Picking up on a comment by nova, here’s a link to a website where you can design your own electoral map. Then you can copy the URL into your comment for everyone else to see. Overall vote percentages, including minor party candidates, can be used as a tiebreaker.
If someone finds a better site to link, please add it into this post (or replace my link above).
Filed under: 2012, Obama | Tagged: Romney | 17 Comments »
This will be an open thread, live blogging the first Presidential debate.
From a variety of sources this is what we know:
The first presidential debate of 2012 will be held on Wednesday, Oct. 3, at the University of Denver in Denver, Colo. The moderator is Jim Lehrer, executive editor of the PBS NewsHour.
The Commission on Presidential Debates said the 2012 presidential debates will be moderated by a single individual and take place from 9 to 10:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Neither of the candidates will be permitted to give opening statements, but will be allowed 2 minutes for closing statements.
The first debate will focus on domestic policy. The specific topics will be announced several weeks beforehand, and the debate will be divided into six 15-minute segments focusing on each. The moderator will ask a question, and each candidate will have 2 minutes to respond.
It should go something like this:
A debate that will consist of a total of six time segments of approximately fifteen minutes each in length. The issues to be discussed by the candidates have been agreed to in advance of the debate. Lehrer said on September 19, as he announced the issues that would be debated on Wednesday, that the first three segments would focus on “the economy”, while the final three would discuss “health care, the role of government, and governing”.
Each candidate will be asked a question by the moderator, and the candidate will respond with his answer, representing his personal view on the question. Some new proposals may be introduced during the debate, and while the debate will have few direct interactions between the candidates, both candidates are expected to question the proposals of their opponent.
And then a little hopeful thinking from one of Nova’s links:
Who knows? Maybe one day there will be candidates who will see it as politically advantageous to reveal themselves in this way. In the meantime, take note of a meaningful rule change announced this year by the presidential debate commission. For the first time, in the first and third events, the candidates will each get two minutes to respond to the opening question for each 15-minute segment, and then “the moderator will use the balance of the time in the segment for a discussion.” That could mean up to 11 minutes of free-wheeling talk between the candidates. In a 90-minute debate, that could happen six times.
That is not insignificant. And if the candidates use that time not to make speeches or repeat talking points, or to ignore an important question that was just asked, but instead to listen, engage and think in a way the audience can witness, we just might get a presidential debate that deserves the label.
What are you looking for in the debate? Do debates ever change the trajectory of an election? Why are there so few chances for third party candidates to participate? Will we hear any surprises, policy-wise, from what we’ve heard on the campaign trail?
And lastly, here are some body language tells we can all watch for…………hahahahahaha
1. An itchy nose could be a sign that someone isn’t telling the truth. If someone is scratching their nose, there could be an issue
2. Hands in pockets are a sign of insecurity
3. Crossed arms don’t necessarily mean a person is angry or protective: They could just be cold in the studio where the debates are taking place!
4. Touching the neck could be a sign that someone is threatened or feels insecure
5. Finger pointing is a sign of aggression and it can make the audience mistrust the speaker
Another telltale sign, experts say, is frequent blinking by a speaker. It might indicate that person is uncomfortable with the words they are saying.
Filed under: 2012, Debates, Mitt Romney, Obama | 157 Comments »
I’m still working but took a break this afternoon to do a little reading. I’m trying to finish Unbroken but I’m not there yet. Next weekend is the book review………..hint, hint. I’ve also been working on our taxes, that’s right we filed an extension (just like the Romneys), but I have even less money now than I did in April to pay what we still owe……………yikes. And we finally got the rest of the parts we needed to finish our big export order to Taiwan, which we’re trying to get out the door (that’s money in the bank). Anyway, I did read a couple of interesting pieces during my breaks this weekend that might spark a little conversation.
Last week Nova linked this piece from the Atlantic about why liberals shouldn’t vote for Obama. It was interesting but didn’t sway me. I’d already explored all of the issues and decided I’m going to vote for him anyway. The most important issue for me is health care reform and even though he didn’t get the bill I wanted I’ve decided repealing the ACA is too big of a threat for me to not support him.
One of the issues discussed was our drone policy, particularly in Pakistan.
Obama terrorizes innocent Pakistanis on an almost daily basis. The drone war he is waging in North Waziristan isn’t “precise” or “surgical” as he would have Americans believe. It kills hundreds of innocents, including children. And for thousands of more innocents who live in the targeted communities, the drone war makes their lives into a nightmare worthy of dystopian novels. People are always afraid. Women cower in their homes. Children are kept out of school. The stress they endure gives them psychiatric disorders. Men are driven crazy by an inability to sleep as drones buzz overhead 24 hours a day, a deadly strike possible at any moment. At worst, this policy creates more terrorists than it kills; at best, America is ruining the lives of thousands of innocent people and killing hundreds of innocents for a small increase in safety from terrorists. It is a cowardly, immoral, and illegal policy, deliberately cloaked in opportunistic secrecy. And Democrats who believe that it is the most moral of all responsible policy alternatives are as misinformed and blinded by partisanship as any conservative ideologue.
Then today I saw these charts and thought what the hell? I haven’t had the time to look into where exactly the information came from but according to them there have been exactly zero civilian deaths in Pakistan due to drone strikes this year. Can that be true?
This piece, “Is Karl Rove Losing It?”, is a pretty interesting take on Karl Rove and the author wonders if he really has as much power as he thinks he does. It’s probably just wishful thinking, those of us on the left aren’t too fond of the guy.
Karl Rove is back as GOP party boss, but this time it’s clear that even the best-laid plans of the savviest political strategists often go awry.
That became obvious earlier this week, on Sept. 25, when Missouri senatorial candidate Todd Akin reaffirmed that he was staying in the race in defiance of Rove, who had demanded Akin’s withdrawal and yanked American Crossroads’ millions from his campaign after Akin touted the prophylactic character of “legitimate rape.”
When pulling the super PAC dough didn’t faze the stubborn Missouri Tea Partyer, Rove went ballistic. “We should sink Todd Akin,” he declared , according to Bloomberg Businessweek. “If he’s found mysteriously murdered, don’t look for my whereabouts!”
Rove’s remarks did more than just reopen the schism between the GOP establishment he embodies and the Tea Party, which has begun to see him as a ruthless party boss. It also showed that the Republicans have another serious problem in addition to Mitt Romney’s disastrous candidacy: Karl Christian Rove.
And lastly this one suggests three reasons why Romney isn’t doing better than he is. I do realize it’s not over though…..believe me.
1. His stand on the auto bailout “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt” has hurt him in states like Ohio.
2. He probably lost Florida when he chose Ryan as his running mate as the majority of seniors apparently don’t like their plans for Medicare…………even if they were excluded from the cuts.
3. His lack of connection with ordinary Americans exemplified by his 47% comments.
Filed under: 2012, aca, Book Review, Medicare, Mitt Romney, Obama | Tagged: drones | 20 Comments »
President Obama is nothing if not bold. Yesterday, in an abuse of language for which there is unfortunately a great deal of precedent, the president opined on SCOTUS’s recent hearing regarding the fate of ACA.
Ultimately I am confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress
Unprecedented and extraordinary? Really? No law passed by Congress has ever been overturned by the court before?
Politics is politics, of course, and we all know the games of semantic deception that are regularly played by politicians. But, especially for a former professor of constitutional law, this is a particularly embarrassing departure from reality. Doesn’t it debase our politics even more than is already the case to have a Chief Executive who is so shameless in his disregard for the meanings of the words he uses and the reality he pretends to describe?
Filed under: 2012, aca, Obama, Supreme Court | 54 Comments »
Apparently, Obama Girl is becoming disillusioned with Barack. And doing it to the tune of “You’re The One That I Want” from the hit musical Grease!
Kind of unspecific, but certainly not as head-over-heels as Obama Girl’s 2008 videos.
Ancient Japanese Fart Scrolls. Nuff said.
Why do Tiger’s Have Stripes? Alan Turing figured it out years ago!
ABC tours the Foxconn’s factory that makes all the groovy Apple stuff.
As a call back to a recent discussion a brief history of Coke cans. There was once a 32 oz can with a cone top and a bottle cap that required a bottle opener, like the classic glass bottles.
Filed under: Bits and Pieces, Obama | Tagged: coke, fart scrolls, obama girl | 257 Comments »
Earlier in the week we read the Andrew Sullivan piece which lauded President Obama’s accomplishments and criticized those of us on the left, pundits and citizens alike, for not focusing on the long game. Sullivan barely touched the issue of executive over reach, indefinite detention of American citizens, rule of law issues and erosion of the Bill of Rights. He plainly intimated that as long as “we don’t torture”, we’re good to go. I don’t think so.
Here is a rebuttal to Sullivan’s piece I discovered in The Atlantic. It’s interesting that it was framed as a question to candidate Obama considering we’re working on our own 50 Questions.
After reading Andrew Sullivan’s Newsweek essay about President Obama, his critics, and his re-election bid, I implore him to ponder just one question. How would you have reacted in 2008 if any Republican ran promising to do the following?
(1) Codify indefinite detention into law; (2) draw up a secret kill list of people, including American citizens, to assassinate without due process; (3) proceed with warrantless spying on American citizens; (4) prosecute Bush-era whistleblowers for violating state secrets; (5) reinterpret the War Powers Resolution such that entering a war of choice without a Congressional declaration is permissible; (6) enter and prosecute such a war; (7) institutionalize naked scanners and intrusive full body pat-downs in major American airports; (8) oversee a planned expansion of TSA so that its agents are already beginning to patrol American highways, train stations, and bus depots; (9) wage an undeclared drone war on numerous Muslim countries that delegates to the CIA the final call about some strikes that put civilians in jeopardy; (10) invoke the state-secrets privilege to dismiss lawsuits brought by civil-liberties organizations on dubious technicalities rather than litigating them on the merits; (11) preside over federal raids on medical marijuana dispensaries; (12) attempt to negotiate an extension of American troops in Iraq beyond 2011 (an effort that thankfully failed); (14) reauthorize the Patriot Act; (13) and select an economic team mostly made up of former and future financial executives from Wall Street firms that played major roles in the financial crisis.
Maybe we’ve already discussed these issues enough here and there is already agreement, but I thought the author of the piece raised questions that I’d like to hear the answers to. If anyone thinks I’m happy about this, look again. I was an Obama supporter in 2008 and even 2009, now, I’m not so sure.
Conclusion from The Atlantic:
Obama has transgressed against what is arguably Congress’ most essential check on executive power — its status as the decider of when America goes to war — and he has codified indefinite detention into law, something that hasn’t been done since Japanese Americans were detained during World War II. But at least he doesn’t torture people! How low we’ve set the bar.It isn’t that I object to Sullivan backing Obama’s reelection if his GOP opponent runs on bringing back torture. Is he the lesser of two evils? Maybe so. But lauding him as a president who has governed “with grace and calm” and “who as yet has not had a single significant scandal to his name”? If indefinite detention, secret kill lists, warrantless spying, a war on whistleblowers, violating the War Powers Resolution, and abuse of the state secrets privilege don’t fit one’s definition of “scandal,” what does?
Filed under: NDAA, Obama | Tagged: Andrew Sullivan, NDAA, Obama, Sully | 66 Comments »
Courtesy Ezra Klein:
Andrew Sullivan’s 2007 profile of candidate Obama in the Atlantic is worth a reread in light of his most recent piece on the case for his reelection.
“Goodbye to All That: Why Obama Matters
Is Iraq Vietnam? Who really won in 2000? Which side are you on in the culture wars? These questions have divided the Baby Boomers and distorted our politics. One candidate could transcend them.
By Andrew Sullivan”
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/12/goodbye-to-all-that-why-obama-matters/6445/
“Andrew Sullivan: How Obama’s Long Game Will Outsmart His Critics
Jan 16, 2012 12:00 AM EST
The right calls him a socialist, the left says he sucks up to Wall Street, and independents think he’s a wimp. Andrew Sullivan on how the president may just end up outsmarting them all.”
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/01/15/andrew-sullivan-how-obama-s-long-game-will-outsmart-his-critics.html
Ezra’s take:
“The case for Obama comes by way of Andrew Sullivan. It’s worth reading, if for no other reason than if you run in circles that talk politics, you’ll probably be asked to discuss it sometime this week. It’s an agenda-setting article like that. And, in a sense, it’s one Sullivan has written twice. In 2007, he profiled Obama for The Atlantic, in a piece that did a better job articulating Obama’s postpartisan appeal than even the candidate himself. This year, he has written a defense of Obama’s record that is better than anything the campaign has produced itself. Much as the ideas in Sullivan’s original Atlantic article felt novel early in the 2007 campaign but became the standard case for Obama by the time Americans went to vote, the arguments in Sullivan’s Newsweek article feel unusual now but will soon become standard among, at the least, Obama’s supporters. ”
This is mostly a test to see how top posting works here, including cutting and pasting hypertext links.
Filed under: Obama | Tagged: Andrew Sullivan | 13 Comments »
“But about a hundred years ago, there arose a different dream: that government could engineer a better society, rather than simply leaving the people free to create one. Progressive reformers were convinced not only that the American founders were wrong in their assumptions about man and about the necessity of limited government, but also that advances in science would allow government to reshape society and eradicate the inequalities of property and wealth that had been unleashed by individual rights, democratic capitalism, and the resulting growth of commerce and business. A more activist government, built on evolving rights and a “living” Constitution, would redistribute wealth and level out differences in society through progressive taxation, economic regulations, and extensive social-welfare programs, all centrally administered by expert bureaucrats.”
This article gets much right about Obama, his ideology, and his goals, in my opinion. I disagree with his statement that Obama is correct in denying that he is engaged in class warfare as conventionally understood, although it is possible I am missing his point here.
Note: I was unable to preview this post; the function did not work properly and crashed my browser through repeated tries.
Update: After posting, I see the link does not work, but I can’t spot the problem.
Filed under: Obama, Progressivism | Tagged: Teddy Roosevelt | 76 Comments »
We’re still crawling out from under the Christmas Tree around here but I read this interesting post and immediately thought of all of you. It’s a little deep in the weeds but I found it a fascinating read for the progressive/liberal end of the political spectrum. I guess I’m assuming I’m not the only one who thinks about these issues so we’ll see if anyone else thinks they’re important in an election year.
Last night I had a little free time and as it seemed pretty quiet around here, I went over to the Plumline to see what everyone was discussing and I thought the most interesting links in the Happy Hour thread were those relating to the “Drones”. The discussion was launched by a piece from Greg Miller over at the WaPo and then the reaction from a few left leaning bloggers.
Other commanders in chief have presided over wars with far higher casualty counts. But no president has ever relied so extensively on the secret killing of individuals to advance the nation’s security goals.
The rapid expansion of the drone program has blurred long-standing boundaries between the CIA and the military. Lethal operations are increasingly assembled a la carte, piecing together personnel and equipment in ways that allow the White House to toggle between separate legal authorities that govern the use of lethal force.
In Yemen, for instance, the CIA and the military’s Joint Special Operations Command pursue the same adversary with nearly identical aircraft. But they alternate taking the lead on strikes to exploit their separate authorities, and they maintain separate kill lists that overlap but don’t match. CIA and military strikes this fall killed three U.S. citizens, two of whom were suspected al-Qaeda operatives.
The convergence of military and intelligence resources has created blind spots in congressional oversight. Intelligence committees are briefed on CIA operations, and JSOC reports to armed services panels. As a result, no committee has a complete, unobstructed view.
With a year to go in President Obama’s first term, his administration can point to undeniable results: Osama bin Laden is dead, the core al-Qaeda network is near defeat, and members of its regional affiliates scan the sky for metallic glints.
Those results, delivered with unprecedented precision from aircraft that put no American pilots at risk, may help explain why the drone campaign has never attracted as much scrutiny as the detention or interrogation programs of the George W. Bush era. Although human rights advocates and others are increasingly critical of the drone program, the level of public debate remains muted.
Senior Democrats barely blink at the idea that a president from their party has assembled such a highly efficient machine for the targeted killing of suspected terrorists. It is a measure of the extent to which the drone campaign has become an awkward open secret in Washington that even those inclined to express misgivings can only allude to a program that, officially, they are not allowed to discuss.
Judging from the comments I’m not actually convinced that everyone read the Miller piece, or the other commentary, but that’s neither here nor there. I’m finding it fascinating that there is so little outcry from left leaning pundits and citizens and when I read the following piece it crystallized for me that we’re becoming either immune or unconcerned or maybe just apathetic to the most important issues of our time. Over at America Blog they’ve been tracking viewer hits through Blogger and have put together what appear to be the top three issues based upon stories on their website. Granted these are issues that matter to the left, I’m not even going to pretend to understand the issues through a conservative lens, but I think Obama and Company have quite possibly undercut liberal ideals to a pretty remarkable extent. And I also believe the whole “drone” story will become issue number four.
1. There’s an interest in these subjects (NDAA, PIPA, & mortgage fraud) that’s deep and persistent. All of our site’s regulars have weighed with their “views” a long time ago. As near as I can tell, the driver to all three posts is Google (search terms: PIPA, NDAA, “whistleblower found dead”) as new people search on these subjects. If so, Google is telling us something.
2. Message for the left — If this really is a clue to the mind of left-leaning voters, it would be smart to hit these subjects hard, starting now. There are far more listeners, I suspect, for whom the PIPA, NDAA, and mortgage fraud messages resonate, than anyone appreciates.
I’d suggest taking advantage of this opportunity. If our small indicators are right, the time to plant seeds is now, not months from now. The soil is ready, so to speak. Let’s not lose the chance.
3. Note to Obama & his merry band — I would not underestimate the extent to which these issues, especially NDAA, are a bridge too far for your base. It seems you’ve been playing a game of “how low can we go” — how far can we stoop to the demands of the money-soaked property rights and national security establishments and not lose our dependable triangulated base.
NDAA=Indefinite Detention
PIPA=Kill the Internet Bill
Mortgage Fraud=Whistle Blower Death in Nevada
Maybe it’s just me but I’d rather spend more time discussing these kinds of issues than the GOP primaries and their merry host of actors. Just in case no one reads the original story in America Blog, the point is that the three stories linked just above keep popping up in the Best of the Week and Best of the Month categories long after they should have disappeared from the forefront. My contention is that the “Drone” story may be another one.
Filed under: NDAA, Obama | Tagged: drones, NDAA, PIPA, whistle blower | 73 Comments »
Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Memetrics
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojkt
All Things in Moderation 