value in 2008? In 2012? Aside from pissing away money. And he's supposed to be some kind of guru of elections? Hello?
 
because that's what's been going on since January 20, 2009. from birth certificates to poll trutherism, the American Right has been lying to itself to make itself feel better for almost 4 years. and, worse, buying books and consuming media that's created specifically to assuage a reality they don't want to accept. they've paid people to lie to them.

hopefully, that's all over now.

but i bet it isn't.

Maybe its premature, but based on the right's outrage over Obama's reelection, I wouldn't be surprised if threats against him, liberal politicians and liberal voters worsen or even cared out. There are too many paranoid people out there.
 
Yeah, like I said, that's what I worry very deeply about, too. The GOP and its supporters have a serious problem, and while we sit here and laugh at some of the things they've been saying all week (which I agree are indeed incredibly funny in their ignorance/stupidity), at the same time, the refusal of many in the Republican Party to address their current issues and crazy rhetoric is really disturbing and we should also be very concerned about that fact.

I also don't understand the weird fascination with Karl Rove. He was successful in 2004 by shoring up the evangelical base, stuffing ballot initiatives with anti-gay marriage propositions and so on. But he also had the benefit of a wartime president. In 2000 he lost the popular vote and arguably the election as well. What was his value in 2008? In 2012? Aside from pissing away money. And he's supposed to be some kind of guru of elections? Hello?

I never got the fascination with him, either. Same with Newt Gingrich. People talked about his expertise in this and that all the time, but every time I heard him speak he always came off as an ignorant, pompous blowhard who could give Trump a run for his money. They're both obnoxious idiots as far as I'm concerned, and why anyone has been taking them seriously on anything related to politics over the years remains beyond me.
 
i think, ironically, and wonderfully, it was Megyn Kelly who completely summed up what just happened to the GOP:



because that's what's been going on since January 20, 2009. from birth certificates to poll trutherism, the American Right has been lying to itself to make itself feel better for almost 4 years. and, worse, buying books and consuming media that's created specifically to assuage a reality they don't want to accept. they've paid people to lie to them.

hopefully, that's all over now.

but i bet it isn't.
There's no way the right gives an inch towards the center. The whole problem is a general resistance to change, a fear of the unknown. The best way to deal with that fear is to cling to what you know (as one politician noted, that's often guns and religion).

Prepare for one side to double down.

This isn't the end of the GOP. It's too early to call it that. The popular vote was 50-48. It's not over yet. A slimmed down Chris Christie could very well take it to the house for the GOP in 2016. And I don't see the House turning over anytime soon.
 
I also don't understand the weird fascination with Karl Rove. He was successful in 2004 by shoring up the evangelical base, stuffing ballot initiatives with anti-gay marriage propositions and so on. But he also had the benefit of a wartime president. In 2000 he lost the popular vote and arguably the election as well. What was his value in 2008? In 2012? Aside from pissing away money. And he's supposed to be some kind of guru of elections? Hello?


i found it kind of poetic. like how the supervillan sews the seeds of his own demise, or his own creation turns on him ... that kind of thing.
 
This isn't the end of the GOP. It's too early to call it that. The popular vote was 50-48. It's not over yet. A slimmed down Chris Christie could very well take it to the house for the GOP in 2016. And I don't see the House turning over anytime soon.



i look forward to a Christie run in 2016. i doubt i'd support him over Hillary or Cuomo or whoever, but seeing him try to navigate the primaries will be fascinating. whereas Fake Plastic Romney was anything you wanted him to be, whenever you wanted him to be, he aims to please, Christie strikes me as very authentic. so authentic he's obese. he's also, apparently, a brilliant strategist, and he's got time to figure out just how he's going to do this ... and i can't see him doing the Romney Etch-A-Sketch. so i will be tuning in to watch him battle against Ryan, Rubio, and whatever other nutcases they throw up there in 4 years.

from my read of the right wing blogs, seems they are already saying that the next big issue is going to be immigration, and the GOP is going to look at Latinos and make the calculation that they're more important than the nativist white base, and cut a big deal.

they're confounded about the sluts single women, though. they're not quite sure what to do about Lena Dunham other than stop nominating rape baby advocates.
 
While I think the country as a whole is going in a more progressive direction, there's still a whole lotta flyover country in between the two coasts. For that reason, I think the GOP will maintain a big foothold in Congress.
 
And if you look at the last month or so it isn't even only the Republicans. We had people here who are intelligent and far more informed than your average Joe and they were all talking about how great Romney's chances are and so on. Frankly I started thinking that maybe I was insane for being so bullish on Obama but even when I saw tightening of the race I never, ever saw it going to Romney. Nor did I find his chances good.

you were not insane, this was a very close election. the EC vote tally is complete shit.

Three weeks a go, this may have broken a different way. Sandy did give Obama a chance to show he is a competent president. A lot of independents, subconsciously were making a comparison to an involved, right on it president to W and his disastrous Katrina actions. No Sandy, some bad break for Obama, we could have had a different outcome.

I do believe there were a lot GOP pundits, putting too much of thier gut, and hunches into their equation.

Also, I can say with all certainty, the EC now favors the Dems. Is no one surprise that this year no Dems have been talking about doing away with the EC. If I were a avid GOP supporter, I might be asking myself, why?


42 stales are locked in, that is 435 of the 538 EC votes.
Only 103 are toss-ups and the Dems have an easier path.
 
Also, I can say with all certainty, the EC now favors the Dems. Is no one surprise that this year no Dems have been talking about doing away with the EC. If I were a avid GOP supporter, I might be asking myself, why?

But does the popular vote favour the GOP? Particularly with the present-day demographics?
 
Conservative entertainment complex. . .finally someone puts a name to the nonsense that passes for news these days.
 
Obama will wind up winning by some 3m votes.

That's really not a squeaker.


that is about the same amount as W beat Kerry in 2004, and no one called it a landslide. Bush won 31 states to 19. Obama beat Romney 26 - 24, almost a 25-25 tie. That's a close race.
 
But does the popular vote favour the GOP? Particularly with the present-day demographics?

the term 'popular vote' is odd. In any senate contest do we say the popular vote winner is elected? Would the popular vote winner in Canada not be the winner? In Canada are elections only truly contested in about 16% of the country?

I don't give any real consideration to which party the real vote would favor. the declared winner would be the actual winner. With the EC it is mathematically possible to have the winner lose the vote by 10%. I can understand why they set it up in the 1700s. They also set up for the 2 Senators from each state to be chosen by selectors and not a vote of the people or popular vote. That was changed in the early 1900s. When they went to a direct vote of Senators they should have gone for a direct vote for the President.
 
Would the popular vote winner in Canada not be the winner?

No, they wouldn't. We are a parliamentary democracy so we actually get to vote for the prime minister directly. The party which wins the most seats is the governing party and their leader becomes the Prime Minister. If the party wins less than 50% of the seats we have a minority government, if the party wins more than 50% of the seats we have a majority government.

In Canada are elections only truly contested in about 16% of the country?

Not sure that it is quite that little but we are also very entrenched and becoming moreso. As an example, we have a majority Conservative government at the moment. The Prime Minister would never really bother to campaign in Toronto because his party doesn't have many seats. Similarly, in the entire state of Alberta, I believe that there is ONE non-Conservative riding - do you think that when we have a national campaign you really get the other parties seriously contesting there? Yarite.

(I am editing this b/c there is a handful of Conservative seats in Toronto now and I realized it immediately after posting b/c we just bought a house in a Conservative riding, heaven help me. Moving from the most leftist riding in Toronto to a Conservative one should be interesting.)
 
As long as the electoral college exists, arguing about the popular vote is a bit useless.
For instance, let's take a massive Red State like Texas.

If (raw) popular vote were the deciding factor and not the EC, you'd probably have more and more Texans turn out at the polls. I only use Texas because it is a massive state. But I could use Alabama or Louisiana, etc. When you already know your state is going one way or another, what's the impetus to vote outside of being able to say that you did (something you could just as easily lie about)? And on the flip-side, you could say that even more Californians or New Yorkers would turn out for the Dems. It's an unknowable.

I'm pretty sure we can all agree that the electoral college is a farce but I don't think the raw popular vote is really telling us that much. The campaigns didn't even set foot in at least 40 states. Can you imagine the effort to turnout the rural vote in (guaranteed) Red State America if popular vote were all-important? And vice versa in New York for the Dems?

I'm just saying - I don't think the popular vote is entirely indicative of where we are. To some degree, yes. But perhaps not that much.
 
that is about the same amount as W beat Kerry in 2004, and no one called it a landslide. Bush won 31 states to 19. Obama beat Romney 26 - 24, almost a 25-25 tie. That's a close race.



yes, if all the states had equal population.

but they don't.

Bush won 286 to Kerry's 251.

that's not nearly as close as Obama's 332 to Romney's 206.
 
from Today's NY Times

November 11, 2012
For One Night At Fox, News Tops Agenda
By DAVID CARR

It has been suggested, here and elsewhere, that Fox News effectively became part of the Republican propaganda apparatus during the presidential campaign by giving pundit slots to many of the Republican candidates and relentlessly advocating for Mitt Romney once he won the nomination.

Over many months, Fox lulled its conservative base with agitprop: that President Obama was a clear failure, that a majority of Americans saw Mr. Romney as a good alternative in hard times, and that polls showing otherwise were politically motivated and not to be believed.

But on Tuesday night, the people in charge of Fox News were confronted with a stark choice after it became clear that Mr. Romney had fallen short: was Fox, first and foremost, a place for advocacy or a place for news?

In this moment, at least, Fox chose news.

By now, most of you have no doubt seen or read about the election-night stare-down between the anchors at Fox News and Karl Rove, who, apart from running a “super PAC” that aimed to defeat the president, also served as an on-air commentator. While news outlets love access to insiders, Mr. Rove’s two roles seemed to be in profound conflict after Fox’s decision desk projected that the president had won Ohio, all but guaranteeing him re-election. Mr. Rove said that the call was premature and that the decision desk was ignoring important data.

While Fox News allowed him to say his piece, it didn’t cave — and, more important, it didn’t question the legitimacy of the election over all, a move that could have led to all manner of unhealthy speculation.

The best journalistic instincts of Fox’s news people kicked in and the hard reality of Mr. Obama’s triumph was allowed to land as it occurred. In doing so, the network avoided marginalizing itself and ended, at least for a night, its war on the president.

Watching a news show transparently at war with itself made for extraordinary live television. Just after 11 p.m. on Tuesday, Fox News called Ohio for Mr. Obama. But Mr. Rove, who had helped finance over $300 million in attack ads, was getting phone calls from Romney officials protesting that forecast. He went on live television to challenge it, citing data he was receiving from the Ohio secretary of state.

“That’s awkward,” said Megyn Kelly, the co-anchor, speaking for many of us.

If Fox News had backed up under pressure from the Romney campaign and Mr. Rove, it could have fomented temporary but damaging unrest among its many fervent viewers.

Instead, Ms. Kelly walked down the hall and confronted the decision desk with Mr. Rove’s protest. She asked the head of Fox News’s decision team, Arnon Mishkin, “You tell me whether you stand by your call in Ohio given the doubts Karl Rove just raised?” Ms. Kelly may as well have been asking, “Are we a news organization or an instrument of the conservative agenda?”

Smiling, Mr. Mishkin answered plainly, “We are actually quite comfortable with our call in Ohio.” He and his colleagues were convinced, along with everyone else, that there were not enough Republican votes left in Ohio for Mr. Romney to turn the tide.

Ms. Kelly seemed satisfied, Mr. Rove was vanquished, and by this time the president had been declared the winner over all. Fox News, in this instance at least, landed firmly on the side of journalism, the facts and a narrative based on reality as opposed to partisan fantasy.

As my colleague Jeremy Peters reported, it was Michael Clemente, the executive vice president for news, who decided to let Mr. Rove have his say and then send Ms. Kelly to check it out.

“I was thinking about transparency, about putting out the facts as they happened,” Mr. Clemente told me in a telephone interview.

“For a half an hour, there was a missing piece that other networks were skating around — why there had been no talk of concession — and we wanted to explore why that was happening,” he said.

He added that once Fox concluded that the numbers from the decision desk were correct, it went with them.

“I knew that a big chunk of our viewers were going to be disappointed in the outcome,” Mr. Clemente said, “but I work on the news side, and the most important thing was getting it right.”

With the game declared over, Fox’s audience clicked off in droves. In the 10 p.m. hour, more than 10 million people were tuned in to Fox News, but that audience dropped almost by half in the 11 p.m. hour, once it was clear the president had been re-elected.

Jon Stewart, Slate and others had some fun with the civil war at Fox News, but I found the whole episode somewhat reassuring.

It was going to be a rough night at Fox News no matter how they played it.

The channel had pushed all its chips into the middle and showed its hand, all but declaring that it would be a big night for Mr. Romney. And in the run-up to the election, the channel tilted the rink in favor of Mr. Romney without compunction, keeping its viewers wrapped in a gauzy bubble of conservative notions about a country that had lost regard for its president.

According to Media Matters, a liberal watchdog group, in the final days of the campaign Fox News ran more than two and a half hours of Mr. Romney’s speeches while giving just 27 minutes to Mr. Obama’s.

But the channel was hardly alone in its partisanship. According to the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, 71 percent of MSNBC’s segments about Mr. Romney were negative, while Fox News went negative on the president 46 percent of the time.

Part of the reason the result came as such a shock was that followers of conservative media had been told over and over that mainstream analysis was not to be trusted, that it reflected liberal ideology and not data. But they were misled by media outlets that shared their values, Fox chief among them. David Frum, the conservative columnist, made just that point on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” show last week when he said that Republicans had been “fleeced and exploited and lied to by a conservative entertainment complex.”

Campaigns are about partisanship, about the contest, but elections are about what actually happened. We all have our rooting interests, and Fox News’s are more manifest than most, but no news person wants to be caught out and end up looking dumb.

Fox News made the call on Ohio, and was the third network to call the election, behind NBC and MSNBC, because news people work there and knew what the data were saying. No matter how much Mr. Rove and much of the Fox News audience wanted it to end differently, Barack Obama had been duly re-elected as president of the United States. We decided. They reported.
 
Today's Moment of Cognitive Dissonance:

fairampbalanced.jpg
 
If you replaced 'The Far Left' with 'The Far Right' there, the accuracy of the statement would experience a staggering increase.
 
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