January 31, 2013

What country does she think she's living in?

IMHO if you seriously have to worry about such a scenario, you need to immediately re-evaluate your living conditions, your neighborhood, and/or profession. It sounds like she's certifiably delusional, watched too many (violent) movies, and/or played too many (violent) videogames.

January 30, 2013

"Now is not the time"

Well, that's hardly reassuring. Translation: "We're not going to cheat now. We'll just wait until nobody's watching (or we don't have to stand for re-election anytime soon) and THEN do it!" We need to make damned sure we get our voters to the polls in 2014 so that they don't have another opportunity to rig them right before the Presidential election in 2016. Remember, most of the voter ID and other disenfranchisement laws didn't get enacted until 2011 and then we (barely) had any time to challenge them in the courts and get things in order to fight them before the 2012 election and, based on the evidence, we still lost a lot of would-be voters to disenfranchisement (i.e. Florida).

January 25, 2013

Legislatively?

Not a whole lot as far as I can tell with this Congress. Unless Republicans get with the times and stop their hating on LGBTs, I don't see how, considering the GOP control of the House and the filibuster-prone GOP in the Senate, anything gets through for at least the next 2 years. I can see ENDA eventually getting approved by a more progressive Congress but, unfortunately, not anytime soon. DOMA's fate will ultimately rest on SCOTUS and I have no idea how they might rule. It would depend on one of the moderate/conservative justices providing a swing vote like with ACA. I can see much more progress- both on non-discrimination and marriage equality- being made at the state-level and I'm sure that President Obama will do as much as he can using EOs. Congress has become rather worthless IMHO for anything other than.............

As wrong as it may be, I simply don't see Congress legislating marriage equality. Scrapping DOMA, sure? I predict that for national marriage equality to exist in all 50 states, it will have to happen piecemeal, state-by-state, over a long period of time absent the existence of a progressive supermajority that support it in Congress.

January 25, 2013

I don't believe so but here's some things to think about:

1. A lot of people aren't really aware of this plan yet and the more we talk about it, inform people, shine a light on it, the less likely they will be successful.

2. If they are successful, it doesn't necessarily guarantee them victory. After all, as the 2008 primaries demonstrated, there were lots of areas that Hillary won in the primary that Obama wasn't able to carry in the general in 2008 and 2010. Depending on who the Democrats nominate in 2016 (or beyond), we can potentially make inroads in to "red" areas. Who's to say that some districts won't go blue or purple......eventually.

3. The Republicans might be able to extend their "electoral life" by this scheme (as well as gerrymandering) but can never make it impenetrable. Even "red" states like Indiana and Missouri reject extremists and the demographics of these states will continue changing to their disadvantage, so eventually they're going to be running low on voters.

4. If the system is rigged to where states are giving most of their votes to Republicans whom don't win the popular vote, it is likely going to backfire for them at some point.

5. Some REPUBLICANS are rebelling against this idea: http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/01/25/1494831/gop-florida-house-speaker-blasts-plan-to-rig-electoral-college/?mobile=nc

January 25, 2013

The Republican Tea Party truly believes that their "messaging" has been their biggest problem

I caught an NPR segment this evening on the way home about the Republican's "Retreat" and all they seem to be talking about is how they plan on winning future elections by "toning down" their rhetoric, improving their messaging and "not shooting themselves in the foot" by saying dumb things like Akin and Mourdock did last election. The NPR segment pointed out that they've lost the popular vote during FIVE out of the past SIX elections. Do they really truly believe that their only major problem is HOW they've communicated their policies to the American public (since 2004) and not the policies themselves? The Republicans interviewed for the segment all adamantly declared that they had NO plans whatsoever to change their policies and/or sacrifice their "conservative principles" to make them more appealing to people but just coming up with better ways to "sell" it. IOW they've learned pretty much nothing for 5 elections and still apparently living in their own "reality bubble" believing that people would want the policies they're promoting if they can just fine-tune their messaging just enough.



All I can say is, please proceed GOP!

January 24, 2013

A turd sandwich, no matter how polished is still a turd sandwich

Why can't they ever see that? Also, people don't usually turn out for to get a bite of a turd sandwich either. No surprise there.


Bottom line is that they gave almost nobody a reason to vote for them except for those whom hated President Obama with the fury of a thousand suns and wanted him out of the WH.

They offered NOTHING concrete to Hispanics. They offered no major immigration proposals and they got all bent out of shape over President's Obama's rule change on deporting children of illegal immigrants even though they had previously discussed proposing something similar.

They offered NOTHING to African-Americans other than ensuring that as few of them could vote through various means.

They offered NOTHING to the elderly other than wanting to completely eliminate Medicare.

They offered NOTHING to women other than a bunch of loose talk about "legitimate rape", uninformed and dangerously naive discussions about how women's bodies work, how pregnancy via rape could be considered "god's will", calling women whom advocate for other women "sluts", holding hearings about birth control and only inviting men to testify and, to top it all off, trying to pass a law allowing employers to decide whether or not to provide birth control coverage in their insurance plans.

They offered absolutely NOTHING to LGBT Americans except for Republican ones whom, for whatever reason,care less about their own civil rights than they apparently do tax cuts. IMHO they just need to drop the "Log Cabin" from their group's name and just call themselves "Republicans" because that's basically what they are. It would be more intellectually honest IMHO.

They offered absolutely NOTHING to young college-age adults except for attacks on laws that make it easier to not be crippled by student loan debt years down the road.

Come to think of it, they really offered nothing positive or tangible to really anybody other than than 1-2% of Americans whom make so much money that they don't have to worry about their ability to cast a vote, get health care, have full reproductive freedom, don't have to worry about paying on student loans, or pretty much anything other than being able to keep as much money as they have- even if it's light years beyond what they need for a decent, comfortable life- and be able to pass on all (or close to all) of their millions (or billions) to their heirs at some point in the future.

What was so great about Mitt Romney anyway? Where was his supposed dazzling "brilliance"? What was he proposing to do that should have made us willing to walk over hot coals to vote for him- but somehow got lost in the lack of "communication" and "turnout"?

January 24, 2013

She's only saying out loud

what the rest of us have been thinking ever since the Republicans started making an issue out of it. WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE, REALLY?! Benghazi has not been about the security and well being of our diplomatic posts or what we can do to improve the safety and security of our diplomats, oh hells noes, because that would expose the Republicans and their cutting security funding for diplomatic posts. It's been all about the damned motivations of the attackers and trying to "get" the Obama Administration over what they said that they believed about the motivations of the Benghazi attacks on 9/11. What difference does it make? We didn't go to war and sacrifice 4000+ US soldiers in Libya based on Susan Rice's post-attack statements, did we?

January 23, 2013

We should just eliminate it period

It got raised almost completely without objection time after time again in the past and didn't start becoming an issue until 2011 when Republicans started experimenting with the idea of not raising it and now that President Obama has been re-elected they're (surprise) making it an issue again and they appear to be planning to keep trying to use it as leverage to force through things that would never pass on their own merits. The time to talk about spending begins in Congress when dealing with appropriation bills and ends in the WH where President Obama has to decide whether or not to approve it but once it's approved we need to pay what we owe. Period.
I can't believe we're going through all of this........

January 23, 2013

"Elections have consequences"

I'm sure that the Repubs are disappointed that they didn't get the Mitt Romney "autopen" that Grover Norquist wanted in the WH but, oh well............

January 21, 2013

I know, right!

They're just sad that they failed and can't deal with it without lashing out at President Obama and taking responsibility for their failures:

Over the past 4 years, they failed:

1. To stop the stimulus from passing
2. To stop health care reform ("Obamacare&quot from passing
3. To win the Senate in 2010
4. To repeal health care reform
5. To have health care reform declared unconstitutional
6. To pass any legislation that would actually create JOBS
7. To cut Social Security and Medicare
8. To completely wreck the economy (i.e. Debt Ceiling)
9. To win the WH in 2012
10. To win the Senate in 2012