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Random Political Thoughts

Started by MV/Liberace!, February 08, 2012, 10:50:42 AM

b_dubb

Bush grew the federal government, the debt, started two wars. Obama has inherited this mess. The economy was busted. People talk about spending w/ Obama. The spending is there to stimulate the economy. But we've discussed this before haven't we? You can do broken record? So can I

Ben Shockley

Quote from: onan on August 29, 2012, 07:47:11 PM
I just love the Romney love...  I do have to wonder where Romney really stands on issues. And if he can do this much of a switch, what is coming next?
The Republican base only demand that Romney be consistent on one thing:  STAY WHITE.
In the context of this particular election, and with the monomaniacal goal recently so eloquently described in here of "getting Obama's black ass out of DC," all the stuff that Gregg Jackson enumerated and which would normally all be deal-breakers for right-wing voters are all being overlooked in favor of Romney's Whiteness.   Period.
"What is coming next?"   Right-wing voters couldn't care less!   A big chunk of the people who are going to vote Romney-Munster have no idea who those guys are or what they've ever done or threaten to do-- just so long as SOMETHING gets the half-Black guy out of the White House.

Quote from: onan on August 29, 2012, 07:47:11 PM
I just love the Romney love. Many that are posting about how great Romney will be must have short memories or be able to talk out of both sides of their two faces...

It's more like lesser of 2 evils, same as always.  Compare and contrast with Obama, the guy that sat in Rev Wrights rascist, Marxist, Black Liberation Theology 'church' for 20 years.  Of course someone with that mindset isn't going to improve anything, isn't capable of it, does not have the right ideas, policis, or philosophical inclinations.  Maybe, just maybe, someone with a pretty good record as a turnaround guy from the business world can fix this mess of debt and deficits.  Sure as hell Obama can't and, I'm saying, doesn't want to.

Obama didn't inherit anything.  He wanted the job and ran for it promising he knew what to do and would fix things.  He made promises of cutting the deficit in half at the end of the 4 years, he said the unemployment rate would be down to 8% by the end of his first term.  Four years in it's pretty clear he lied about that and doesn't know what to do.  And we're waaay more in debt now with nothing to show for it.  Is he supposed to be re-elected based on this?


Quote from: onan on August 29, 2012, 07:47:11 PM
• Voted # 8 RINO by Human Events

Looking at that, I wonder who the top 7 were

Quote from: Ben Shockley on August 29, 2012, 11:43:58 PM
The Republican base only demand that Romney be consistent on one thing:  STAY WHITE...

Yeah, yeah.  The media manages to point their cameras at only white people at Tea Party events, during this Convention, all the rest.  Then when a black person speaks up or appears onscreen they are told they are Uncle Toms, traitors to their race, on and on.  Biden tells groups they are going to be put back in chains.  And they say the Rs are the racists.

That back mayor from Utah, Mia Love, who spoke at the Convention a couple days ago and is running for Congress just had her Wikipedia page vandalized - 'dity worthless whore', 'house ni**er', etc.  Nice stuff from the party that's always counting noses, always separating us by race.  I think Clarence Thomas described this stuff as a 'high tech lynching' all the way back in the 80s.  You must be very proud

One day, maybe after the election emotions winds down, you might consider which party is forever telling blacks what a rascist country this is, how they can't make it on their own, all that.  Just  for votes.  What effect do you think that has on black kids growing up hearing that every day?  The Ds have a lot to answer for.


ziznak

hehehe... long dong silver!!! away!!!

b_dubb

Quote from: Paper*Boy on August 29, 2012, 11:50:37 PM
It's more like lesser of 2 evils, same as always.  Compare and contrast with Obama, the guy that sat in Rev Wrights rascist, Marxist, Black Liberation Theology 'church' for 20 years.
Just because it's pro-black doesn't necessarily make something anti-white

McPhallus

Quote from: b_dubb on August 30, 2012, 05:07:14 AM
Just because it's pro-black doesn't necessarily make something anti-white

I would classify Rev. Wrong as both.

ziznak

Quote from: b_dubb on August 30, 2012, 05:07:14 AM
Just because it's pro-black doesn't necessarily make something anti-white
I would say that the two meet quite often.

MV/Liberace!

Quote from: b_dubb on August 28, 2012, 06:39:33 AM
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/29/world/middleeast/court-rules-israel-wasnt-at-fault-in-rachel-corries-death.html?_r=1&hp

Court Rules Israel Wasn’t at Fault in U.S. Activist’s Death

of COURSE the Israeli court didn't find Israel at fault

you'd be surprised.  judges in the israeli judicial system are known to span the full range as far as political ideologies are concerned.  some judges in israel are even seen as "anti israel."

Morgus

So the republican convention mystery guest is now revealed - its Clint Eastwood.
Clint is on the TV live right now in front of a big background image of him as Josie Wales holding his guns.

b_dubb

Quote from: Morgus on August 30, 2012, 08:11:48 PM
So the republican convention mystery guest is now revealed - its Clint Eastwood.
Clint is on the TV live right now in front of a big background image of him as Josie Wales holding his guns.
file under unintentional self parody

Give'em HELL, Clint!

Paint the town GOD DAMNED RED, you High Plains Drifting crazy bastard!

(I now officially forgive you for killing the turtle in The Beguiled.)

[attachimg=1]



Ben Shockley

Paper*Boy's demonstration of his fear of The Black, and then ziznak and McPhallus equating pro-this with anti-that, forced it out of me:

You good folks highlight something important for others to understand about the right-wing mentality and world-view.
Right wingers don't understand, nor do they find legitimate, the concept of "benevolent empowerment."

To right-wingers, the acquisition and operation of social power are only ever a cynical, exploitative, oppressive, zero-sum game.  Power-- whether it be in political structures, workplace relations, or the expansion of individuals' legal rights-- only comes from taking it from or denying it to other people.   That is, "I have power relative to you, because you now have less."   Once attained, people naturally will and should use it (according to right-wingers) to retain their relatively-empowered position, by (now even-more-successfully) taking more from and/or denying it to other groups.
This explains part of their opposition to the extension of rights under civil contract law as it regards marriage for same-sex couples.   As bizarre as it seems, the right-winger is simply conditioned to see anyone "getting anything" as himself "losing something;" in this case, apparently himself losing a "relatively preferenced" position vis-a-vis the legal system.   The empirical, material fact that he actually loses nothing is beyond irrelevant to the right-winger: it's inconceivable within the absolute zero-sum world-view.

Even theology (and whether or not a certain brand of it was preached in a church which the future-Pres. Obama might or might not have attended) boils down for the right-winger to a "good for you = bad for me" issue.     In fact, the prospect of a church defined broadly as within the right-winger's own faith addressing issues of "social justice" may be especially troubling for him, in direct proportion to the degree that the right-winger believes in the supernatural basis of that church.   He may fear that the congregation of "revolutionary Others" have a stronger mojo working with the Mystical Being, and that his opposition to the social goals of the revolutionaries will put him at odds with, and invite vengeance from, the Mystical Being.
Regarding "liberation theology," enlightened people can certainly understand "liberation" as a personal moral concept, or as an intra-community sociopolitical improvement goal.   But to the right-winger, "liberation" is necessarily a terrifying concept because --to him-- it is necessarily vengeful.   In his understanding of power relations, any group other than his (however he defines it) becoming "liberated" suggests the possibility that his group will be defined as the erstwhile "oppressor."   The right-winger may feel, perhaps subconsciously, that the stronger his and his group's overall historic repugnance toward the group perceived as seeking "liberation," the more likely is his group to be targeted for the vengeance that he feels naturally follows shifts in groups' power-relations.     I would suggest in fact that anyone afraid of the concept of "group liberation" is someone with a consciousness of having partaken in oppression; I don't see any other logical explanation.

Overall, the right-winger fears anyone else getting any type of power precisely because he knows how he and his group would use it if they got it: to subjugate Others.    That explains the right-wing belief that "to be pro-[anything other than me and mine] is always to be anti-[me and mine]."

Ben Shockley

Quote from: Morgus on August 30, 2012, 08:11:48 PM
...Clint is on the TV live right now in front of a big background image of him as [Josey] Wales holding his guns.
I'm glad I didn't see that.
Given the organizers involved, I'm sure that there's some inconsistency or hypocrisy involved in the Repubs evoking that movie, but I can't think of one right now.  I'm sure none of them know how a "screaming Josey + 2 pistols" image was emblazoned for long time and for reasons I don't know on the side of a big building on Sunset Blvd. in West Hollywood, CA -- that mecca (!) of gays and lib'rul media types.

At least they knew enough to not evoke "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot," which some have called "the only gay Clint movie," or "Pale Rider," which cast Clint as a mysterious figure protecting downtrodden subsistence miners against rapacious capitalists.   That role alone probably caused some naysaying against having him speak.

Morgus

The convention crowd yelled to Clint Eastwood to invoke his old Dirty Harry phrase "Make my day" and he complied.

Eddie Coyle

Quote from: Ben Shockley on August 30, 2012, 10:53:06 PM


At least they knew enough to not evoke "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot," which some have called "the only gay Clint movie,"
That movie and the following Eastwood film "The Eiger Sanction" also had Clint engaging in miscegenationist relationships. Actually, as did "Magnum Force" (though "Yellow Fever" is viewed differently) hell, "Breezy" was awfully risque with those damned hitchhiker trollops. Just pretend he didn't make movies from 1973-75 I guess.

b_dubb

i can't watch the Clint/Chair interview.  it just hurts.  what's the consensus here?  did the "chair interview" work? fail?  a little of both?

i couldn't stop cringing

Marc.Knight

Quote from: b_dubb on September 04, 2012, 09:07:31 AM
i can't watch the Clint/Chair interview.  it just hurts.  what's the consensus here?  did the "chair interview" work? fail?  a little of both?

i couldn't stop cringing


It was sorta like watching a fat, old Stallone try to do another Rambo movie.  I kept asking myself, "Why?"

Ben Shockley

Senile dementia's a bitch.   The gravelly voice (whether acted/affected or forced on you by polyps or something) doesn't make a person immune.

Clint left an impressive body of film work from a career which lasted until 1985.  He will be missed.

ziznak

unforgiven was my last venture

Zircon

Emails suggest Axelrod leaned on Gallup after unfavorable poll

Published September 06, 2012

FoxNews.com Yep, them evil ones at Fox.

FILE: May 31, 2012: Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod addresses a crowd in front of the Statehouse in Boston, Mass. (AP)

Employees at the venerable Gallup polling firm suggested they felt threatened by Obama campaign adviser David Axelrod when he questioned the methodology of a mid-April poll showing Mitt Romney leading the president â€" according to internal emails published Thursday.

That poll showed Romney leading Obama 48-43 percent.

The exchange, according to emails published by The Daily Caller, started when Axelrod sent a tweet saying the tracking poll was “saddled with some methodological problems” and directing followers to a National Journal story in which a professor suggested outdated sampling. 

According to the email chain titled “Axelrod vs. Gallup,” the White House in addition asked that a Gallup staffer “come over and explain our methodology,” which was apparently perceived as a subtle threat.

A Gallup official said in an email he thought Axelrod’s pressure “sounds a little like a Godfather situation.”

“Imagine Axel[rod] with Brando’s voice: ‘I’d like you to come over and explain your methodology…You got a nice poll there … would be a shame if anything happened to it… .’”

The exchanges also show that Gallup invited White House officials to its Washington offices, but it remains unclear whether any of the meetings occurred. 

However, when Gallup declined to change its polling methodology, the Obama administration’s Justice Department revived a 2009 whistle-blower lawsuit against the firm by joining the suit, a senior Gallup official alleges.

The suit was filed by former Gallup employee Michael Lindley, who claims the firm violated the False Claims Act by overcharging the federal government for its services.

Gallup declined to talk about the issue. Calls to the Justice Department, the White House and the Obama campaign have not been returned.

Obama campaign adviser Robert Gibbs told The Washington Times this week that he was unaware of any communications between the campaign and Gallup.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/09/06/emails-suggest-axelrod-leaned-on-gallup-after-unfavorable-poll/#ixzz25ibzg1VW

someguy

you people are all crazy as hell, so I'm going to put this here.


RIP Neil Armstrong.


http://youtu.be/2Wm5SuM1xq8

someguy

I think this study applies to a good portion of the userbase here, thought I'd share.


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8772014

McPhallus

Quote from: someguy on September 10, 2012, 05:37:43 PM
I think this study applies to a good portion of the userbase here, thought I'd share.


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8772014

I don't see the connection, dude.

analog kid

Quote from: Ben Shockley on September 05, 2012, 03:43:27 PM
Senile dementia's a bitch.

This is incredibly tangential, but my mom has early onset dementia, and was just in a car accident. She was out of it for three days while in the hospital, and when she came to, she says that she was in hell and Satan had her trapped in a dark place. Not a believer in those sorts of things, but thought it was pretty creepy.

Sardondi

Since the election of 2008 it has been beyond dispute that the traditional media had and has a significant bias in favor of the Democrats in general and Obama in particular. We have yet to find the limit beyond which the media will not go in its willingness to put a finger on the scales of political news to help Obama or hurt is opponents. Because of this, skepticism is and should be the initial reaction to any political story coming from the traditional media.

This includes the polls, although the legitimate polls at least include enough sampling detail that an inherent bias can be detected if you work enough to find the anomaly. It is an old story on how polls can be manipulated so as to give a particular impression. The usual one is to sample more Democrats than Republicans. It doesn't even have to be intentional, it just works out that way for several different reasons (sampling taken from urban areas where voters tend to be Democrat; fewer Republicans at home during day; one theory is that a considerable number of Republicans/conservatives simply will not respond to pollsters [me for example]).

This is enough to skew polls past the point of reliability. Few polls can give an accurate picture of how the election will go until the last two days. Even then most polls miss the actual election results by a factor outside of their stated margin of error. If most of them can't get it right 48 hours before an election, why is anyone paying attention to them 60 days out? Meaningless.

BobGrau

Quote from: analog kid on September 10, 2012, 06:24:06 PM
This is incredibly tangential, but my mom has early onset dementia, and was just in a car accident. She was out of it for three days while in the hospital, and when she came to, she says that she was in hell and Satan had her trapped in a dark place. Not a believer in those sorts of things, but thought it was pretty creepy.

Was she sedated? Ketamine could account for a lot of NDE's. (not trying to debunk, just keeping an open mind)
My dad was in a medically-induced coma for 3 weeks - he wrote down (dictated) a lot of his dreams while he was under... I wish I could have said to him 'shit dude, I've been there!'

Quote from: Sardondi on September 11, 2012, 03:07:23 AM
Since the election of 2008 it has been beyond dispute that the traditional media had and has a significant bias in favor of the Democrats in general and Obama in particular. We have yet to find the limit beyond which the media will not go in its willingness to put a finger on the scales of political news to help Obama or hurt is opponents. Because of this, skepticism is and should be the initial reaction to any political story coming from the traditional media.

This includes the polls, although the legitimate polls at least include enough sampling detail that an inherent bias can be detected if you work enough to find the anomaly. It is an old story on how polls can be manipulated so as to give a particular impression. The usual one is to sample more Democrats than Republicans. It doesn't even have to be intentional, it just works out that way for several different reasons (sampling taken from urban areas where voters tend to be Democrat; fewer Republicans at home during day; one theory is that a considerable number of Republicans/conservatives simply will not respond to pollsters [me for example]).

This is enough to skew polls past the point of reliability. Few polls can give an accurate picture of how the election will go until the last two days. Even then most polls miss the actual election results by a factor outside of their stated margin of error. If most of them can't get it right 48 hours before an election, why is anyone paying attention to them 60 days out? Meaningless.
[/m][/m]

Polls are useful in looking at trends.  They can be fairly accurate when adjusted for the bias in the poll itself, for example some polltakers have much better records than others.

Sometimes one of the mainstream media outlets conducts their own poll, then treats it as news.  These polls are the most suspect - the least reliable.  The way results can be purposefully skewed is in which questions are asked, how they are asked, and - as you pointed out - who is asked.  These 'news' outlets then try to influence undecideds to think others are voting a certain way and so should they, a little peer pressure.  I personally add as much as 5% to the R in any poll taken by the mainstream media and maybe 2-3% in other polls, depending on which pollster.  Rasmussen is usually pretty good, Zogby has been good in the past.

There was no 'Bradley effect' with Obama last time.  Interesting to see this time around.

analog kid

Quote from: BobGrau on September 11, 2012, 04:38:28 AM

Was she sedated? Ketamine could account for a lot of NDE's. (not trying to debunk, just keeping an open mind)
My dad was in a medically-induced coma for 3 weeks - he wrote down (dictated) a lot of his dreams while he was under... I wish I could have said to him 'shit dude, I've been there!'

Yeah, she was heavily sedated with various narcotics. She has to have another surgery to align her ribs with a plate, and she's highly fearful that she'll go back to hell. That's what religious fundamentalism does to people.

analog kid

Quote from: Sardondi on September 11, 2012, 03:07:23 AM
Since the election of 2008 it has been beyond dispute that the traditional media had and has a significant bias in favor of the Democrats in general and Obama in particular. We have yet to find the limit beyond which the media will not go in its willingness to put a finger on the scales of political news to help Obama or hurt is opponents. Because of this, skepticism is and should be the initial reaction to any political story coming from the traditional media.

It's also bolstering Romney though, and if it were doing its job, that guy would never have been a nominee. He tells them one thing, and his base another, and hopes the two don't communicate. He might be the most dishonest candidate any of us have ever seen.

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