US Politics - From barbarism to decadence

[Tormund Ukrainesbane]

No trolling other boards, no feeding the year...oh wait...never mind. Let the flame wars resume!

[Tormund Ukrainesbane]

Ok - serious question, here.

November 2, we in the great state of Jaw-ja (Georgia) get to choose a governor. Which crook should I vote for?

1. In one corner, we have Nathan Deal. Besides numerous ethics flaws, Mr. Deal may have recently filed for bankruptcy. Which doesn't look good. I mean, how can you run a state, if you've run your household into the ground??

2. In the other corner, we have Roy Barnes. Mr. Barnes has accused his opponent of everything but eating children, smacking kittens around, kicking pregnant women and enjoying it all. Really. Barnes has slung the mud and accused Deal of being soft on rapists and wanting to loosen rape shield laws, being soft on child molestors, etc. Barnes was governor a few years ago, but lost it because he pandered insufficiently to the teacher's unions and there was some controversy over the GA state flag. Which makes me believe he may not be an effective leader.

Deal is a Republican and Barnes is a Democrat, so they are both out.

John Monds is the libertarian candidate. (He's actually the most popular LP candidate ever, only guy in the country to ever get more than a million votes). He's not offensively libertarian though. He advocates a general phasing out of the sales tax, advocates capping state spending growth to population growth + inflation. He's against mandatory minimums for drug offenders (but doesn't seem to be against the drug war altogether as far as I can tell). Is for gay marriage, for guns, etc. Seems like your kind of guy.

ETA - Crazy, his website claims that Monds is the first African-American to appear on the general ballot for Georgia Governor.

[Shryke]

I love this:

From the California Governor's race.

[Dinsdale!]

Yeah, and Dinsdale! himself stated that Williams' view was "racist."

I said this his emotional response was racist. His view, which is that this is something irrational and to be overcome is about the least racist view I could imagine.

Everybody has reactions like that, and they simply cannot be trained out of people. We have Bayesian filters and we use them unconsciously. All we can do is consciously come to terms with our unconscious bigoted impulses and combat them. We do this because our goal ought be to prevent racist actions. People who suppress and double-think about their bigoted impulses will be racist insidiously; they will be in complete denial of their racist actions. I believe that comments like Juan's serve race relations. I believe that his firing damages them and I believe that the heads of NPR are subconsciously racist, and that this has resulted in an overt racist action. I believe this firing is actually about past disagreements with Juan Williams' viewpoints (think Bill Cosby).

[Lord O' Bones]

Our unconscious brains tend to emerge more often when we're not at our best (i.e., drunk, stressed out, exhausted).

Shit.

[Demonblade]

One of these days, I'm going to put an exclamation point at the end of my user name. Or perhaps I should put a question mark, just to be different.

[Tormund Ukrainesbane]

Is this an admission that some libertarians are offensively so?

Aren't we? I was under the impression that my positions were particularly odious 'round here.

[Shryke]

Rand Paul suppoters assault and stomp on the head of a women from MoveOn.org outside the Conway/Paul debate: http://www.salon.com/news/rand_paul_jack_conway_kentucky_senate/?story=/politics/war_room/2010/10/25/paul_supporter_stoms_woman

[Old Nan]

That was pretty innocuous to be called "stomping," even if it was on a curb.

[Slick Mongoose]

Sorry, lots of politics swimming through my head tonight.

Does everyone remember the issue of how some people suggested that traditional polling was becoming less reliable because more and more people were without landlines and other things? And that this discrepancy suggested that polling usually didn't give Dem turnout enough credit?

Does anyone remember if this was actually born out by the evidence? It makes sense on the surface, but I remember pretty clearly that the RealClearPolitics.com averages and the Nate Silver estimates were like dead on. So I'm suspicious as to whether this theory holds water.

It's corrected for. They can use data from the last election to work out the number of voters without landlines. If there's a dramatic increase between elections they might come unstuck, but it doesn't seem likely.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Triskele,

Will that actually tip the polls? it's pretty heinous. But it's not Rand Paul's fault that this happened. I don't doubt that some Dem supporter somewhere has done something nasty that just hasn't been caught on camera.

That was pretty nasty. I'm also curious to see what that will do to the Kentucky race. Why the heck were those people grabbing her anyway?

[Frog Eater]

Triskele,

That was pretty nasty. I'm also curious to see what that will do to the Kentucky race. Why the heck were those people grabbing her anyway?

The people were grabbing her because she was obnoxiously approaching a senatorial candidate wearing a disguise carrying an unidentified object. i.e."award". Notice the wig getting pulled off. She was definately a security risk.

[Lord O' Bones]

You're a nutcase if you're justifying that guy stepping on her head. She was already tackled to the fucking ground.

Sorry, I know I'm feeding the troll.

I think he's merely answering the question. And I agree with him. The head stomp is clearly over the line, and I imagine FE will agree.

[Frog Eater]

I think he's merely answering the question. And I agree with him. The head stomp is clearly over the line, and I imagine FE will agree.

No one should have stepped on her head. You cant justify that. I was answering why the people were grabbing her. restraining her until proper police intervention happened should have been sufficient.

[Andriy Czarchenko]

Sorry, lots of politics swimming through my head tonight.

Does everyone remember the issue of how some people suggested that traditional polling was becoming less reliable because more and more people were without landlines and other things? And that this discrepancy suggested that polling usually didn't give Dem turnout enough credit?

Does anyone remember if this was actually born out by the evidence? It makes sense on the surface, but I remember pretty clearly that the RealClearPolitics.com averages and the Nate Silver estimates were like dead on. So I'm suspicious as to whether this theory holds water.

It´s pretty hard to say when the pollsters weight the numbers based on arbitrary factors all the time. For example someone surveyed that pure registered voter models have in last few elections been majority of the time closer to the result than likely voter screens.

[Maithanet]

Decent article in Newsweek about what a Republican controlled Congress would likely do and face in the next two years. Takes a relatively realistic look at where they might push [extend Bush tax cuts, increase oil drilling], and where it is mostly all talk [repeal health care].

Perhaps the most surprising part was at the end:

If Afghanistan doesn’t show significant improvement by Obama’s July deadline—translation: a more stable government, fewer American deaths—he will likely call for a withdrawal. Many Republicans on Capitol Hill, meanwhile, will reject “surrender.”

Expect fireworks. Afghanistan is “the one [foreign policy] issue that could be quite contentious,” says James Carafano of the Heritage Foundation. “If Obama opts for a cut-and-run strategy in Afghanistan, deciding to withdraw American forces whatever the conditions on the ground,” that would, he thinks, provoke a big debate. And not just between the two parties. “The Republicans could fracture,” Carafano says—some in favor of staying the course, some in favor of getting out. “I don’t think the GOP has had its come-to-Jesus moment on Afghanistan yet.”

As the so-called Age of Austerity begins, some observers have speculated that Tea Partiers and antiwar Democrats could make common cause by calling for withdrawal as a way to cut the deficit. But only the most libertarian of the Tea Partiers put fiscal responsibility before national defense.

I personally doubt that the Tea Party subparty are ever going to favor pulling out Afganistan for the purpose of debt reduction. That requires too much rational discussion about tradeoffs with their constituents, and nuanced policy discussion isn't the Tea Party's thing at the moment.

[TrackerNeil]

Because you need to vote for the person, not the party...says I, who has voted straight Democratic ticket for 17 years, even in local elections.

Well, that is one way to look at it, but there are others. For example, when someone votes for a moderate-seeming Republican for Congress, he/she is also empowering the Republican Speaker of the House (if there is one), who wields much more power than the average congressperson. Same with the Senate, or with any other legislative body. For that reason, I think that anyone who doesn't consider the larger impact of his/her vote is being a bit shortsighted.

[Shryke]

BTW, some follow up on the head stomping.

Turns out, one of the guys assaulting the poor women was a Rand Paul campaign official:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/10/26/913778/-Update:-Confirmed-Assailant-in-Kentucky-Paul-Official

It appears the Rand Paul campaign finally got around to acknowledging this fact and firing the asshole ... after someone else did all the footwork and figured out what was going on and made it public.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Triskele,

I figure Rand Paul will be much like his father.

[Tormund Ukrainesbane]

Triskele,

I figure Rand Paul will be much like his father.

Ron is only a House Rep basically all he has to do is impress Galveston, TX. Rand aspires to the Senate, which means he had to go and lick Mitch McConnell and John Boener's asses to get the money to run his campaign. He talked a lot more like his dad before anyone thought he had a fighting chance.