kimmy

Finally! Some honest to goodness persecution up in your area! The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) is suing the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for the IRS' refusal to investigate dozens of instances of churches telling their parishioners who to vote for (STFU.) The churches have guaranteed freedom of speech, of course. They can tell their parishioners they're going to Hell if they vote for Obama if they wish to. What is not guaranteed, however, is their tax-exempt status. The law is that tax-exempt entities must refrain from electioneering. The FFRF has submitted a long list of violations, including full-page newspaper ads placed by the Billy Graham ministry as well as Peoria Bishop Daniel Jenky's statements (Jenky is the obnoxious asshole who compared President Obama to Adolf Hitler earlier this year.) While filing this lawsuit after the election might appear to be closing the gate after the horses have run away, I think the timing is wise. Filing it before the election would have only given Jenky et al more to talk about. Filing it after the election denies them that talking point and gives the courts some time to deal with this before the 2014 elections. -k

-k

Yep, this is completely retarded. Reminds me somewhat of the girl in the Dominican Republic who died because doctors couldn't give her chemotherapy because it would harm the fetus. They could give her chemotherapy once she was sick enough that her condition forced a miscarriage, by which point it was too late to save her. Scumbags. Meanwhile in America: H.R. 358. Just saying. -k

As I posted in another thread, one group that did vote in record numbers was "white evangelicals", making up 27% of all votes. And they went overwhelmingly for Romney, 78% to 21%. And that has really troubling implications for the Republicans because it means that the "if we just get our base to the polls we'll win!" premise just doesn't hold water. The Republicans have built much of their platform around appealing to this group of voters, and those voters showed up in record numbers in a year when overall voting was down... and they still didn't win. That base just isn't big enough. Over and over since the election we've heard Republican pollsters and analysts and strategists say that they expected a big drop-off in ethnic and youth vote from 2008, a drop-off that didn't materialize. You know what? You can't go to Afghanistan and Iraq and China and North Korea and tell them that "Democracy is freakin' awesome!!!" then return home and say "god damn it, if we can't find a way to get the kids and the swarthy-people to stay home on election day, we're in serious trouble." It's not gonna fly. Ok, I'm sure this will be good. Please explain what "reaching across the aisle" Willard did that probably cost him "a few million votes". -k

Klein was a long-serving premier who was a dependable advocate for national unity at the federal level. He is a worthy recipient if anyone is. -k

"We lost because too many people voted. " If your chances of election depend on fewer people voting, that could be a clue that your policies suck. Also on the polling front, Dick Morris fesses up: he predicted a Romney landslide to try to boost the Romney campaign: He was a Romney employee, given a platform on a "fair and balanced" news outlet to spread a message he thought he would boost the Romney campaign, while Fox described him as a "Political Analyst" and "Former Clinton Advisor" and neglected to mention his ties to the Romney campaign. -k

Attacking somebody's religion makes you a bigot... attacking somebody's appearance just makes you an asshole. I recall reading last summer that many of Mitt's facebook friends were widely believed to be computer-generated profiles as opposed to real people... believed to have been generated by some kind of internet marketting company that specializes in doing that sort of thing. So even if real people abandon Mitt, he'll still have the friends he bought. -k

The Republicans tried to play politics with the HHS mandate and it went extremely badly for them. And if Rick Santorum would have stopped talking about the evils of contraception and the injustice of Griswold vs Connecticut, people wouldn't have had reason to keep asking that stuff during the primaries. Politics is politics, but there's a line that you don't cross, and if you do cross it it can blow up in your face extremely badly. A classic example is, of course, the ads mocking Jean Chretien's hideous, mangled, busted visage. Backfired badly. Offended and disgusted voters, turned people off, caused great harm to the Progressive Conservatives. Still famous 20 years later for being a classic example of how not to attack your opponent. Attacking your opponent's religion or ethnicity is something that sane campaigns avoid because it has an extremely high probability of blowing up in your face. None of Mitt Romney's opponents this year, not in the primaries and not in the election, said anything negative about Mormonism, because quite simply it's severely bad politics. Had Pete Stark been a Mormon (or a Muslim or a Jew) Eric Swalwell would *not* have said "do you really trust a Mormon to represent your values?" Because it would have been grossly offensive and he would have spent the rest of the campaign trying to apologize to voters who were disgusted by such a crass display of bigotry. But Eric Swalwell had no qualms about asking voters if they trusted a guy who doesn't believe in God to represent their values. And he did so without repercussions. Several decades ago? Half a century ago, to be more precise. To put it in perspective, America got its first Catholic president while some parts of the country still had whites-only schools. -k

The comment was really just related to the idea that there could be situations where discussing a politician's religious beliefs is entirely justifiable. -k

Pete Stark, the only atheist in congress, was defeated last Tuesday. His opponent Eric Swalwell, another Democrat, attacked him for declining to vote in support of reaffirming "In God We Trust" as the national motto, and used it to ask voters if they trust Stark to represent their values. Seems like a pretty scummy way of bringing Stark's (lack of) religious faith into the election. People mostly have agreed that candidates' religious beliefs should be respected if they're Christians or Jews, and now Mormons apparently... but not everybody gets the same respect. -k

Anybody skeptical about how seriously Mitt Romney takes Mormon doctrine ought to watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxMD02zU9SE Should a candidate's beliefs be open for discussion during a campaign? Clearly there are some pretty wacky Mormon beliefs, but is it really any wackier than other religions? I say no. And most of the earth's population believes in some form of religion or another. I don't think these beliefs make one inherently unfit for office, and I don't think they need to be a topic of campaign discussion for the most part. Where I do think religious beliefs need to be discussed is when they directly impact policy. One example might congressman Paul Broun, who declared that he believes that evolution and the Big Bang are "lies straight from the pits of Hell." That might not be a big policy issue, except that Broun serves on the House Committee for Science and Technology. Another example of religious beliefs that make somebody unsuitable for office would be some End Times Prophecy kook who believes that the return of Jesus could be brought about by provoking a war between Israel and Iran. If that was somebody's religious belief, I'd want to know about it before he got elected, and I'd feel very justified in discriminating against him because of that religious belief. -k

I think that the left-wing counterpart to Rush Limbaugh is Michael Moore. And he kind of illustrates my point, in reverse: without George Walker Bush to gripe about, ol' fatty just isn't relevant anymore. That's certainly not in doubt. What's in doubt is how they approach the next battle. Will they take this election as a reality-check and wake-up call, or will they move further in the direction they're going? Some in the party are arguing that the election results show that the extremists are damaging the party; others in the party are arguing that the election was the rejection of the Republican establishment and that the Tea Partiers are the ones who can rebuild a winning party. There's going to be, as Steve Schmidt put it, a civil war between these factions. And right now, John Boehner is in the middle of it, as he's receiving not-too-subtle warnings from the Tea Party side that if he concedes even an inch to President Obama on taxes, they're going to mess him up. By and large that's true, but interestingly there is one group that turned out in record numbers: the evangelicals. They hit the polls in unprecedented numbers-- casting 27% of all votes, and voted overwhelmingly for Romney-- 78% to 21%... and they still lost. That ought to be very sobering news for the Tea Partiers. Those who have been saying "if we nominate a *real* conservative, then our base will turn out and we'll win the election!" out to check the exit polls. Because their base *did* turn out, as never before, and they lost. They can't get more votes by going farther in the direction of CrazyTown. -k

Air America and MSNBC never had the kind of influence with the Democrats that Fox and Rush have with the Republicans. As Republicans ask questions like "what happened?" and "what do we do now?" in the aftermath of their defeat, the are getting lots of advice from a lot of different sources. They will be skeptical of a lot of advice they get from sources they perceive to be liberal, but they ought to be skeptical of advice they get from the "conservative entertainment complex" too. Because the "conservative entertainment complex" wouldn't mind a bit if conservatives remain angry and frustrated. It's good for ratings. I saw last week that Steve Schmidt, one of the "old style" Republicans, is calling for Republicans to stand up against extreme rhetoric coming from people like Donald Trump and Rush Limbaugh. He argues that being associated with those guys is damaging the Republican brand. He's right. The reaction from some, like the site I linked, is to say "bah, Steve Schmidt is an idiot! He lost the last election, so why should we listen to him now?" But there's a big difference between losing the 2008 election and losing the 2012 election. 2008 was virtually unwinnable for the Republicans; 2012 was very winnable but they blew it. They also blew 2 very winnable senate races by selecting imbeciles to run in those races. They could have easily retained the Indiana senate seat if incumbent Republican Richard Lugar had been selected to run, but he was defeated in the primaries by Tea Partier Richard Mourdock. Apparently Lugar was too liberal for the voters who turfed him in the primaries. But Mourdock was too extreme for the general electorate, and the Republicans lost a senate seat that should have been a gimme. Defeating Claire McCaskill in Missouri should have been a gimme too-- she just wasn't very popular, and Republicans thought this seat was a sure pick-up. Until Todd Akin came along. Once again the Tea Party influenced the Republican primaries to pick a candidate that was too extreme to win a general election. The Tea Partiers respond to this with "oh yeah well there were moderate Republican senate candidates who lost races too! Like Scott Brown!" Well, Scott Brown lost a close race in the bluest blue state to one of the Democrats' star candidates. That's a lot different from throwing away two seats they should have won easily. Yet, there are apparently Republicans who believe that the mistake they made in 2012 was in being too moderate. I'm sure that Democrats hope they keep on thinking that straight through 2016. But Republicans who want to do better next election should consider what went wrong in this election and be skeptical of talking heads who tell them that being *more* conservative is the right strategy. -k

I suspect the Secret Service aspect of this story is mostly media hype. "The Secret Service said all threats or perceived threats are taken seriously and investigated, but it declined further comment." I doubt the Secret Service is spending much time trying to figure out if a 22 year old ice-cream girl is a threat to the President, but "Secret Service investigating" is something that makes a story more "newsy". But I am sure that if we look at the way this story is being covered on the right-wing noise-boxes, or look in the comments section on their articles, we will probably find that fanatics are interpreting this to mean that the Secret Service is going to conduct a witch-hunt against people who publicly criticize Obama, comparing it to how communist states hunt down people who criticize Dear Leader. -k

David Frum coined an interesting phrase yesterday : The "conservative entertainment complex". One assumes he's talking about Fox News, Fox Nation, Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck's various enterprises, websites like Bretibart. I think this part was interesting: "I won’t soon forget the lupine smile that played over the head of one major conservative institution when he told me that our donors think the apocalypse has arrived". The Obama win in 2008 was good for that institution, because angry/frightened conservatives opened up their wallets and started donating to them. The Obama win in 2008 was good for Fox News and Rush Limbaugh too. Fox was already on top during the Bush years, but after Obama was elected their ratings went through the roof. Obama's re-election is great news for Fox and Rush because legions of angry frustrated right wingers are going to be tuning in for the comforting anti-Obama media personalities and group venting. Joe Scarborough's reply to David Frum: -k

I don't think illness is quite what he has in mind... Not sure if this is something the OP wrote himself, or something he is reposting from someplace else. If it's the latter, I'd be interested in knowing where it came from. I can't help wondering if this is being circulated around by Tea Party types, some of whom are just venting their anger, while others might be hoping it eventually reaches somebody crazy enough to actually try it. As Bitsy says, there is nothing funny about this. -k

A lot of the chat was things that had little lasting relevance ("Obama leading Ohio!" "They called Ohio!" "Romney leading Ohio!?" "How can they call it for Obama when Romney is leading?!" "Obama leading Ohio again.". etc...) and a lot of it was banter. It was fun for the people who were there at the time, but a lot of the discussion would be stuff that just wouldn't matter if you were reading it today. Blueblood and Bonam had a philosophical discussion about the role of government, and there was some discussion about how the Republicans need to change, but those will be ongoing topics. Tears? Any tears yet? I'll look for highlights later. Dropped N-bombs, advocated for the murder of President Obama, literally pleaded for the moderators to ban him... they happily obliged. It was pretty gross, actually. -k

The pros and cons of the Electoral College system have been debated for a long time, by a lot of scholars. However, whatever your leanings, you have to have second thoughts about it when you see Florida, with over 8 million votes counted, and a difference of about 40,000 votes, and Obama will get 29 EC votes and Romney will get zero. I notice that Maine and Nebraska have split their electoral votes. Perhaps if other states are concerned with the winner-take-all aspect of it, they could look into something similar. -k

Well, his aggressive plans wouldn't actually affect anybody who's already a senior. Social services, medicare, the changes were to be phased in in a way that current seniors were unchanged, but people who aren't seniors yet don't get the same benefits that today's seniors receive. So of course current seniors were probably fine with that. It's easy to imagine somebody looking at the map and saying "look at all that red! How did Obama win?" -k

No doubt some in the truther/Tea wing of the Republican party were hoping they could point to the popular vote to undermine the legitimacy of Obama's victory. But President Obama is also winning the popular vote by over 1 million votes at this moment. In short, "scoreboard". -k

Well, the election night chat is over. It was a lot of fun, and at one point we had as many as 17 people in the chat room. There were lots of laughs and some good discussion as well. Special recognition to Blueblood for sticking it out on what was not a good night for Republican supporters. The only downside, aside from running out of cake early, was some extremely disappointing conduct from Mr Canada. The entire moderating team showed up to deal with the situation! Here is actual footage of Mr Canada literally begging Greg to ban him: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hv5CKYv9fEE Quite astounding, really. Thanks to everyone who joined in, aside from Mr Canada. -k

Update: we're out of cake, but the chat is still on. -k

Chat is ongoing! There's cake! -k

Whatever happens tomorrow, I think we can at least all be grateful to Romney for making sure that Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, and Herman Cain didn't get to be the Republican nominee. What a bunch of jerk-wads those guys were. -k

That really puts it in perspective. I also expect an Obama victory, though I think that we could be up pretty late tomorrow night waiting for results from a few states. I am not sure that Obama will win the popular vote, as the storm aftermath may reduce turnout in the northeast where the largest concentration of Democrat voters are. -k