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

Blue, I just discovered it's because they got spanked a lot!

Athena posted a trick question. The answer is - of COURSE there were WMDs in Iraq! Saddam hid them so well, or moved them so quickly, or transported them to an alternate universe so handily that we couldn't find them. And you can't prove me wrong.

Kam----Im not a YA reader, but I read all the books and wanted MORE. 66YR OLD here. Loved me those books. GD named her kitten Katniss.--

Athena----great thread!-----kad2kar 

kad2kar - I've always thought Katniss was such a great sounding name.  Katniss's father tells her that if she "finds herself," she'll never go hungry.  Supposedly an edible plant.  I too adored Hunger Games. I just bought the trilogy.

HL - I've recently become fascinated by button art. I've been pondering a subject and one of these maps might just be perfect!  

Button Art

http://www.anncarrington.co.uk/pearly-queens

Metal Art
http://www.anncarrington.co.uk/manhattan-mettle

Lee Atwater is Karl Rove's intellectual grandfather. Rove modernized the racism and perpetuated it.

ETA: Thanks kad2kar!

It's sort of amusing to see the Republicans breaking into factions over who to blame for the election day losses.  I love the finger pointing at the far right noise machine (i.e. Rush Limbaugh), and I find it equally funny that the far right seems to think the problem was not that America didn't buy what the far right was selling, but that the far right needed to be even more conservative.

Bobby Jindal in Louisiana had an interesting comment - that Republicans have to stop being the party of Wall Street and big business, and  thereby being perceived as only there to let the rich keep their toys.  He also stated that the Republicans have to stop being the stupid party about science.  Ed Schultz on the Ed Show (MSNBC) reported Jindal's comments and then noted that if you take away the Wall Street connection and the stupid science, you wind up -- a Democrat. 

Good morning and to futhur state things Ryan has no idea ( at least he is not going to admit it ) that no one wanted what he was dishing out.  The Repugs lost for other reassons.  Yes, Mr. Ryan -- people get very tired of being smart enough to know what you have in your hands behind your back so they came out in droves and refused to leave until they cast their votes.  News Flash --- only the most ignorant would WANT what you are selling. 

Yorkie....I think you have explained it so well and all I could add is something I heard last night.....why should anyone believe the Regressive predictions now..........weren't they the ones who were going to take this  -- the race to the WH by a huge landslide.  Why should I have faith in anything they have to say, or as my dad always said....there are people who don't know their a** from a hole in the ground.  I think they are all secret takers.

Jackie

spell checker on vacation again.....regressive plot to make me look bad.  I'm sure of it.

This is a few days old, but it is a Narrative from ThinkProgress about how the Ohio secretary of state got his wrist slpaeed in court for suppressing the vote without justification:

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted is fast becoming one of the most despised election officials in the country for his many attempts to restrict early voting and throw out legitimate provisional ballots. He’s also alienating federal judges left and right. After Husted issued a last-minute directive that could invalidate thousands of Ohioans’ votes, US District Judge Algenon Marbley did not bother to hide his impatience with the secretary’s hijinks.

Husted’s directive, which was issued at 7 pm on the Friday before the election, openly defies Ohio state law by shifting the burden of correctly filling in a provisional ballot form from the poll worker to the contested voter. As Andrew Cohen at the Atlantic explains, Judge Marbley had already worked out an agreement that placed the responsibility on poll workers and the state, so a vote would still be counted if the poll worker made an error. Husted’s directive snuck around this agreement, apparently infuriating the judge:

THE COURT: Mr. Epstein, would you agree that voting is the linchpin of our democracy?

[STATE ATTORNEY] MR. EPSTEIN: Yes, Your Honor.

THE COURT: I do too. What concerned me about the 2012-54 directive is that it was filed on a Friday night at 7 p.m. The first thought that came to mind was democracy dies in the dark. So, when you do things like that that seeks to avoid transparency, it appears, then that gives me great pause but even greater concern. So, if anyone I’m going to give additional time to, it’s going to be you, Mr. Epstein, because you have a lot of explaining to do [...] I’m really trying to get to the root of this, and I don’t want to see democracy die in the darkness on my watch, especially with voting. You know I have a special place for voting.

Ohio’s attorney was unable to point to any legal justification for ignoring the law and shifting the burden to the voter. Marbley exploded:

THE COURT: So show me where it is. Show me where it’s meant. Show me the legislative history. Show me the facts that the secretary used to make the decision to change this directive at seven o’clock on a Friday night on the eve of an election. I want to see it, and I want to see it now. Show it to me.

MR. EPSTEIN: Your Honor, I have no legislative history to present to the Court.

More here:http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/11/09/1169321/federal-judge-not-amused-by-ohio-gop-secretary-of-states-last-minute-disenfranchisement-directive/

I'll vote yes to that.

Jackie

Love their Family Values!!!!

The benefit of social media and instant 24/7 news is that these sorts of tricks are noticed and addressed. In previous elections it might have been more difficult to catch on time.  I find it interesting that there is an element of the conservative world who still claim that yes, there was voter suppression and election malfeasance, but it was all conducted by the Democrats who stole the election. No, the election was not stolen (despite the best efforts of some Republicans).

Belinda -welcome back! Was wondering where you have gone. Glad that the family emergency is over. Yes, sense and sensibility triumphed.

Thanks, Athena!  Spent a good amount of time last evening trying to catch up with the thread. 

Love reading here!  So cool to read posts from ladies from all over the country and the world!  Love the humor, intelligence, worldliness, open-mindedness, caring and compassion, along with the wonderful taste in books, movies, and veggies!

Welcome back, Belinda -- we all missed you!

Here's a cartoon that says much, while saying little......