I say yes, you say no, OR People are Strange

ananda8

very day until the election, Slate will offer up one reason to be optimistic for your candidate. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2012/09/obama_virginia_support_day_46_ray_of_hope_for_obama_.html

46 days to go:

Today's Good News for Obama: My morning and early afternoon were absorbed in the Obama campaign bubble, as the president dropped into Woodbridge, Va.-literally, in a helicopter and everything. (It did land before he got out.) Doors opened at 8 a.m., for the people with coveted red passes. The stands of a baseball diamond-which sat 6,000-were full by 10:30 or so, two hours before the president was to arrive. When Obama spoke, his volume was challenged by a woman named Kim McAlister, who cheered and atta-boyed literally everything the president said, occasionally alternating into cries of "I love you Barack!" But what struck me was just how many non-white voters were packed into the venue. Woodbridge is a largely non-white city, in an exurban county that Democrats carry when they win the state. Republicans have tried to convince these voters that Obama failed them. If they don't buy it, and they volunteer and vote again, Obama wins this state and closes off one of Romney's paths.

pupmom

Thanks for the "clarification" GG. Now, WHY does this not surprise me one little bit? 

Belinda44

Good morning, all.  I love reading this thread!  Thought you might enjoy some of these classic quotes uttered by "Willard."

http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/mittromney/a/Mitt-Romney-Quotes.htm

Enjoyful

I have to object to funny comments 2 and 3. They're taken out of context and incomplete. I did like the "I believe in an America where Americans believe in an America that Americans can believe in." Hahahahaha!

QuinnCat

While we as responsible political observers know that Comment #2, by Mitt Romney: 

"I like being able to fire people who provide services to me." has been taken out of context for political reasons.  WHO EVEN SAYS THAT?!!!!

 

Enjoyful

Well, I understood it in its context tho it was a little harsh. I can't fault him for it tho. I CAN fault him for the bajillion other things he's said. That tape of him speaking at fundraiser....wow, so awful.

Wabbit

He was channeling Bush Jr. with that one!  Re #2 ... we should be able to leave service providers who don't do what they have promised*.  It's just that his past history of taking over companies, raiding their assets and then shutting them down leaving their employees unemployed makes it look like he enjoyed that too.  As for #3 ... the very very very poor (no income, no assets) do have a safety net.  (Although they would like to dismantle most of it.)  It is the working poor and the middle class who get left with nothing when things go bad. 

*The ACA will allow people with pre-existing medical conditions to do just that with bad and over-priced health insurance companies.  Right now many are stuck because nobody else will insure them. 

Glad to see you up and posting this morning Scoot!  But please take it easy and don't try to be Ms. Overachiever for a few days    

Wabbit

Speaking of the fundraiser tape ... the bit about wanting to gut the SEC is scary.  There are a lot of little 'promises' and tidbits in there that should make your toes curl.

QuinnCat

Garden Gumby - good catch.  I read that post about James Carville and pondered it for a long while, even searched for the source and got to that one bogus site.   Hard to verify something like that and I couldn't find any refutation on line, but I should have trusted my gut that he would never have said that, just like the other attribution to Obama about the reason he wasn't wearing a flag pin (posted over there).  Congratulations to you for writing to Carville (or his reps) himself.

I would find it very difficult to post something that a bona fide news source or journalist didn't report and/or there were not multiple legitimate sources, but the use of these illegitimate sources for news has become ubiquitous by some and is what Bill Maher refers to as "dispatches from the Bubble."  Some politicians and their operatives (especially those of the Karl Rove school) have found that lying over and over works because a certain contingent of our country believe everything and anything they hear, no matter how fantastical it is.  As time goes one, they will have no juxtaposition to discern truth, but it seems many have already gotten to that point.  Critical thinking is in great shortage.  (Ofcourse, I'm not saying anything here that those of us that post on this thread don't already know .)

 

IllinoisLady

Thanks so much GG.  I was not smart enough to do what you did though did find great surprise that it came from Think/Exist as I read through that quote venue a lot --- for anyone here -- my home thread so to speak is Illinois Women....and long time ago because I put a quote or two in my earliest posts they liked it and asked me to post one there everyday.....so I spend a good deal of time 'good will hunting' for quotes.  Shame on me but thank you GG because I have "adored" James Carville --- especially when he appears with his wife Mary Maitlan for a long time and couldn't believe how I was duped.  Glad it was just that.

By the way I agree with all the analysis above.  Meet The Press today....it fits what was stated above quite well re: the blinders the Reps always have on. 

Jackie

QuinnCat

Notself - if you're out there.... What do you think of the White Horse Prophecy?  I just read your post about "acting as one" in Nevada.  Your post does not surprise me.  My good friend's daughter lives in Nevada and even her devout father was a bit disturbed so much pressure was put on her and and her husband to contribute $$ to California's (not Nevada's) Prop 8 (anti-gay marriage proposition).  They sold one of their cars to contribute, that according to the father, they could have used.  There does not seem to be a separation between religion and politics in that state in some circles.

Anonymous

Hi, all, busy at a wonderful weekend art course, so could only skim posts - I was LOOKING for scoot/enjoyful to report B9.

As for all the "political stuff" you can save yourself a LOT of time, by reading Nate Silver at #538

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/  He summarizes and analyzes ALL the polls, and keeps coming back to the fact the election is really only going to happen in a few "swing states" - the number shrinking every day - as Ohio, VA, and FLA near being blue in the Obama column.  He needs to get to 270 electoral votes, and has a few paths to get there.

For Willard, the path is getting very, very, very narrow - no matter HOW the national polls read - it's the swing states that are going to be the election.  Those of us not in swing states, are being spared some of the advertising -unless you're in a bordering state ( Athena, Happy Libby are getting SLAMMED with NOVA ads...)

Happy Sunday...hope everyone is having a GREAT Fall sunny day - gorgeous here..

Enjoyful

No word on the pathology yet, sunnyflowers. Pathologists don't work on weekends. Go figure!

ananda8

Kam170, The Mormons who support the White Horse Prophesy will have to fight it out with the Evangelicals who support the Wedge Strategy.  Both groups want to turn America into a theocracy but the sticky part is which version of theocracy will win.

Both groups are very well organized and will never give up on their goal to fundamentally change America from a republic to the political system of the Taliban.  Read this entire link.  It will scare the socks off you but you will understand the intentions of fundamentalist Republicans like Paul Ryan and Rick Santorum.  http://www.antievolution.org/features/wedge.html  This document was first produced during the Kitzmiller v Dover School Board litigation.  It was produced by accident during the discovery process.

ananda8

Enjoyful,

Have a lovely weekend and when the tension arises, just breathe through it.  I have played the waiting game twice, deep breaths do help.

pip57

Re Wedge Strategy

This can't be real?  It is just a  satire or joke is it not?  

Enjoyful

Thank you, notself. I had some panicky moments last night and the deep breaths DO help.



Pip...I don't know what to say. I think we've seen and are seeing some of that strategy's results.

Bren-2007

Good Afternoon Everyone!

It's a gorgeous fall day.  We've been raking and blowing chestnut pods and acorns all morning.  The oak tree is about 100 feet tall and huge ... and it's right outside the back door.  Great for shade in the summer, but a pain in the ass in the fall.  We also have two huge chestnut trees that I really want taken out .. they are messy and we don't need the shade on that side of the house.

Scootful ... I'm glad to hear you are better this morning.  You gave me quite a scare last night.  I don't know why pathologists don't work the weekends.  Do you think they are lazy democrats?  How soon will you get the results?

Notself ... Thanks for the link ... it boggles the mind.

Sunnyflowers ... The art class sounds like lots of fun.  I'm still coloring for a stress reliever.

Hope everybody is having a great day.

Bren

River_Rat

There was a percentage of the population that had a visceral hatred of Obama before he had done anything.  This part of the population is very quick to believe the very worst of him that they read anywhere.  And if you offer them conflicting information from general news sources they label everything other than right wing sources as "liberal" and therefore unbelievable.  It is hard for me to not ascribe a large percentage of that to racism, but perhaps it is just a general hatred for liberals, although President Obama isn't a liberal, he's a moderate.  It is hard for me to believe that those that thought "Barack the Magic Negro" was funny and call the first lady and her daughters names don't belong in the racist group, but perhaps the hatred for liberals explains that too as they seem to have lots of denigrating names for liberals too.

I disagree with most current conservative positions but I can do that without the need to call names.

I used to vote split ticket, but haven't done that since Republicanism seemed to abandon what I consider true conservatism and became instead entangled in wanting to link government to theocracy.  I also have two sons-in-law who grew up considering themselves Republicans who have never voted for a Republican for president.  The one now considers himself an Independent.  The other still considers himself a Republican, says he wants to stay one and change the party from the inside.  I say good luck to him.

Edited to add that I just read notself's link - frightening, depressing. 

Anonymous

Scoot - ok, they can have the weekend off with the rest of us moochers, but I sure hope you hear FIRST THING Monday am.

Thanks notself, almost made me toss my cookies, no kidding, think I'm going back to FSM ( flying spagetti monster)...

crazy4carrots

Interesting website, and an interesting open letter to Mr. Romney:

 

http://www.thereligiousleft.org/2012/09/a-letter-to-mitt-romney.html 

suzieq60

Well, the sun came up and the world didn't end, but I'm still cranky. I wanted to change my username to reflect my new age, but the name is used by someone from 4 years ago with one post, the mods can't free it up for me, so I'll try and think of something else or leave it as it is. Found out Scuttlers and I share the same birthday, so I PM'd her - she's due to be released from hospital and is going off for a nice rest at the beach. Meanwhile I have to go to work.

Anonymous

Cheryl Describes Meeting Mitt Romney - OFA Colorado

This is for ALL the teachers - and especially our friends on this thread...keep up the GOOD WORK.  And thanks for being a teacher, a teacher's helper, a member of the PTA, a person who cares about education, and all the rest of us.

ananda8

Enjoyful, glad that it worked for you. 

Yes, the Wedge Strategy is real.  That is why there is such an effort to teach Intellegent Design as science in the class room.  It is an effort not only to spread a specific type of religious belief, but an effort to destroy science as it has existed since Aristotle.

ananda8

An article in the New York Times describes new approach to treating breast cancer.  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/24/health/study-finds-variations-of-breast-cancer.html?_r=1&hp

YramAL

Happy Birthday Susie! Remember it's just a number!

Mary 

YramAL

Thanks for that link, Sunflowers. "I didn't ask you a question." Nice.

Mary 

1Athena1

Sunny - I live in DC, not NoVA - that means I don't have to put up with those ads, thank Goodness! (Poor HL)

The wedge strategy has existed for many years now. Remember the Christian Coalition?

Too often we spend so much time worrying about theocracies in the Middle East, without worrying what wants to rear its ugly head here.

Wait until some one in an Arab ('A Arab') nation puts up a YouTube video about Evangelicals (or "kers-chans")- then we'll hear how relative free speech really is.

Yes, I do think conservatives in this country are generally more likely to take things at face value and ignore complexity in policy. Many Tea Partiers also strike me as hopelessly naive and unsophisticated about the modern world in general.

Blue states have to subsidize that. That's what you call redistribution - lol.

Sunday Brain droppings. :-)

1Athena1

E: You start panicking, you come over here. I do wish they'd be quicker about biopsy results.

QuinnCat

Notself - thank you for that article link.  The article mentions Joe Gray and how OHSU just hired him.  Funny thing, I was just up at OHSU seeing my surgeons and one of them works at the same Knight Cancer Institute at OHSU.  She runs the largest ovarian cancer registry west of the Mississippi and I agreed to join up (I did not have ovarian, but I am BRCA2).  She is an ob/gyn, an oncologist, and has a Phd, and does research on the Fanconia-Anemia Pathway, known to be used in BRCA cancers and also in other ovarian, and possibly BC, though with yet to be discovered genes that cause cancer (why they are always interested in BRCA samples).  I see this article mentions that some breast cancers (like mine) act more like ovarian cancers (which is news to me), but this explains why the head Oncologist at OHSU suggested to my local Oncologist for me to do Carboplatin due to my BRCA2 BC - which is not typically used in cases like mine, but typically with ovarian cancer.  Unfortuneately, the article states I would not have had the Adriamycin, and I did, so now I'm scratching my head on that one!  Thank you so much!