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The General American Politics Thread


turbojet

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You see, why can't I see more "conservatives" like you? I can see your point, and though I don't agree with you on what you argue. I respect your opinion, and feel that you're not pulling lies out of your ass.

Edited by VisionaryBlur
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Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has a new reason for keeping his financial details secret from the American people: his Mormon faith.

Speaking to Parade Magazine, Ann Romney said their tithing to the Mormon Church is so meaningful and personal, she cries every time they sign over a check. “So do I,” Mitt added, “but for a different reason.”

“Our church doesn’t publish how much people have given,” he’s quoted saying. “This is done entirely privately. One of the downsides of releasing one’s financial information is that this is now all public, but we had never intended our contributions to be known. It’s a very personal thing between ourselves and our commitment to our God and to our church.”

The statement opens a fresh front in the rhetorical war on Romney’s campaign over the candidate’s refusal to detail more than two years of his financial history, and represents yet another significant reversal for Romney, who bragged to Parade Magazine and Fox News just earlier this year that he’s given millions to the church and regularly tithes 10 percent of his pre-tax income.

But even that claim was problematic for Romney, who was dinged by conservatives after the two years of tax returns he released showed he only donated 7 percent to the church in 2010. The same year, Romney gave an additional 7 percent of his income to charitable groups like the Friends of the George W. Bush Library, Harvard Business School and the U.S. Equestrian Team Foundation.

Every presidential nominee over more than 40 years has released at least 12 years of tax returns — including Romney’s also-Mormon father, former Michigan Gov. George Romney — although it is not required by law.

Because Romney is one of the most wealthy individuals to ever seek the presidency, the Obama campaign has constantly hammered him over the refusal to release his returns. Team Obama even promised last week to drop their attacks on Romney’s tax return secrecyif the former Massachusetts governor releases just three more years of returns, but the Romney campaign turned down their offer.

http://www.rawstory....return-secrecy/

Religion should play no part in politics. Not that Romney's Mormonism is playing any part in his politics (at no point in any Christian text does it say 'thou shalt not showeth thine tax returneth to thine peers (excepting John McCain)'); this is just him trying desperately to hide his tax information behind whatever cover story he and his campaign team can cobble together. Got something you're scared of being found out, Mr. Romney?

I hope that Obama can bring in a new law demanding a legal minimum number of tax returns be submitted by every presidential candidate in the future. The people need to know that the men/women they are voting for are not felonious.

Vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan says that he personally believes that rape is just another “method of conception” and not an excuse to allow abortions.

During an interview with WJHL this week, Ryan was asked his view about Rep. Todd Akin, who recently asserted that women could not get pregnant from “legitimate rape.”

“Specifically where you stand when it comes to rape, and when it comes to the issue of should it be legal for a woman to be able to get an abortion if she’s raped?” WJHL Josh Smith wondered.

“I’m very proud of my pro-life record, and I’ve always adopted the idea that, the position that the method of conception doesn’t change the definition of life,” Ryan explained. “But let’s remember, I’m joining the Romney-Ryan ticket. And the president makes policy.”

“And the president, in this case the future President Mitt Romney, has exceptions for rape, incest, and life of the mother, which is a vast improvement of where we are right now.”

MSNBC’s Steve Benen noted that responses like this were probably the reason that Romney is refusing to take any questions about Akin or abortion.

“In this case, when Ryan says ‘the method of conception’ is irrelevant, he’s talking about rape,” Benen wrote. “In other words, the Republicans’ vice presidential nominee clearly believes the government should force women to take their pregnancy to term if they are impregnated by a rapist.”

“Republicans can only distance themselves so much from Todd Akin before we realize they share his views.”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/08/24/ryan-on-abortion-exceptions-rape-is-just-another-method-of-conception/

While he is technically correct, rape is 'just another form of conception', and life is life, no matter from whence it originates, Ryan's statement seems to show him up to be quite amoral, and lacking even an ounce of compassion for his fellow (wo)man. I sit very much on the Pro Choice side of the abortion debate, and that debate is not one that this topic was designed to handle, but I think it is absolutely reprehensible that any elected official should hold fast to the belief (and presumably try to have it enacted in legislation) that abortions are never permissible under any circumstances.

We do not live in the 1950s any more, abortions are not the social taboo they once were, Christianity is not America's state religion and fuck the Pro Lifers who somehow only care about life when it's in the womb and not about the countless lives lived in misery and poverty outside the womb.

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One thing I've always found interesting (and I preface this by making it clear that I am completely Pro-Choice and am just pointing this out) is that people dig deep when it comes to abortion laws, but few (if any) are willing to revise laws that treat crimes against a pregnant mother as crimes against two people.

Also, Limbaugh is an incredibly intelligent person. He may very well believe some of the root ideas behind the things he says (though I'm not sure that he knows that there are contradictions therein), but I doubt it goes beyond that. Some of the stuff he says (like when he said that Obama didn't actually know how many states there were when taking office rather than it being a gaffe) are obviously fabricated to prey on fears, too.

Edit:

Also, Mitt may have committed voter fraud, if this is accurate:

427333_377354645664378_2012838462_n.jpg

Of course, that would be a difficult claim to substantiate in a court of law without Romney's tax returns, which could prove beyond all doubt where his primary residency was during this period.

Not so sure that constitutes fraud. It's certainly pretty sketchy and likely cause for revision of Mass. laws, but as it is presented it seems to be pretty close to what Hilary Clinton did in 1999 when she ran for Senate in New York (High-profile Senate seat open? Oh boy. I'm going to buy a house in New York purely so I can run for it even though it's obviously not where I live because I'm still living in the White House while I'm campaigning).

Edited by Gilda
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Personally I really do dislike Mitt Romney he seems to be in it for the power and prestige rather than trying to make his country a better place to him its another trophy.

Also he seems like a relic from the Reagan/ George H.W. Bush era slick haircut shiny business type suit, perfect white teeth. Though he lacks the Charisma and warmth that Reagan had which was his one of his major trump cards.

Don't remind me of his recent visit to the UK. He was rude ignorant and didn't seem interested in the special relationship rather than mutual humility angle Obama is using Romney can across as cocky and arrogant.

While Obama has distanced the special relationship unlike his predecessor he has done so in a polite and subtle way, where as Bush used us heavily and that idiot Blair was willing to be strung along. dry.png

That's just my impression of him though.

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The issue with Romney is basically that, yeah. He acts like he has charisma, and he acts like he is affable. The problem is that few people buy it because it is rather clearly an act (well, that and Obama actually does fulfill those two requirements) but he never stops acting like he does. He needs to redirect his public persona to try to build credibility first (especially after how vicious the primaries were this time around), and he needs to do it before the real nitty gritty of elections occur (debates and so on) because he's screwed the second he goes head to head against Obama for real in the public eye if he doesn't.

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Ann Romney has debunked Mitt's religion excuse for not revealing his tax returns. But first, as a reminder, here is his excuse:

Our church doesn't publish how much people have given. This is done entirely privately. One of the downsides of releasing one’s financial information is that this is now all public, but we had never intended our contributions to be known. It’s a very personal thing between ourselves and our commitment to our God and to our church.

And here he is, reportedly claiming to pay a certain percentage in tax, and then asserting that charitable donations actually add to that percentage, even though the system doesn't work like that:

Every year, I’ve paid at least 13 percent, and if you add, in addition, the amount that goes to charity, why the number gets well above 20 percent

Ann has blown that religion excuse out of the water by revealing that they give 10% of their income each year to the church:

Got any more excuses up your sleeve, Mittsy, or are you finally backed into a corner on this one?

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This is bloody retarded...

Coal miners say they were forced to attend Romney event and donate

A group of coal miners in Ohio feel they would have been fired if they did not attend an Aug. 14 event with presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney and contribute to his campaign — and to make matters worse, they lost of day of pay for their trouble.

In phone calls and emails to WWVA radio host David Blomquist, employees at the Century Mine in Ohio said they feared retaliation if they did not attend the Romney event.

“Yes, we were in fact told that the Romney event was mandatory and would be without pay, that the hours spent there would need to be made up by non-salaried employees outside of regular working hours, with the only other option being to take a pay cut for the equivalent time,” the employees told Blomquist. “Yes, letters have gone around with lists of names of employees who have not attended or donated to political events.”

“I realize that many people in this area and elsewhere would love to have my job or my benefits,” one worker explained. “And our bosses do not hesitate in reminding us of this. However, I can not agree with these callers and my supervisors, who are saying that just because you have a good job, that you should have to work any day for free on almost no notice without your consent.”

“We do not appreciate being intimidated into exchanging our time for nothing. I heard one of your callers saying that Murray employees are well aware of what they are getting into upon hire, or that they are informed that a percentage of their income will go to political donations. I can not speak for that caller, but this is news for me. We merely find out how things work by experience.”

Murray Energy Chief Financial Officer Rob Moore told Blomquist that the charges were untrue.

“There were no workers that were forced to attend the event,” Moore said. “We had managers that communicated to our work force that the attendance at the Romney event was mandatory, but no one was forced to attend the event. We had a pre-registration list. And employees were asked to put their names on a pre-registration list because they could not get into the event unless they were pre-registered and had a name tag to enter the premises.”

“What about not getting paid for an eight-hour day?” Blomquist wondered. “If the mine was shut down for the visit, I understand, but wouldn’t it be fair — let’s use the word ‘fair’ — to still pay these individuals for that day? I mean, it wasn’t their fault they weren’t working.”

“Our management people wanted to attend the event and we could not have people underground during Romney’s visit,” Moore insisted.

“But why not still pay then their wage for that day?” Blomquist pressed.

“By federal election law, we could not pay people to attend the event,” Moore replied. “And we did not want anyone to come back and see where anyone had been paid for that day.”

“I’m not saying pay then to attend the event, I’m saying, ‘Hey look, we have to close down the mine, if you want to attend this event, that’s fine, but you’re still going to get a day’s pay for the work that you would have done,’” Blomquist pointed out. “Why not do that?”

“As a private employer, it was our decision and we made the decision not to pay the people,” the Murray chief financial officer said.

“We’re talking about an event that was in the best interest of anyone that’s related to the coal industry,” Moore added. “I do not believe that missing an eight-hour day, when you put it into perspective, when you think about how critical — critical this next election is, and how critical it is that we get someone in this office that supports coal — to give up eight hours for a career, I just don’t believe that there is anything negative about that.”

At the time, conservative blogs and websites like The Daily Caller, The Gateway Pundit and Townhall trumpeted the fact that “hundreds of Ohio coal miners attended” the event. Even though the mine was closed on Aug. 14, soot-covered miners were staged behind the GOP hopeful as he spoke.

Earlier that month, Murray Energy Corporation and its founder, Robert Murray, had blamed President Barack Obama after they fired hundreds of workers and closed an operation near Brilliant, Ohio five years early.

Company leaders said that “regulatory actions by President Barack Obama and his appointees and followers [are] the entire reason” that operations were shutdown.

Robert Murray received national attention in 2009 after his Crandall Canyon Mine in Utah collapsed, leaving six miners trapped inside. Between 2005 and 2009, the Murray Energy Corp. Political Action Committee had given more than $150,000 to Republican candidates. Murray personally gave $15,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee in 2004 and $10,000 in 2006. The Ohio Valley Coal PAC, a group affiliated with Murray Energy, gave $10,000 to George W. Bush’s presidential campaign in 2000.

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Not sure if this has been mentioned yet but...

Republican supporters throw nuts at black CNN camerawoman and said 'this is how we feed annimals.' during Romney's nomination.

Oh that's nothing check out this gem especially when you learn her name and background:

Republican congressional candidate Gabriela Saucedo Mercer would prefer that people like Jesus Christ or Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not come to the United States -- "legally or illegally" -- because they're "Middle Easterners."

Those ideas came out of her mouth in an interview from a year ago, which was posted yesterday by her opponent, Democratic Congressman Raul Grijalva.

See, the problem is, "Middle Easterners" look a whole lot like Mexicans, according to Saucedo Mercer, so it's hard to tell who the actual "Middle Easterners" are.

"If you know Middle Easterners, a lot of them, they look Mexican or they look, you know, like a lot of people in South America, dark skin, dark hair, brown eyes," she said. "And they mix. They mix in."

"And those people, their only goal in life is to, to cause harm to the United States," she said. "So why do we want them here, either legally or illegally?"

http://blogs.phoenix...rs_mexicans.php

rolleyes.gif

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Oh that's nothing check out this gem especially when you learn her name and background:

http://blogs.phoenix...rs_mexicans.php

rolleyes.gif

How the hell can anyone be stupid enough to say something like that in public? Are they trying to shoot themselves in the foot?

Edited by Frankenstein Joe
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All I have to say about those things is that the GOP did more than shoot themselves in the foot. They pretty much committed political suicide with such measures leaving others to use the evidence against them in their campaigns. Course it could go the other way with the Democrats with who knows what might happen between now and November. All in all this is going to get messy with voters caught in the crossfire young and old.

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Racists? In office? After a decade of government-supported xenophobia and fear mongering performed by multiple administrations? Soly hhit!

Edited by Gilda
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Words from Ron Paul:

As we enter the fall political season, we will hear a great deal of rhetoric from both major political parties and their many candidates for office. It's important for us to remember, however, that words can be made meaningless by misuse or overuse. And when we as citizens allow politicians to obscure the truth by distorting words, we diminish ourselves and our nation.

For example, we've all heard politicians use the words "democracy" and "freedom" countless times. They are used interchangeably in modern political discourse, yet their true meanings are very different. They have become what George Orwell termed "meaningless words." Words like "freedom," "democracy," and "justice," Orwell explained, have been abused for so l?ong that their original meanings have been eviscerated. In Orwell's view, such words were "often used in a consciously dishonest way."

Without precise meanings behind words, politicians and elites can obscure reality and condition people to reflexively associate certain words with positive or negative perceptions. In other words, unpleasant facts can be hidden behind purposely meaningless language. As just one example, Americans have been conditioned to accept the word "democracy" as a synonym for freedom. Thus we are conditioned to believe that democracy is always and everywhere benevolent.

The problem is that democracy is not freedom. Democracy is simply majoritarianism, which is inherently incompatible with freedom. While our Constitution certainly features certain democratic mechanisms, it also features inherently undemocratic mechanisms like the First Amendment and the Electoral College. America is a constitutional republic, not a democracy. Yet we've been bombarded with the meaningless word "democracy" for so long that few Americans understand the difference.

If we intend to use the word freedom in an honest way, we should have the simple integrity to give it real meaning: Freedom is living without government coercion. So when a politician talks about freedom or liberty − regardless of the issue being discusse − ask yourself whether he is advocating more government force or less.

The words "liberal" and "conservative" have also been abused. "Liberalism," which once stood for civil, political and economic liberties, has become a synonym for omnipotent coercive government. Liberalism has been redefined to mean liberation from material wants, always via a large and benevolent government that exists to create equality on earth.

"Conservatism," meanwhile, once meant respect for tradition and distrust of active government. But in recent decades conservatism has been redefined as support for big-government grandiosity via military adventurism, corporatism and inflationary monetary policy. The modern political right has redefined conservatism into support for an all-powerful central state, provided that the state furthers supposedly conservative goals.

Orwell certainly was right about the use of meaningless words in politics. Our task, therefore, is to reclaim our language and reclaim our liberties. If we hope to remain free, we must cut through the fog and attach concrete meanings to the words politicians use to deceive us.

http://thedailybell.com/4222/Ron-Paul-Meaningless-Words-in-Politics

Now to see if politicians abide to this for years on.

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The problem is that democracy is not freedom. Democracy is simply majoritarianism, which is inherently incompatible with freedom. While our Constitution certainly features certain democratic mechanisms, it also features inherently undemocratic mechanisms like the First Amendment and the Electoral College. America is a constitutional republic, not a democracy. Yet we've been bombarded with the meaningless word "democracy" for so long that few Americans understand the difference.

He is wrong. We are a single representative Democracy which is very much a Democracy.

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This particular question stood out for me:

What are you going to do to end the corrupting influence of money in politics during your second term?

Money has always been a factor in politics, but we are seeing something new in the no-holds barred flow of seven and eight figure checks, most undisclosed, into super-PACs; they fundamentally threaten to overwhelm the political process over the long run and drown out the voices of ordinary citizens. We need to start with passing the Disclose Act that is already written and been sponsored in Congress - to at least force disclosure of who is giving to who. We should also pass legislation prohibiting the bundling of campaign contributions from lobbyists. Over the longer term, I think we need to seriously consider mobilizing a constitutional amendment process to overturn Citizens United (assuming the Supreme Court doesn't revisit it). Even if the amendment process falls short, it can shine a spotlight of the super-PAC phenomenon and help apply pressure for change.

Obama is actually considering taking action in order to heavily reduce the influence money has on politics, right down the constitutional level. Holy shit.

Edited by Masaru Daimon
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Obama is actually considering taking action in order to heavily reduce the influence money has on politics, right down the constitutional level. Holy shit.

What's Romney's plan of action?

"Corporations are people too."

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Romney can't win without the help of the wealthy so-called "elite", like the Koch brothers. They can buy him the election.

If he does win, I hope Hillary Clinton runs in '16 and wins by a landslide, and in office destroys entirely the lobbyist culture gripping both houses (by forcing through new laws to forever separate interest groups from government) and overturns Citizens United permanently, among other things.

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Romney can't win without the help of the wealthy so-called "elite", like the Koch brothers. They can buy him the election.

If he does win, I hope Hillary Clinton runs in '16 and wins by a landslide, and in office destroys entirely the lobbyist culture gripping both houses (by forcing through new laws to forever separate interest groups from government) and overturns Citizens United permanently, among other things.

You do realize that Obama could run again if he loses....

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You do realize that Obama could run again if he loses....

He could, and perhaps he should (if he can be as badass as we expected him to be), but Hillary is not going to settle for Secretary of State again; she's going to be gunning for the presidency and I'd be inclined to let her have it.

In the mean time, the Voter ID laws which have been so devastating for Democratic voter registration need to be repealed nationwide and banned as permanently as is possible. The GOP's tactics must never be permitted again.

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Are we even that sure she's gonna run for presidency again? I'm not ruling out the possibility, but I've not paid any attention to any news that show whether she would.

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