The General American Politics Thread

[Patticus]

Bush's FEMA director, who was so infamously and fashionably late to the Hurricane Katrina party, has given an interview. Here's the most retarded part of it:

"One thing [Obama]'s gonna be asked is, why did he jump on this so quickly and go back to D.C. so quickly when in...Benghazi, he went to Las Vegas? Why was this so quick?... At some point, somebody's going to ask that question.... This is like the inverse of Benghazi."

http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2012/10/michael_brown_fema_obama_hurricane_sandy.php

Quick, let's all try to link this terrible catastrophe to politics, then tie that political angle to a completely unrelated tragedy which happened over a month ago in a county 4,000 miles away!

[Rinzler]

Politicizing Hurricane Sandy HO!

Chris Christie was supposed to be one of Mitt Romney‘s most aggressive surrogates, constantly attacking President Obama in the waning days of the presidential campaign.

Instead, Mr. Christie, the governor of New Jersey, has spent the last several hours repeatedly heaping praise on Mr. Obama as effectively leading the federal government’s response to the huge storm that slammed into his state on Monday.

Eight days ago, Mr. Christie described Mr. Obama as “blindly walking around the White House looking for a clue.” On Tuesday morning, he was effusive about Mr. Obama’s administration, calling the storm response “wonderful,” “excellent” and “outstanding.”

The overnight transformation of Mr. Christie from political slasher to disaster governor is a reflection of the magnitude of the devastation in New Jersey. Asked on Fox News whether Mr. Romney might tour damage of the state, Mr. Christie was dismissive.

“I have no idea, nor am I the least bit concerned or interested. I have a job to do in New Jersey that is much bigger than presidential politics,” Mr. Christie said. “If you think right now I give a damn about presidential politics, then you don’t know me.”

But some Republicans have already begun grumbling about Mr. Christie’s over-the-top praise of the president at such a crucial time in the election. One Republican in Washington said Mr. Christie could have simply expressed appreciation for what any president would have done. Another Republican strategist observed that Mr. Christie’s kind words for the president were delivered with the kind of gusto that he often uses to criticize Mr. Obama.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Christie, who was scheduled to tour damage along the New Jersey coast, declined to comment about presidential politics.

Aides to Mr. Romney declined to criticize Mr. Christie, saying that they recognized the need for the governor to focus on the efforts to rescue his residents and begin recovering from the storm. Kevin Madden, a spokesman for Mr. Romney, noted that Mr. Christie said “this isn’t a time for politics.”

And yet the presidential campaign marches forward in spite of the storm. And it looks as if Mr. Romney’s campaign may have to do without Mr. Christie’s powerful voice in the homestretch.

At a rally in Richmond, Va., last week, Mr. Christie lashed out at the president in a way that few of Mr. Romney’s surrogates can. He seized on Mr. Obama’s previous comment about not being able to effect change from inside the White House and offered to buy him an airplane ticket back to Chicago.

He said the president had never learned how to lead anything, having served as a community organizer, state legislator and one-term senator.

“He’s like a man wandering around a dark room, hands up against the wall, clutching for the light switch of leadership, and he just can’t find it,” Mr. Christie said at the rally.

That probably would have been the message that Mr. Christie delivered repeatedly during the final days of the presidential campaign. But the storm’s arrival — and the damage it inflicted for Mr. Christie’s constituents — have changed that dynamic.

In several appearances on morning news programs on Tuesday, Mr. Christie went out of his way to thank the president personally, in addition to praising the operation of the federal government and its response teams.

“It’s been very good working with the president,” Mr. Christie said on the “Morning Joe” program on MSNBC. “He and his administration have been coordinating with us. It’s been wonderful.”

Speaking about the damage to his state on the “Today” show on NBC, Mr. Christie called the president “outstanding” and said the response from the Federal Emergency Management Agency had been “excellent.”

In a Twitter message from his official account, Mr. Christie said he wanted to “thank the president personally for all his assistance as we recover from the storm.”

Mr. Romney’s campaign said on Monday that Mr. Romney had talked with Mr. Christie and Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia as the storm approached over the weekend. Mr. Christie did not mention on Tuesday his conversations with Mr. Romney.

http://thecaucus.blo...o-praise-obama/

[Patticus]

I guess Obama's handling of the crisis must be doing him some good. After a pretty glum Monday, when his overall polling numbers were down and Romney's up, FiveThirtyEight's projected share of the Electoral College vote for Obama rose to 299 from Monday's 294.6, his chance of winning shot up by 4.5 percentage points to 77.4%, and his share of the popular vote went back up to Monday's 50.4% - the biggest single day gains he's had in FTE's forecasting model in weeks, perhaps even since FTE went live in June.

But this could be reversed by a misstep or poorly worded comment in the next 6 days or so, or a strong few days for Romney. I don't know if we'll even see any more polling trends this election season - with so little time left, each of the last few days could be a polling rollercoaster for all we know. I hope it's not, I'd love to see the people recognizing Obama's good leadership in this tough time result in a strong trend towards the Prez in the final days assuring a very strong win for him.

In other news.... well it's not really news as such, but it is an interesting article. An excerpt:

President-Elect Obama and his inner circle fundamentally misjudged the political moment. The nation was clearly demanding significant change – so much so that they were willing to elect an unseasoned—Black—politician (remarkable given the U.S.’s unflinching history of racism). Yet Obama and his inner circle somehow convinced themselves that recycling the tired old idea of “triangulation” from the Clinton first term would be their best play. To that end, Barack Obama and his senior advisors immediately set about alienating their core supporters. Within two weeks of election day, the Administration announced that Lawrence Summers and Timothy Geithner–the individuals whose previous records individually and collectively defined what it meant to be monumental failures as public servants–would be placed in charge of the economic recovery. Their appointments indicated, and their performances amply confirmed, that whatever “hope and change” meant as a slogan, it would in no way apply to the president’s economic policies. They have, without a doubt, restored Wall Street’s fortunes – what they have not done is restore the fortunes of anyone else.

Read more: http://translationex...ho-is-to-blame/

Even after reading that, I'd still much rather have Obama in office than Romney...

Edit:

Leaked Florida GOP Memo: "Democratic turnout machine is cleaning our clock"

Choice quotes: "Early and absentee voting is starting to look troubling"

"This is closer to (And worse than) 2008"

Conclusion: "The Democratic turnout machine in the county has been very effective and they are cleaning our clock"

http://www.dailykos....aning-our-clock

That memo in full: http://twitgoo.com/68vgv6

Could Obama be on course to win Florida after all? I had all but given up on that state going blue this time.

Edit #2:

538's election forecast model has been updated, taking into account yesterday's polling as well as the previous night's Quinnipiac/NYT/CBS poll which came out after 538's model had been run for that night, showing further apparent Obama gains: 299.7 points on the Electoral College forecast (up 0.7%), a 78.4% chance of winning (up 1%) and 50.5% of the popular vote (up 0.1%). When those pollsters which shut down for the hurricane, including several prominent national tracking polls, return toward the end of the week, we'll see whether this pro-Obama trend will hold up any, or if it's a product of the hurricane and those several pollsters closing up shop while the shit went down and began to be cleaned up.

Edited November 1, 2012 by Patticus

[nuckles87]

I wrote this in reply to some old comment that'll probably never get read. A word of warning, I'm a democrat and this is from my perspective (though it's all based on fact, though I haven't bothered to fact check every detail).

My point? THERE IS a difference between the parties and the candidates. They are NOT the same. VOTE

Someone clearly didn't watch the two debates before that where both candidates made it clear how different they were. The only reason why Romney agreed with Obama on foreign policy was because he had no authority to criticize any of it, and most that COULD be criticized most Republicans agree with.

The two parties are VERY different, and only Ron Paul acolytes who just want people to pay attention to their candidate (even though all he really is is an extremist Republican with sensible views on pot legalization and foreign policy).

Democrats support health care reform, Republicans don't. Democrats want to both raise taxes, primarily on the top 1%, and Republicans want to cut those taxes further and take a hatchet to the budget. Democrats want to curb outsourcing of jobs with protectionist policies, Republicans don't. Democrats want an energy policy that invests heavily in green energy like wind and solar energy. Republicans are all about "clean" coal, natural gas, and drill baby drill. Democrats (generally) support gay marriage and gay rights, Republicans (generally) want to ban gay marriage, gay adoption, and gay participation in the military. Democrats (generally) support abortion rights and free access to contraceptives, Republicans don't, and many of the most extreme in their party have gone so far as to propose "conception at life" legislation, which would even go so far as to ban most forms of contraception that women currently utilize as part of their family planning. Romney voiced his support for such legislation, the Blunt amendment, earlier this year. Democrats want to support public programs like PBS, NPR, and the National Endowment of the arts, republicans don't. Democrats support rebuilding, maintaining and improving our D grade national infrastructure, Republicans are content to let it crumble.

Simply put, Democrats believe that government CAN do things, like save an economy on the verge of depression (the Stimulus), save important industries like the Auto industry (the auto bail out), improve our nation's health care situation (Obamacare), provide disaster relief that no single state can provide to itself on its own (FEMA), provide protection for consumers (Consumer Protection Bureau), sort of regulate the banking industry (Dodd Frank), put a stop to abuses from the Credit Card industry (Credit Card Reform Act), allow women to sue if they've been discriminated against in their pay (Lilly Ledbetter), and yes CREATE JOBS through both the stimulus act that the Congress passed, which saved or created millions of jobs, and through the proposed American Jobs Act.

Republicans supported NONE of this. Their agenda involves huge tax cuts mostly weighted to the top 1 percent, the gutting or repeal of almost everything in the above paragraph. They've proposed turning medicare into a voucher program, and when called out on it then proposed making it an "optional" program, which would weaken it and allow private insurers to pick out the healthier people, leaving the expensive sicker people on Medicare, something that would make the program even more unsustainable then it currently is.

So yeah, there are PLENTY of differences between the two parties. Maybe you disagree with big government. Maybe you see all the things I said democrats did as terrible. If so, don't act like you don't have a choice. You do. Though by all means, vote for Gary Johnson over Mitt Romney. I encourage it.

[Linkabel]

I hope everyone had a good Halloween. This article got my attention on Twitter after coming back home:

UAW Charges Romney With Profiteering From Auto Bailout

For Mitt Romney, it's one scary Halloween. The Presidential candidate has just learned that tomorrow afternoon (November 1) he will be charged by the United Automobile Workers (UAW) and other public interest groups with violating the federal ethics in government law by improperly concealing his multi-million dollar windfall from the auto industry bailout.

At a press conference in Toledo, Bob King, President of the United Automobile Workers, will announce that his union and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) have filed a formal complaint with the US Office of Government Ethics in Washington stating that Gov. Romney improperly hid a profit of $15.3 million to $115.0 million in Ann Romney's so-called "blind" trust.

The union chief says, "The American people have a right to know about Gov. Romney’s potential conflicts of interest, such as the profits his family made from the auto rescue. It’s time for Gov. Romney to disclose or divest.”

“While Romney was opposing the rescue of one of the nation’s most important manufacturing sectors, he was building his fortunes with his Delphi investor group, making his fortunes off the misfortunes of others,” King added.

The Romneys' gigantic windfall was hidden inside an offshore corporation inside a limited partnership inside a trust which both concealed the gain and reduces taxes on it.

The Romneys' windfall was originally exposed in Nation Magazine (and reposted on Truthout,) Mitt Romney's Bail-out Bonanza after a worldwide investigation by our crew at The Guardian, the Nation Institute and the Palast Investigative Fund.

According to ethics law expert Dan Curry who drafted the ethics complaint, Ann Romney does not have a federally-approved blind trust. An approved "blind" trust may not be used to hide a major investment which could be affected by Romney if he were to be elected President. Other groups joining the UAW and CREW include Public Citizen, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Public Campaign, People for the American Way and The Social Equity Group.

President Obama's approved trust, for example, contains only highly-diversified mutual funds on which presidential action can have little effect. By contrast, the auto bail-out provided a windfall of over 4,000% on one single Romney investment.

In 2009, Ann Romney partnered with her husband's key donor, billionaire Paul Singer, who secretly bought a controlling interest in Delphi Auto, the former GM auto parts division. Singer's hedge fund, Elliott Management, threatened to cut off GM's supply of steering columns unless GM and the government's TARP auto bailout fund provided Delphi with huge payments. While the US treasury complained this was "extortion," the hedge funds received, ultimately, $12.9 billion in taxpayer subsidies.

As a result, the shares Singer and Romney bought for just 67 cents are today worth over $30, a 4,000% gain. Singer's hedge fund made a profit of $1.27 billion and the Romney's tens of millions.

The UAW complaint calls for Romney to reveal exactly how much he made off Delphi -- and continues to make. The Singer syndicate, once in control of Delphi, eliminated every single UAW job --25,000-- and moved almost all auto parts production to Mexico and China where Delphi now employs 25,000 auto parts workers.

http://www.truth-out...om-auto-bailout

Edited November 1, 2012 by Pegasus Seiya

[Tornado]

I kept reading it, wondering where the hook was. The first two/three paragraphs were news. Everything else was just the UAW bitching about things that, to be frank, people will only care about if it effects them directly (because you sure as hell aren't going to find people calling for the dismantling of their retirement funds).

Got to the last sentence, and it finally clicked. That's why they're pissed. It has little to do with what Romney did from an ethical point of view. It has to the fact that they were forced out of Delphi, completely glossing over that Delphi was rapidly going out of business years before Romney got involved, and they would rather have dragged the entire company down with them instead; and Romney's group got in the way of that by buying Delphi out and moving it.

The two parties are VERY different, and only Ron Paul acolytes who just want people to pay attention to their candidate (even though all he really is is an extremist Republican with sensible views on pot legalization and foreign policy).

Well, either that, or the people who are saying things like that are extremely disenfranchised voters of Obama in 2008. It's all well and good to explain what the party supposedly stands for, but that doesn't necessarily apply to the candidates. For example, I don't understand how people still continue to believe that Mitt Romney is anything but an opportunist in his political views when they try to paint him as an extremist NeoCon.

You've also basically worded that entire rant as "Democrats like all these good things, and Republicans are evil and hate all of them. And kick puppies;" including going so far as to use extremely vague terms to quantify it as if they are universally good. Republicans want to slash taxes for reasoning beyond "lol our rich buddies want us too," and it isn't as if Obama raising taxes and throwing around stimulus money is all sunshine and rainbows. The argument is about which idea would work better as a long-term solution. It's not about right or wrong, as you presented them.

As another example, "health care reform" is an extremely nebulous term, and you can't just say "Republicans don't want it so that's bad." You can't just say "Republicans don't want stimulus money distributed so they are bad." You can't just say "Republicans didn't want the auto industry bailed out, so they are bad." You can't just say "protectionism good, outsourcing bad" and act like that's fact either. I could break it down further and will happily do so over specific things if anyone would like me too, but I will simply say now that there are two sides to every issue, and you aren't even bothering to examine both of them.

I also find it quite convenient to gloss over Obama's foreign policy record as being Republican-friendly as just being because Republican's have no right to criticize and/or agree with him when Obama was elected in no small part because he wasn't supposed to be Republican-friendly (Read: World Police) over those issues. Hence, disenfranchisement.

Edited November 1, 2012 by Tornado

[nuckles87]

You've also basically worded that entire rant as "Democrats like all these good things, and Republicans are evil and hate all of them. And kick puppies;"

Which is why I stated pretty clearly that I'm a democrat, and that this would be from my perspective AS a democrat. I wasn't really trying to make an argument for voting democrats, per se. i If I was I would have facted checked, done research, and posted graphs and charts, I would have taken a look at the Republican perspective and evaluated it, and I would have presented a much more measured arguement. But that wasn't my goal. My point was that the two parties are different. If you disagree with what many democrats want to do and what democrats have proposed, fine. But don't pretend that they are the same party and you don't have a choice. That was my basic point to this commenter, and that was my point in posting it here. If you understand that the two parties are very different, that post was NOT meant for you.

I don't agree with all of Obama's foreign policy, personally. I don't agree with the drone strikes, nor the killing of Americans abroad. At the same time, he's probably had more success in this area then any other because he doesn't need to deal with Congress.

[Sami]

So there's this really cool website that statistically compares your stances on governmental issues to each of the candidates for Presidency, House, and Senate. It also shows how users from specific websites (I don't know exactly how this was collected, however), and has an option for comparing and contrasting presidential candidates with each other using their own quotes about specific issues. It's a great way to finalize your stance on the election this year.

My results -

Not gonna lie, I actually laughed out loud when I saw my relation to the Republican Party.

Edited November 1, 2012 by Pissy Dissy

[Patticus]

I'd vote for Jill Stein, but she wasn't even invited to the fucking presidential debates, and nobody knows who she is compared to Barack and Mitt, so I'd rather vote Obama...

It's a disgrace, frankly, that the Debate Commission is so willing to ignore even the larger third party groups.

[Tornado]

DQ linked that in a status a week or so ago, and what I ended up getting basically just made the thing come off as a joke to me.

But don't pretend that they are the same party and you don't have a choice. That was my basic point to this commenter, and that was my point in posting it here. If you understand that the two parties are very different, that post was NOT meant for you

But, again, my reason for responding was that you vote for candidates. Not political parties. And if someone thinks that Obama and Romney are fundamentally the same as candidates (ie. "Obamney"), or if this election is a lesser of two evils affair, explaining how the party line says they shouldn't be doesn't change much in that regard.

Edited November 2, 2012 by Tornado

[Badnik Mechanic]

Meanwhile in Springfield.

[Conando]

Speaking of that site that compares your beliefs to candidates. I matched Stein the most, with Obama just a bit behind. I matched Romney by a whopping 1%.

[Patticus]

Obama leads by 3 in Virginia

Obama leads by 8 in Michigan

Still tied in North Carolina

Obama leads 50-45 in Ohio

Obama leads by 5 in Wisconsin and Iowa

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/

Loads more here - http://www.politico....on/polls/latest

538's Nov. 6th forecasts from today's polling, in full:

Electoral Vote

Obama - 303.4 (+3)

Romney - 234.6 (-3)

Chance of Winning

Obama - 80.9% (+1.9%)

Romney - 19.1% (-1.9%)

Popular Vote

Obama - 50.5% (Unchanged)

Romney - 48.4% (-0.2%)

Another very good day for the Obama campaign (his odds of winning in Colorado and Virginia have both risen a lot lately), but as the blog's author has said before, a good day at this point in the game might not mean as much as it would have a few weeks ago, around the debates. But maybe what it does mean is that the trend back towards the president in the final moments of the campaign is actually real, independent of the pollsters who closed down for the hurricane, leaving the Romney campaign suddenly struggling to comprehend what's going on.

[Kevin]

I'd vote for Jill Stein, but she wasn't even invited to the fucking presidential debates, and nobody knows who she is compared to Barack and Mitt, so I'd rather vote Obama...

It's a disgrace, frankly, that the Debate Commission is so willing to ignore even the larger third party groups.

That's why I refused to watch the debates because they're basically nothing more than a corporate sponsored press conference. To me, it's not a real debate.

At least Larry King moderated a debate where the third party candidates participated in C-SPAN and Al Jazeera both broadcasted it, but none of the major US news networks did unsurprisingly enough. Democracy Now also had Jill Stein make a response while the main debates were going on, but sadly, they don't have a lot of exposure. You kow it's sad when foreign and independent news sources air debates or responses from third party candidates but the major US news networks can't.

[Tornado]

I listened to most of Romney's closing campaign speech. Surprisingly charismatic. You could see the wires in spots, and I certainly rolled my eyes at quite a bit of it; but I'm really curious in how he was able to fake human emotions so cleanly for such a long period of time.

[Patticus]

Romney had a closing speech today? I had no idea. The highlights will probably be run on tonight's news broadcasts and be spliced into refurbished attack ads.

Is Obama getting a closing speech, too?

In the news today, a Gingrich:

An email message mistakenly sent to Newt Gingrich's newsletter list serve Thursday morning told subscribers that President Obama would no doubt win in 2012 and that they should be more worried about Obama's winning in 2016.

That's right, despite the 22nd Amendment, which limits any one person to two presidential terms, the email that went out to Gingrich's readers suggests President Obama would be running again in 2016, and possibly serve through 2020.

The email, titled "What's really at stake this Tuesday ..." came from Gingrich Marketplace - a newsletter coordinated by conservative news group Human Events.

"The truth is, the next election has already been decided. Obama is going to win. It's nearly impossible to beat an incumbent president," advertiser Porter Stansberry wrote in the email to Gingrich supporters. "What's actually at stake right now is whether or not he will have a third-term."

Conservative news group Human Events manages the Gingrich Marketplace emails, but Gingrich has a say over which advertisers can have their messages go out to the list. And according to Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond, Stansberry & Associates should have been on the blacklist.

Human Events Vice President Joe Guerriero said the email was "a mistake."

"It was actually scheduled to run on another of our lists," Guerriero said. His team has been investigating how the Stansberry message went out to the Gingrich group.

Stansberry & Associates is run by Porter Stansberry, who in 2003 was the subject ofan SEC lawsuit in which the court found he participated in an online newsletter scheme that defrauded investors out of $1 million. Stansberry was ordered to pay $120,000 in damages.

Here's the catch to the email. To learn how Obama would circumvent the 22nd Amendment, Gingrich subscribers were asked to click on a link to Stanberry's site and watch a video presentation. We won't bore you with those details. We're skeptical, to say the least, of the argument.

Gingrich endorsed Republican rival Mitt Romney when Gingrich left the race last May. At the top and bottom of his emails, there is a disclaimer for readers, in part saying, "the following message reflects the opinions and representations of our advertiser alone."

This story has been updated to reflect the fact that the email was sent to subscribers of Newt Gingrich's Human Events newsletter, not the Gingrich campaign's subscribers.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/errant-email-newt-gingrich-supporters-obama-win/story?id=17618977#.UJPxxsVY3HR

Whoopsy!

[Tornado]

Well, I don't think it was actually an official closing speech, but the Fox Radio was comparing it to the closing statement in a trial, so that's what I'm calling it.

And don't mind Gingrich. The lower gravity on his base on the MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON is making the blood pool in his head.

[Patticus]

Is this the speech you watched?

In what his campaign billed as his “closing argument,” Mitt Romney warned Americans that a second term for President Obama would have apocalyptic consequences for the economy in part because his own party would force a debt ceiling disaster.

“Unless we change course, we may well be looking at another recession,” Romney told a crowd in West Allis, Wisconsin.

Romney said that Obama “promised to be a post-partisan president, but he became the most partisan” and that his bitter relations with the House GOP could threaten the economy. As his chief example, he pointed to a crisis created entirely by his own party’s choice — Republican lawmakers’ ongoing threat to reject a debt ceiling increase. Economists warn that a failure to pass such a measure would have immediate and catastrophic consequences for the recovery.

“You know that if the President is re-elected, he will still be unable to work with the people in Congress,” Romney said. “He has ignored them, attacked them, blamed them. The debt ceiling will come up again, and shutdown and default will be threatened, chilling the economy.”

Despite the apocalyptic warnings on the economy, most of the Republican nominee’s speech focused on a more modest argument that as president he would work with both sides to build a stronger economy. He said that, like Obama, “I promise change, but I have a record of achieving it.”

“I won’t spend my effort trying to pass partisan legislation that’s unrelated to economic growth,” Romney said. “From day one, I will go to work to help Americans get back to work.”

Romney’s warnings of a second recession came the same day as an unexpectedly strong jobs report which, combined with other recent indicators, has many economists hopeful that the recovery may be gaining strength. Many current projections show the economy picking up steam in the near term regardless of who wins the presidency, leading to speculation on a looming battle over who deserves the credit.

With four days left, Romney may need an exceptionally strong close to overcome the president in the electoral college. The overwhelming majority of polls show Obama with a modest but stable lead in critical swing states, most notably Ohio, and other potentially decisive states like Virginia and Colorado remain tossups at best.

http://2012.talkingp...ion-warning.php

What a good reason for a Democratic-dominated house - the economy wouldn't be allowed to be driven into a ravine by idiot GOP congressmen.

[Tornado]

Yep. That's the one. I specifically recall hearing those excerpts.

[Patticus]

I find it quite chilling that Romney of all people isn't afraid to talk openly about purposefully ruining the economy, just because he and his party can't have their own way all the time.

One of the article's commenter's said something I would love to see happen (I'll paraphrase): The Obama campaign should keep its field operations active, albeit scaled back, so that, come the mid-terms, it can come roaring back to life in a bid to try to prevent further GOP house domination. Their theme should be the ending of the Republicans' reign of obstructionism and their many attempts to damage the economic recovery.

[Nepenthe]

Can you please stop using the word "socialism" without having exhibited knowledge of what it actually is?

[Stacy]

Out campaigning for Romney with my friend. Feels really good. We have liberals beating up gay conservatives, covering up Benghazi-Gate, lying about poll numbers (according to Rasmussen and Gallup, all of those numbers shown by Patticus are false, most of those states are going for Romney), refusing to let non-union relief efforts help, and ripping Romney signs out of yards, and here we are out giving a positive message to keep America away from the chains of European Socialism.

Homosexuals are voting for Romney? It is one thing that they are Republican but actually voting Romney? Hell if I was there I would tell they are being really misled.

Can you please stop using the word "socialism" without having exhibited knowledge of what it actually is?

He also thinks anything that is left leaning is a Liberal.

EDIT: Spiky how is Nepenthe a Liberal? She hasn't stated that she is a Liberal? Then again according to you I am Communist and I enjoy my Starbucks.

Edited November 2, 2012 by BW199148

[Nepenthe]

I merely asked you to stop using a word in which you have yet to demonstrate in the tons of times you posted on political subjects any real knowledge about "socialism" in terms of how any of Obama's policies will lead us directly into European-styled governmental system. There's no word play going on; I literally can't be any clearer than that.

For the record, I'm a liberal in terms of social issues. I'm pro-gay rights, pro-choice, consider myself a feminist in many respects, favor a reliable social safety net, dislike the War on Drugs being waged on Americans, the usual shit. I also consider social liberty far more important than economic liberty, so even if I believed the current Republican ticket had better economic policy (lol, they don't), I could not in good conscience vote for the party who has become absolutely ass-fucking-backwards on the social issues of our day.

Edited November 2, 2012 by Nepenthe

[Tornado]

> Complains about people twisting words.

> Misuses the word "liberal".

[SenEDDtor Missile]

Well the man flips flops on a lot of other issues, so he might if he thinks it will net him the presidency.