Samantha
Samantha's JournalRecipe for theft of an election
Here is just my impromptu recipe for preparing a theft of the 2012 Presidential election. You might know a better one. If so, please post it here.Florida is now at a 19.5 percent chance of being the tipping point state (67.0 percent chance of an Obama win now but open to voter suppression and other election "irregularities" of a mysterious nature at the last moment....). Ohio is now at a 32.0 chance of being the tipping point state (77.1 percent chance of an Obama win but also vulnerable in the same way as Florida for election tampering).
Right now, President Obama has a 90.4 Electoral College vote lead. Siphon off a sum greater than half, 45.2, and the election "tips" to Romney.
My fear: illegal manipulation of these two states:
Ohio has 18 Electoral College votes
Florida has 29 Electoral College votes
tips 47 Electoral College votes.
Looks to me like a 270.8 versus 267.2 results, advantage to Romney. But, but, but they always said it would be a close election, right?
But double check my math -- it is too late to be doing this without my calculator.
Also in the works for the Republicans: current campaign adds trying to appeal to businessmen in Wisconsin implying a vote for the Republican candidate could translate into more business for those enterprises. Wisconsin has 10 Electoral College votes.
I also assume there is something undercover going on in one of the other swing states in case a tip is needed there at the last minute -- say Pennsylvania at 20 Electoral College votes but currently at a 93.5 chance of an Obama win. What is in place there? A Republican secretary of state. Anyone know anything about her? Here is something of interest:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/31/carol-aichele-pennsylvania-voter-id_n_1725988.html
I do not know what the final recipe will be, but I do know anything is possible when the opposing party has a do-whatever-it-takes motto (DWIT) which is just another way of saying "win at all cost." We do remember where we first heard that refrain, don't we?
The most important point to me is that we all keep our eyes wide open all night election night and to be prepared to challenge any improprieties before a winner is declared. We have to do more more than whatever it takes to ensure a clean election.
Sam
Another thing Ryan conveniently forgot to mention is that the Bush* taxcuts are #2 driver
of the deficit. So if one adds to those tax cuts, it is beyond comprehension how doing so improves the deficit. It would deepen it. Even the PEW Foundation has said the Bush* tax cuts are the number one driver (although other economic analysis such as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities list it as #2):
http://www.pewtrusts.org/uploadedFiles/wwwpewtrustsorg/Fact_Sheets/Economic_Policy/drivers_federal_debt_since_2001.pdf
1. The 2001/2003 tax cuts;6
2. The overseas operations in Iraq and
Afghanistan;
3. Medicare Part D;7
4. The Troubled Asset Relief Program
(TARP);
5. The 2009 stimulus;8 and
6. The December 2010 tax legislation.9
http://www.cbpp.org/research/index.cfm?fa=topic&id=121
Yes, the mortgage interest tax deduction (recommended by Bowles-Simpson, also called Simpson-Bowles plan) is something Romney is considering doing. That is why he won't reveal details of his "plan" before the election, not because he wants to have an open negotiating session with members of the people's representatives, but because no one would vote for him if he did so. That is in addition to privatizing Social Security, voucherizing Medicare and slashing Medicaid, privatizing the Post Office, instituting a national Right to Work law, repealing Roe v. Wade, and the list goes on and on ....
Sam
That was a trap rigged by the Republican party
Every new President that comes to the Oval Office should expect some political enemy is going to set him up for an embarrassment. And that was DOMA for Clinton. I think he figured it out shortly thereafter, but it was too late.
Sam
PS The execution of the mentally retarded person was one thing Clinton did that was totally unforgivable. I worked for the law firm charged with handling the appeal of the convicted man. You might remember that line in the press that when his appeal was lost and he was facing execution, his lawyer had the responsibility for telling him what exactly was going to happen to him. When he explained his last meal and the fact he would get a dessert, he said he would save that for afterwards. Yes, the man raped and killed a nun in a cemetery, a truly horrendous crime, but he should never have been released back into the public domain when he was because he was just that dysfunctional. Once the execution date was set (in Arkansas), Clinton was running for President, and he decided to attend the execution to demonstrate that as a Democrat he was not weak on punishing criminals. I do understand it was a political decision, but It was a terribly immoral act the Government should never have condoned -- the execution of a retarded person for a crime he could not even understand.
The lawyer that handled the the appeal and lost I think was forever changed afterwards. And a black cloud hung over our Firm for some time, everyone was just so sad over this tragedy.
Clinton is one of those fine wines that continue to improve with age
I was a Republican for about 20 years. I actually read the party's platform when I was deciding with which party I would align. The Republican platform was very simple and comported to my ideals. Three things were important: the Government should exist to protect our borders, collect taxes, and provide for the national defense. None of this interfering with people's everyday lives.
I left the party in disgust when Ken Starr announced he would publish the evidence of the Clinton investigation on the Internet for the world to see. BEYOND APPALLING. This would include photographs of his private parts. This was done to humiliate Clinton in front of the world. I couldn't help but think, but his wife will see this, and one day his daughter will see it. It was the last straw for me I could no longer be linked with a party that conducted itself like this. I didn't want my name associated with them.
Of course, leading up to that disgust was seeing Henry Hyde personally walking up to hand over the articles of impeachment, knowing (because it had just been revealed by Salon) that he had had a mistress for over 20 years. (I have yet to figure out how anyone could be married to Henry Hyde, much less agree to be his mistress.) That was coupled with seeing Republican after Republican being excluded from becoming the new Speaker of the House after his party FORCED Gingrich out because each new candidate had too much dirty personal laundry.
And so I joined the Dems, and once I did, I realized that was the party where I had always belonged and just didn't know it until the 90s. I was pretty chagrined over Clinton's antics, but the Republicans' subsequent behavior totally overshadowed anything Clinton had done with Monica Lewinsky in the Oval Office. And he was a good president. Since his departure from office, his continued good works with his foundation have made him an incredible asset to both our party and the Country as a whole. It is no wonder he is sometimes referred to as the President of the World. Everybody loves him (well most normal people)....
Sam
THE CLINTON CHALLENGE TO VOTERS: CHOOSE A SIDE -- THE PARTY OF HATE OR THE PARTY OF HOPE
Through a lengthy speech this evening, former President Clinton ran an Olympic political marathon. Starting out lighting the way from his own administration with his Bubba torch, he paced himself well against political opponents, sprinting past checkpoints of his own marks.
Photographs of the run captured dirty tricks, offensive moves and illegal maneuvers engineered by his opponents. Zooming past them in a glorious run, he hit the zone of what we today know as Obama land. From that moment on, the Clinton torch burned brightly with Obama fuel which carried a triumphal message home into the arena: politics doesn't have to be a blood sport.
Officials confirmed he did in fact complete the race in under three hours....
Former President Bill Clinton's words when finished after running this glorious race were simply these. If you watched this contest, now is the time to pick a side. Are you with the contenders of hope or contestants of greed and hate?
Give the man a gold political medal.
Sam
Nate Silver has Florida light blue today with a 59.2% Obama win prediction for November 6! UPDATED
Check out the site here, then point to Florida on the map:
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/author/nate-silver/
Michigan: 93.0 percent chance of Obama win November 6
Virginia: 69.8 percent chance of Obama win November 6
Colorado: 69.0 percent chance of Obama win November 6
Ohio: 71.5 percent chance Obama
PA: 91.2 percent chance Obama
Electoral College prediction: 308.2 (Obama) 229.8 Romney
Massachusetts: 99.2 percent chance of Obama win (yes, I know this is not a swing state, but Romney was such a swell governor there)
Wisconsin: 77.3 percent chance of Obama win (Message from Wisconsin voters to rest of nation: to know Ryan is to not vote for him)
Geez, if this election becomes any closer, I just won't be able to take it!
Sam
Here is how I answered this question this afternoon in another post
I am definitely better off today since four years ago Bush* was still occupying the Oval Officeand today he is not. The rest of the world held this Country is deep disrespect. And the Wall Street high rollers tanked the economy in the "anything goes" days of no regulation condoned by Bush*. Thousands of jobs were being lost each month, and none of our public officials had the foggiest idea of how to stabilize our crumbling economic world.
Today, a different man sits in the Oval Office, one who has carefully crafted a reconstruction that involves tangible stabilization planks as opposed to bubbles destined to pop in the near future. I do not worry that this man will implement a "preemptive war" on another nation that will send many of our citizens to fight in the name of greed. My rights as a female are being protected, and I look forward to The Affordable Care Act giving me lower prices for the health care I need. I look towards Michigan and I see a booming automobile industry, one that was indeed failing under the previous administration and was propped up just long enough for its politicians to blame Obama for its failure, but which industry our current President assisted into recovery and prosperity.
Absolutely yes! I am better off today than I was four years ago. I am no longer ashamed of my President and I look forward to his re-election in November. At that time, hopefully, the Republican obstructionists which hindered his attempts to inject shots of stimulus into this suffering nation's economy, will be packing their bags and cleaning out their offices for newly-elected Democratic replacements. I do have an overabundance of hope that a full recovery will be opening up soon to the American people who have waited so long for the scabs and scars of the Bush* administration to heal.
********
Shortly after I posted this, I turned on Martin Bashir and he was saying pretty much the same thing.
Sam
I have to ask: have we just seen the first etch-a- sketch moment of the Romney campaign?
I have a burning question, the one asked in the thread title, so let me be clear I am not making an assertion here, but examining the literal question. In that regard, I ask you to do the same. Tell me what you think the answer is.
Is a ploy such as the one I am going to discuss truly a possibility, a probability or beyond the bounds of political reality?
Perhaps Andrea Saul's comment that if people losing their jobs had lived in Massachusetts under Governor Romney's health care plan, they would not have lost their health insurance when they lost their job was not a gaffe but a deliberate move to disguise Romney's subtle switch to the opposite side of this issue from that taken during his primary campaign. It would be the perfect way to do an about-face switcheroo on this issue. Don't say it yourself but have your press secretary say it and let the conservatives' outrage fall upon the press secretary, not the candidate.
Romney knows he cannot continue to run away from the fact he established a health care program in Massachusetts upon which the ACA is heavily modeled. The Obama team will continue to hit him on this the rest of the campaign. How to ameliorate these attacks is his problem. And the answer just might be while Romney can't take public credit for this at this moment in time, he can have his staff slip in comments to both rebuff the Democrats' attacks for his being hypocritical on this issue and he can slowly move to compromise his position put forth during his primary challenge, ultimately embracing certain parts while striking others.
Why would he do that?
He would do that because some of his most important corporate supporters do not actually want the law repealed. That would be the health insurance carriers and the pharmaceutical industry. Romney always plays to his sponsors, always. Give them what they want.
What do they want? They want the law to stay intact because it greatly builds their customer base through that individual mandate. They want the consumer protections stripped from the bill. Particularly, that ban on refusing insurance to people with pre-existing conditions must be stricken. In other words, don't repeal it but "fix it" tweaking parts the industries like and striking parts deleterious to their bottom lines.
Of course, if Romney himself did a sudden about-face on this issue, it would raise an incredible hue and cry from the individual conservatives such as that we have already witnessed -- Coulter, Limbaugh, etc. How to do this in a subtle way that does not make him look like a flip-flopper was his dilemma. Send out a trojan horse was his answer. Andrea Saul, Romney's press secretary, was the trojan horse.
And here's a further clue: she was not the first campaign aide to make this statement in public. Sounds like the start of a trend to me.
So are we witnessing the subtle maneuvers of a Mitt Romney implementing his etch-a-sketch political finesse and presenting it simply as a gaffe on the part of his staff when it was actually a very deliberate but subtle position change?
I would not put a maneuver like that past him. He can't continue to run away from his plan for the next three months, but he has to embrace the positions of his sponsors, and he does have that history of flip-flopping. Reduced to its lowest common denominator, it does appear this might possibly be a slick way of changing sides on an issue without getting any of the conservative outrage heaped on him.
What do you think?
Sam
One woman's poll of one Republican man in Florida
Silly but I thought this morning when an old friend touched base with me on a health care matter, I wanted to sound out the mood in Florida on the upcoming Presidential contest.
After we finished discussing the topic about which he called, I laughed and asked him if this one woman could conduct a one man poll of a Republican in Florida. This person is in his early sixties and is very well to do.
He agreed to participate in my poll:
Sam: As a Republican in Florida, who do you predict will win the Presidential contest in November in Florida?
Floridian: Obama.
Sam: Why do you think Obama will prevail over Romney?
Floridian: Most people I know can't stand Governor Scott, and by extension they can't stand Romney, another Republican.
Sam: Why did Florida elect Scott governor?
Floridian: I don't know. I can't find anyone that voted for him!
Sam: Do you think most Floridians are familiar with the Ryan Budget Plan?
Floridian: No.
Sam: Do you think most Floridians know Ryan proposes to "voucherize" Medicare?
Floridian: No.
Sam: Do you think most Floridians know Romney supports privatizing Social Security?
Floridian: No.
Sam: Will November be a landslide victory for Obama in Florida?
Floridan: No.
Sam: So you think it will be close?
Floridian: Very close.
Sam: Do you think Scott's plan to update the Floridian database list of eligible voters, striking many from that eligibility list because they cannot produce a government-issued i.d. is an attempt to swing the election to Romney?
Floridian: Could very well be.
Sam: (Laughing) Thank you for participating in this one woman's poll. This has been very interesting.
Polling results: The sun is starting to shine on President Obama today in the swing state of Florida. If President Obama's campaign organizers stay vigilant, the election weather forecast is that a climate change of election air may appear in Florida this November that could be a very sunny, warm one! 
Oh, and what was the other matter he initially called to discuss? He started the conversation with, "Boy, do I owe your President a huge thank you." I cautiously asked why. He said he just unexpectedly received a rebate check from his health care insurance carrier, with a cover letter stating that since it had not spent 80 cents on every premium dollar it had collected from him, it was required by the Affordable Care Act to return to him the amount enclosed in the form of a check. The check was in the amount of $1,200!
Sam
Intellectual Honesty in Political Debates -- a Naive Expectation in this Current Day in Time?
For some time now, I have wanted to look up something that kept ringing a distant bell, distant as in the rules of debate I learned in high school. Just let me say that was not exactly yesterday, so I needed some backup for my opinion before posting here.
The specific maneuver I wanted to discuss was that of name calling. I am sure you are aware we are at this point breaking into a critical period of the Presidential election contest as far as defining the issues are concerned. With the events of this week, the act of "name calling" was once again on my mind to research. I think it is a good idea as we observe the contest, to keep in mind all of the techniques that will be used in the discussion.
Here is a link to an interesting conversation on the subject:
http://www.johntreed.com/debate.html
I was not surprised to see as number one on the list provided the topic I was researching:
"Here is a list of the intellectually-dishonest debate tactics I have identified thus far. I would appreciate any help from readers to expand the list or to better define each tactic. I am numbering the list in order to refer back to it quickly elsewhere at this Web site.
"1. Name calling: debater tries to diminish the argument of his opponent by calling the opponent a name that is subjective and unattractive; for example, cult members and bad real estate gurus typically warn the targets of their frauds that “dream stealers” will try to tell them the cult or guru is giving them bad advice; name calling is only intellectually dishonest when the name in question is ill defined or is so subjective that it tells the listener more about the speaker than the person being spoken about; there is nothing wrong with using a name that is relevant and objectively defined; the most common example of name calling against me is “negative;” in coaching, the critics of coaches are often college professors and the word “professor” is used as a name-calling tactic by the coaches who are the targets of the criticism in question; as a coach, I have been criticized as being “too intense,” a common put-down of successful youth and high school coaches. People who criticize their former employer are dishonestly dismissed as “disgruntled” or “bitter.” These are all efforts to distract the audience by changing the subject because the speaker cannot refute the facts or logic of the opponent."
But read the entire article if you have the time. Unfortunately, you will see some names listed in the article that make you feel a little chagrined; however, we are discussing this subject on a political website so it truly is not surprising, is it?
But here is another paragraph, number 13 in the order the author of this piece has assembled:
13. "Claiming privacy with regard to claims about self: debater makes favorable claims about himself, but when asked for details or proof of the claims, refuses to provide any claiming privacy; true privacy is not mentioning them to begin with; bragging but refusing to prove is silly on its face and it is a rather self-servingly selective use of the right of privacy; The worst offenders are the U.S. Navy SEALs who claim to be great but they “not at liberty” to reveal the details because they are military secrets. Enough details have leaked out, however, that those not in the SEAL cult of personality can see that if you could buy the SEALs for what they are worth and sell them for what they claim to be worth, you would have a substantial capital gain."
Obviously, we can take exception to some of his statements if we so choose, but as for the essential heading "Claiming privacy with regard to claims about self" that certainly reminds me of a certain Republican Presidential contender and a taxing problem he is currently experiencing!
But to climb back on an orthodox track, here in a link which contains Roberts' Rules of Order, the accepted standard in this arena:
http://www.bartleby.com/176/1.html
in case you would like to do some further research on the subject. But try to check out #24 on the first posted link and let me know if that reminds you of anyone!
And here is a question for you: is the presence of intellectual honesty in a political debate simply a naive expectation in this day and time or is that a requirement for you personally in order to cast a vote for a candidate? Or perhaps it NEVER existed in our political history?
Thanks for reading.
Sam
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