Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

You're sounding a bit frantic.

Were the 38 "!"s that gave it away?

LO⊙﹏⊙LZ

yes I did count. 38 in 3 posts. Is there some place where we keep records of this stuff? PW should at least get a ribbon...

Originally Posted by Tone70

There is a decent chance he'll be the nominee and vanishingly small chance he'll win if nominated.

On this message board, it doesn't surprise me to see people cocooning themselves with that belief. But as history has shown repeatedly, Obama's re-election chances rest almost solely on the economy. I advise you to check out the USA Today article I linked on the previous page. Obama is in dire shape in the swing states he must win to have a chance. All of the generic polling indicators show that the trends of 2010 are still in effect. Head-to-head matchups between Obama and specific candidates are meaningless at this point in a contest. Once a candidate is nominated in an open race like the one on the Republican side this year, their numbers jump significantly. It happens every time.

The only way Gingrich, or any other Republican this year, could have a "vanishingly small chance" of beating Obama is if they completely implode. I'm not saying it's out of the realm of possibility that Gingrich could, but until it happens you can't remotely guarantee it.

I'll agree to that. Until the implosion then...

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

I advise you to check out the USA Today article I linked on the previous page. Obama is in dire shape in the swing states he must win to have a chance. All of the generic polling indicators show that the trends of 2010 are still in effect. Head-to-head matchups between Obama and specific candidates are meaningless at this point in a contest.

So are polls of swing states.

As you say, it rests on the economy. Specifically, it rests on whether the economy is perceived to be improving as it impacts the voters themselves. Currently, it IS improving, which is why Obama's polling is also improving. Unless it takes another nosedive between now and next November, which we shouldn't expect (I'll explain why if asked), he's going to win reelection easily.

Based on the record, I don't think we can underestimate Newt, because we can't underestimate the stupidity of the American people. But all things considered I do tend to think Obama would easily beat Newt.

One thing that may happen, is that the enthusiasm level of Republicans could drop if Romney is nominated, but the enthusiasm level of Democrats could rise if Gingrich is nominated.

Gingrich's greatest talent, and why S&H count him as a prophet, is that he is good at making utter stupidity seem smart.

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

On this message board, it doesn't surprise me to see people cocooning themselves with that belief. But as history has shown repeatedly, Obama's re-election chances rest almost solely on the economy. I advise you to check out the USA Today article I linked on the previous page. Obama is in dire shape in the swing states he must win to have a chance. All of the generic polling indicators show that the trends of 2010 are still in effect. Head-to-head matchups between Obama and specific candidates are meaningless at this point in a contest. Once a candidate is nominated in an open race like the one on the Republican side this year, their numbers jump significantly. It happens every time.

The only way Gingrich, or any other Republican this year, could have a "vanishingly small chance" of beating Obama is if they completely implode. I'm not saying it's out of the realm of possibility that Gingrich could, but until it happens you can't remotely guarantee it.

Given a choice between an arrogant intellectual poseur and someone who humbly conceals his high-brow tendencies (we don't really know what music he listens to or what books he reads) Americans are going to be more comfortable with the one wise enough to show humility. As for Gingrich being an author -- how much of what he has his name on is ghost-written?

... Now for the economy. There is no possibility of a full-blown economic boom for the next ten or so years. It is just as well. The best that anyone can hope for is a slow recovery, which is better than the only alternative. President Obama will get credit for an economy in better shape in November 2012 than in February 2009. Maybe he won't get as much credit as FDR did in 1936, as we are a different people (not all for the better) and because due to the horrid Citizens United ruling we will see a steady stream of propaganda from people who have the charity of slave-masters and the integrity of 419 scammers.

Originally Posted by TimWalker

I won't be surprised if this election is decided more by people voting against a candidate, rather than for someone.

Yeah ... but how do yo vote against all of them?

Originally Posted by The Wonkette

I hope you're right, but I remember when liberals said the same about Reagan circa 1979.

Absolutely! We're in strange times, and making standard assumptions may be rewarded with unexpected results. Look at Europe. They're intentionally killing the Euro out of spite. Are we less hard-headed here?

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Based on the record, I don't think we can underestimate Newt, because we can't underestimate the stupidity of the American people. But all things considered I do tend to think Obama would easily beat Newt.

One thing that may happen, is that the enthusiasm level of Republicans could drop if Romney is nominated, but the enthusiasm level of Democrats could rise if Gingrich is nominated.

Gingrich's greatest talent, and why S&H count him as a prophet, is that he is good at making utter stupidity seem smart.

And he calls himself an "Intellectual", LMAO.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Absolutely! We're in strange times, and making standard assumptions may be rewarded with unexpected results. Look at Europe. They're intentionally killing the Euro out of spite. Are we less hard-headed here?

No. We're worse.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Absolutely! We're in strange times, and making standard assumptions may be rewarded with unexpected results. Look at Europe. They're intentionally killing the Euro out of spite. Are we less hard-headed here?

It's the left that's hard headed, which is why they're losing ground so badly. Their dogma does not permit them to admit failure and change course.

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

It's the left that's hard headed, which is why they're losing ground so badly.

Setting aside for the moment whether the DEMOCRATS are losing ground at this time, which is of course what you mean by "the left," you need to stop confusing the two. The Democrats, like the Republicans, are for the most part bought and paid for stooges of the corporate elite. They are therefore, on economic issues, to the RIGHT of the American people. In 2008, they managed to convince the voters otherwise, which is why they won.

The corporate shell game or good cop/bad cop game encourages people to think of the Democrats and Republicans as the bookends of possible political stances. As long as people do that, no matter which party wins, the corporate elite remain in control. Step outside that box and the possibilities multiply, and your perspective changes remarkably.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Given a choice between an arrogant intellectual poseur and someone who humbly conceals his high-brow tendencies (we don't really know what music he listens to or what books he reads) Americans are going to be more comfortable with the one wise enough to show humility. As for Gingrich being an author -- how much of what he has his name on is ghost-written?

... Now for the economy. There is no possibility of a full-blown economic boom for the next ten or so years. It is just as well. The best that anyone can hope for is a slow recovery, which is better than the only alternative. President Obama will get credit for an economy in better shape in November 2012 than in February 2009. Maybe he won't get as much credit as FDR did in 1936, as we are a different people (not all for the better) and because due to the horrid Citizens United ruling we will see a steady stream of propaganda from people who have the charity of slave-masters and the integrity of 419 scammers.

You are joking right? There are cases to be made against Gingrich as there is to any candidate but attacking his intellect isnt one of them. As far as showing humility, it would be refreshing to see some of that from the person you support....Barack Obama. A supreme egotist with a cold and detached personality and very little leadership qualities.

As far as 2012 is concerned he better pray that jobs start growing at 300,000 to 400,000 a month and GDP increases or he is TOAST. The so called falling unemployment rate is nothing but a mirage. Using the 2008 job data real unemployment is at 11%. Its just so many have quit looking for work. Thanks to Citizens United the strangle hold of the Liberal media cheerleaders and Union goons spending their members dues on campaign ads wont have the effect that they might have in earlier elections. Conservatives will be able to get their message out. Interestingly, the Supreme Court could save Obama's legacy (provided he does get re-elected) by throwing out his health care plan, which would immeasurably restore confidence in business to start hiring again knowing they wont have that heavy burden placed on them.


The campaign is likely to be the nastiest in history as Obama has no real record to run on, only abject failure. His only shot is to show that the other guy is worse.

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

It's the left that's hard headed, which is why they're losing ground so badly. Their dogma does not permit them to admit failure and change course.

Oh? Do tell ...

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Oh? Do tell ...

The book I mentioned in my "regional cultures and the saeculum" thread I think explains very well why JPT spouts this nonsense. When he means "Americans" he means white people in Greater Appalachia and Deep South as opposed to those "America-hating Godless Marxists" in Yankeedom and the Left Coast (who to him are not "Real Americans").

Originally Posted by Odin

The book I mentioned in my "regional cultures and the saeculum" thread I think explains very well why JPT spouts this nonsense. When he means "Americans" he means white people in Greater Appalachia and Deep South as opposed to those "America-hating Godless Marxists" in Yankeedom and the Left Coast (who to him are not "Real Americans").

I'm just looking for some details that he believes support his thinking. I'm patient. He can think about it for a while.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Setting aside for the moment whether the DEMOCRATS are losing ground at this time, which is of course what you mean by "the left," you need to stop confusing the two. The Democrats, like the Republicans, are for the most part bought and paid for stooges of the corporate elite. They are therefore, on economic issues, to the RIGHT of the American people. In 2008, they managed to convince the voters otherwise, which is why they won.

The corporate shell game or good cop/bad cop game encourages people to think of the Democrats and Republicans as the bookends of possible political stances. As long as people do that, no matter which party wins, the corporate elite remain in control. Step outside that box and the possibilities multiply, and your perspective changes remarkably.

This is the hard-headedness in question in a nutshell. The left tells itself that its economic policies have not failed because they're wrong, but rather because they weren't implemented forcefully enough. It tells itself that it is immensely popular and mainstream when it is clearly not.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Oh? Do tell ...

Economic policy, health care, global warming...the list is long.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Absolutely! We're in strange times, and making standard assumptions may be rewarded with unexpected results. Look at Europe. They're intentionally killing the Euro out of spite. Are we less hard-headed here?

And underneath that "killing the Euro" is the austerity measures.

To date, it's been a draw in the US with the GOP blocking any chance of actual stimulus although now they’ve turned their sights on attacking basic countercyclical measures like unemployment insurance.

This is how the reality of that morality play looks like on our streets here in the USofA -

http://www.newdeal20.org/2011/12/15/...he-hole-67391/

Cutting Back on Childcare Assistance Puts Single Mothers in the Hole


Single mothers aren’t faring very well in the recovery. Their unemployment rate was 12.4 percent in November, up from 11.7 percent in June 2009. An unemployed single mother will clearly need help with at least one thing to go out and get another job: childcare. And those who have jobs are still trying to make ends meet, potentially working longer hours and in need of someone to care for their children. But just as the need for childcare assistance is surely rising, states are cutting back. A new report from the National Women’s Law Center shows that those in need of assistance were worse off this year compared to last year in 37 states when it came to income eligibility limits to qualify, waiting lists, copayments, reimbursement rates, and eligibility for assistance to parents looking for a job.

Denying women support for childcare will directly impact their ability to save and their need to take on debt. As a report from NYU Wagner, “At Rope’s End,” says, “The hefty costs associated with single parenthood, which include childcare, housing, food, health insurance, among others, decrease the likelihood that, even with a stable income, these mothers will be able to accrue wealth.” And paying for childcare is no small cost. The average price of full-time care can range from $3,600 to $18,200 annually, according to the NWLC report, and At Rope’s End estimates that this cost accounts for over three-quarters of single mothers’ monthly expenditures.

In Europe, however, they have really pushed past that and into full-out austerity. Not just on the Continent but in British Isles. The Irish GDP looks like it has sprung back a little but that is a measure of the foreign-owned pharmaceuticals there that take their profits and run; GNP shows that the Irish themselves are suffering big time and the Irish are taking their historical escape hatch and leaving their country in droves.

But perhaps things are worst across the water in Britain where the David Cameron's Conservative Party is just as F’in stupid as our GOP but the Brits were even stupider in actually giving them the car keys to control their govt. A premonition of things to come here if we prove as stupid as the Brits or return to being as mindless as we were here in 2000 and 2004 -

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...7BD02620111214

Desperate British students "turning to prostitution"

(Reuters) - Desperate British students, faced with rising costs on the back of government austerity measures, are turning to prostitution, gambling and other dangerous pursuits to fund their studies, support workers and student leaders said on Wednesday.

The English Collective of Prostitutes ECP.L, a welfare body for sex workers, said it estimated the number of people approaching it for help had doubled in the last year as students struggled to make ends meet.

"(The government) know the cuts and the austerity programmes and the removing of grants, they know when they remove those resources they know it drives women further into poverty," Sarah Walker from the ECP told Reuters.

"The way that women survive poverty is often through sex work. The government knows that and they don't seem to care frankly."

Young people have been the hardest hit by economic slowdown with youth unemployment now accounting for 1.03 million of the 2.64 unemployed, the highest level since 1992.

Last year, the government said it would scrap the Educational Maintenance Allowance, a grant to older teenage schoolchildren to help them stay in education, and allow university tuition fees to treble to up to 9,000 pounds a year from 2012.

With part-time jobs scarce and the cost of living being squeezed with rising prices, the National Union of Students NUS.L said young people were taking desperate and dangerous measures to pay for their education.


DANGEROUS WORK

"In some cases that's sex work, but we're also hearing about clinical trials, gambling ... dangerous work where there's very little, if any kind of employment rights," said Estelle Hart, the NUS's national women's officer.

"You often hear it's very easy to get a bar job. Well it's not easy to get a bar job in this economic climate, it's not easy to get any job."

A study by researchers at a London university published last year found 16 percent of students were willing to engage in sex work to pay for their education and 11 percent would work for escort agencies.

Hart said a recent study by Leeds University in northern England revealed 25 percent of strippers and lap dancers were students. She said the government had a duty to investigate what effect its changes and cuts to education budgets were having.

The prostitutes collective said women of all ages were affected and they were working in brothels, as strippers, in lap dancing clubs, and on sex phone lines.

"It's right across the sex industry. With sex work, you can work for maybe one evening a week and make enough money to cover all your expenses," Walker said.

"It's younger students who are just starting out in university and also women who are going back trying to get a degree or increase their skills."

She said the scrapping of the EMA allowance had badly hit some mothers.

When that money is cut, it's the mother who often has to make up for it," she said. "That is something that is driving women into sex work."

The government said it was providing 180 million pounds a year for the most vulnerable teenagers and that no student had to pay up front for their studies.

"Our reforms will make the system even fairer, with more financial support and lower monthly repayments once you are in well-paid work," said a spokesman for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

Last year, demonstrations in London against the government plans to increase tuition fees descended into violence and rioting. In the worst trouble the car of heir-to-the-throne Prince Charles and his wife was attacked by protesters.

So next time you hear from one of these twerps on this forum, in Congress or the campaign trail preach their culture war morality out of one side of their mouths and then their Austrian School, Randian, deficit hawk idiocy out of the other side, just keep in mind that is the hypocrisy or sheer ignorance that makes them believe they have something to actually offer other than completely immoral horseshit.

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

Economic policy, health care, global warming...the list is long.

Starting at the beginning:

1. Economic Policy: So you believe that the current economic policy is something from the left? OK. Of ocurse, it is a virtual holdover from the Bush years, but maybe you found the Bush years too liberal too. Oddly, or maybe not, the left thinks the economic policy is simply corporatist. So what would you prefer, and how would it work? Note: the second half of that question is the important half.
2. Health Care: Here, I've yet to see anything even remotely substantive from the right, so yes, the left has addressed health care under duress and in a vacuum. Of course, the plan extant is less liberal than the plan offered by Richard Nixon, and nearly identical to the one enacted by The Mitt. I guess you find Mitt to be inadequately conservative, so the source is considered liberal. Since the left is not happy about the lack of a public option (minimum requirement) or single payer (preferred), it's hard to lay claim to this. It's a GOP plan. If it's is too liberal, how do you plan to address the onging rise in HC costs? We all need HC, so how do you think access should be addressed? Having hospitals treat the indigant and eat the cost is not working any more.
3. Global Warming: I hope you aren't arguing that the planet is not warming, since this is now universally agreed by all but a tiny number of climatologists, left, right and center. It's also agree that the impact will be severe and failure to contain the problem makes it cataclismic in the long run (2100 +/- 25 years). This isn't a political issue until addressing it is discussed. If cutting the use of greehouse gases isn't to your likeing, what is the conservative plan to address the problem?

I think JPT and Weave, et al, need to read more works written by this guy:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16184487

This Harvard study shows Millennials increasingly disengaged from politics. Their approval of Obama is no higher than the rest of the population (low 40s), although their approval of Congress is much lower. 80% of them think the US is headed in the wrong direction. Obama leads a generic Republican by about 8% among 30 and under voters and he leads specific names a little more--but he doesn't get 40% total against any of them! The opportunity to turn Millennials into a Hero generation is rapidly vanishing.

Originally Posted by Monsieur Le Chien

I think JPT and Weave, et al, need to read more works written by this guy:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16184487

The smart read technical manuals and obey propaganda. The wise read and draw conclusions from the greatest literature.

JPT and Weave have allowed them selves to become ugly caricatures.

Originally Posted by KaiserD2

This Harvard study shows Millennials increasingly disengaged from politics. Their approval of Obama is no higher than the rest of the population (low 40s), although their approval of Congress is much lower. 80% of them think the US is headed in the wrong direction. Obama leads a generic Republican by about 8% among 30 and under voters and he leads specific names a little more--but he doesn't get 40% total against any of them! The opportunity to turn Millennials into a Hero generation is rapidly vanishing.

Somehow, as a generation, they need to set a goal. OWS was a nice activity, but it ws not a goal; it was theater. I wonder whether the Millies understand that they are standing at a crossroads, and it's their lives that will be vastly improved or crushed into dust based almost solely on their willingness to engage as a group.

So far, they seem ready but totally unmotivated. Social media may be to blame here. They are virtually engaged, but the 'trons aren't getting any traction. I wonder, do they notice?