Originally Posted by playwrite

Go to any post that indicates "the Rani" and click on that name in the upper left hand corner. This gives you a drop down menu where you will next click on "view forum posts."

With that you will get a list of pages and pages of snark.

Yes, Dr. The Rani is hereby dubbed the queen of snark. There is still a problem, no king of snark.

But why relive the past when there's so much more snark to be provided?

Are you sure? Past performance does not guarantee future results.

Oh, let's talk some issues and dissect them.

1. Paraphrase: "47% of Americans are moochers" because they pay no income taxes.
Let's take care of the low hanging fruit first.
a. Social Security recipients: You have to pay money into Social Security over a set period of time to qualify for benefits. Essentially a legal contract that you'll get retirement income in exchange for taxes paid while working.
b. Flipside: The statement specifically mentioned "income tax". What would the percentage be if the phrase were "income and payroll taxes". Perhaps Mittens forgot this. His capital gains income does not incur a payroll tax.
c. McWage economy: I'm sure a certain percentage of households don't make enough money to incur the income tax. My guess is that they would exchange paying income taxes if they made enough money to do so. So, again, this is not a mooch situation, it's a low wage problem. Wage arbitrage from say , um say outsourcing. Mittens doesn't seem to understand the end game of what he has participated in. Wage arbitrage->structural unemployment/wage depression->trashed tax base.
d. Automation/computerization: Face it, technology is a job destroyer. Robots and software like H&R tax preparation software
reduce the demand for workers. This is structural unemployment cause 1.
e. Structural unemployment cause 2. Underwater mortgages. These are boat anchors that prevent folks from moving to find a job.
f. Structural unemployment cause 3. Gas prices. At some point gas prices cause the commute to a McWage job to fail since the residual income left after commuting is insufficient to cover other expenses.
g. This leads to reason number 3 for no tax returns. By default, if you are unemployed, there is no income to be had. This unemployment number is not 8.1% or whatever. It's 8.1% + those who've given up looking, etc.
h. Did he include government workers in said number as well? This would include his favorites like MIC workers and soldiers. Are Northrup Grummon workers included? Are soldiers included? Generals? I don't have the answer to this.
i. He should of course point out GE , since GE is a person now. GE didn't pay any income tax.
j. Did he include 4000 of his millionaire friends? They didn't pay any income tax either.
h. What about pensions? Did he include himself in this figure for his governor's pension he'll be getting? Or is said pension a big one such that he will have to pay income tax on it?

Arab Spring and associated fallout. Well, what to say. I'll state that I think this all started with a food fight as a catalyst. Food got too expensive and Greater Arabia went nuts. Now we have mayhem supposedly over a movie. I don't think said movie did this. Rather it's a bunch of assorted resentments coming to the fore as well. What do I think? I think Somalia is the future for most of that place. Why? Food prices will not come down due to regime changes for one. Also, you have assorted internecine hatreds along with hatred wrt West. If you think about it, wouldn't any country or tribe get pissed if some of their members/citizens got taken out by drones or bombs? The US does stuff over their mainly because of oil. The Mideast is a shithole and we pay lots of attention to it. OTOH, Haiti which is much closer and is also a shithole gets no attention at all. Haiti has not oil, so we blow it off. The Mideast even has built in clusterfuck catalysts. First, we have the well known Al-Quada. This is a radical Sunni group. They like what happened in Egypt. The Sinai is a no man's land. They have lots of room to train up to do nasty things. Next, we have the Kurds with the PKK. The Kurds want their own space. Said space is sort of spread out. A hunk of Iraq, there, a hunk of Turkey there, a piece of Iran there, a sliver of Syria there, etc. The same goes for Sunnis and Shiites. The basic problem is the current borders don't match the demographics. Welcome to the neo-Balkans. If we were smart, we'd have a crash energy independence program before the place really goes up in flames and spirals back to 800 AD. The Republicans are afraid "we're losing control". Yes, we are losing control, but I see no sane way of getting control.

China/Japan dustup. covered in post over on China.

And, yes I'm bewildered that this stuff isn't getting much airtime on what passes for the news.

Originally Posted by Ragnarök_62

Yes, Dr. The Rani is hereby dubbed the queen of snark. There is still a problem, no king of snark.

Butler was nominated.

c. McWage economy: I'm sure a certain percentage of households don't make enough money to incur the income tax. My guess is that they would exchange paying income taxes if they made enough money to do so. So, again, this is not a mooch situation, it's a low wage problem. Wage arbitrage from say , um say outsourcing. Mittens doesn't seem to understand the end game of what he has participated in. Wage arbitrage->structural unemployment/wage depression->trashed tax base.

A lot of Romney supporters think everyone who earns any wages should have to pay income tax on it, but that capital gains should be exempt from any taxes. That is the opinion of many, for example, on the Theology Online right-wing site that I post on. In other words, no standard deduction or taxable income minimum; make all the poorest wage slaves pay the same percentage as everybody else (e.g. "flat tax"), so we rich guys can reduce our taxes.

Structural unemployment cause 3. Gas prices. At some point gas prices cause the commute to a McWage job to fail since the residual income left after commuting is insufficient to cover other expenses.

Structural unemployment cause 4. Free trade. Why should a corporation hire workers here, when they can ship their plants and offices overseas and get cheap labor?
Structural unemployment cause 5. Our backward education system. Companies can't find qualified workers, so they import them, or import the jobs. We blame teachers and make them teach to the test. Teachers unions bear some the the blame for protecting incompetent teachers. But teachers should be evaluated by many methods, and it should be based on improvement, not the same scores required for poor and rich schools alike. Students need to be taught to be creative, not memorize things. And people in the USA are so against paying taxes, that many poor and middle class districts are underfunded.

Originally Posted by Weave

Obama made a major gaffe today...... http://freebeacon.com/obama-you-cant...om-the-inside/

Will the media obsess over this ad naseum for over 4 days??? Im not holding my breath....

Will George Step-on-all-of-us, Brian Williams and other former Democrat hacks now parading as "journalists" breathlessly announce how damaging this is? Im not holding my breath....

Will they highlight the malfeasance in the state dept, that , depite warnings, despite the fact that Sept 11th is a date that Terrorists might strike, they did nothing....in fact Hillary didnt allow Marine Guards in Egyp to even be armed.....Im not holding my breath....

Nope they'll continue to try to set the narrative that Obama has this in the bag....pathetic...

“The most important lesson I’ve learned is that you can’t change Washington from the inside,” he told a Univision forum Thursday. “You can only change it from the outside.” Obama said.

I knew it was a ridiculous promise to begin with. You can't go to Washington as one man, even the president, and "change the tone" in Washington. That depends on everyone who is elected or appointed there, lobbies there, works there, or makes (or don't make) their voices or their money heard there. The problem was never "the tone" anyway; it was that wrong-headed policies were being pursued. The fact is, the american people have elected extremists whose only interest is to get their way and stop anyone in their way. Obama is absolutely right. It is up to the people to elect the right people (something they failed miserably to do in Nov.2010), and then put the pressure on them to do the right things. It was not a gaffe when FDR said to some people who wanted something done, and he said to them, "I agree with you; now go make me do it." The people are the power. We get exactly the government we deserve.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Butler was nominated.

Not if the King of Snark's throne is located anywhere near the Queen of Snark's throne.

Too much snark.

IMO, if we're ever going to get The USA staightened-out, those with extremist political-ideologies MUST be committed!

Prince

PS:!

No Boomer is ever going to win the snark prize. We try. Those of us in the later years can take a stab at it, but we are weaklings compared with Xers.

Originally Posted by princeofcats67

IMO, if we're ever going to get The USA staightened-out, those with extremist political-ideologies MUST be committed!

Prince

PS:!

Committed to their extremist political-ideologies, or to the funny farm?

Originally Posted by annla899

No Boomer is ever going to win the snark prize. We try. Those of us in the later years can take a stab at it, but we are weaklings compared with Xers.

In-Deed, Ann!

Originally Posted by B Butler

Committed to their extremist political-ideologies, or to the funny farm?

!

Prince

PS:!

Originally Posted by Anna

No Boomer is ever going to win the snark prize. We try. Those of us in the later years can take a stab at it, but we are weaklings compared with Xers.

Exhibit A.

Originally Posted by playwrite

You, you, you ...

You bast*rd!!!


You do know I have trouble with spelling and grammar?
Now this. et tu?

Code? Code? We don't need no stinking code!

Exhibit B.

Originally Posted by playwrite

Okay Kos is about as partisan as you can get (not that I would know about those things )

However, he may have a point about Mittens being stuck between having to throw a hall Mary and, well, being a dick.

Nope, I think we have a winner. From the above and other posts, I dub playwrite the king of snark. He's a Boomer as well. I know that arrangement will cause feathers to fly in the royal palace, but hey, not all arrangements make for harmony.

PS. playwrite misspelled "grammar". I fixed it for him in my post. Now if he'd get a real web browser like Firefox, he'd have a spell checker built in.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Butler was nominated.

A lot of Romney supporters think everyone who earns any wages should have to pay income tax on it, but that capital gains should be exempt from any taxes. That is the opinion of many, for example, on the Theology Online right-wing site that I post on. In other words, no standard deduction or taxable income minimum; make all the poorest wage slaves pay the same percentage as everybody else (e.g. "flat tax"), so we rich guys can reduce our taxes.

Of course there are moral arguments against this, but I'll stick with logical rationales why this is a bad idea.
1. Demand destruction. Obviously if those who spend most of their income have more taken away, aggregate demand falls. The FED is doing all of this QE(x) nonsense in and ATTEMPT to boost aggregate demand. Since debt levels have followed an exponential curve pattern, we've reached "peak debt". The reality of that is you have either unwilling would be borrowers (people who saw others get burned by debt) or borrowers who are maxxed out due to their debt/income ratio can't go any higher. On the flip side any rational lender will not lend to the latter. Of course there may be some attempt at turnip bleeding, but the results of that will be bad (default). Wrt QE^infinity,all we're getting is the FED action as a place where mortgages go to die. The FED marks a mortgage as an asset marked to fantasy on its books and a corresponding debit for printed money it sends to the mortgage seller. Since nobody wants to borrow/lend, that money makes a round trip back to the FED as excess reserves from a bank. The real kicker is that both income inequality AND "hot money" do nothing but blow bubbles. The current round of bubble blowing is in the precious metals and stock market. The FED thinks higher stock prices will cause a "wealth effect". That won't work because most stocks are owned by rich people. Precious metals? While they're good for hedging, they really aren't designed to promote economic growth. Stocks have also burned enough people that the "retail" buyers have pretty much left the casino. The casino is full of trading bots. Back to exponential growth patterns , they always go bust.

Structural unemployment cause 4. Free trade. Why should a corporation hire workers here, when they can ship their plants and offices overseas and get cheap labor?

That is wage arbitrage in section c of my post. We've hit or will hit the endgame to that as well. At some point, people here will not be able to afford the products/services which were outsourced. This will do what is going on right now. Demand for imports will necessarily fall. Countries exporting to the US will get glutted with products/services they used to export. China is a good example of this.

Structural unemployment cause 5. Our backward education system. Companies can't find qualified workers, so they import them, or import the jobs. We blame teachers and make them teach to the test. Teachers unions bear some the the blame for protecting incompetent teachers. But teachers should be evaluated by many methods, and it should be based on improvement, not the same scores required for poor and rich schools alike. Students need to be taught to be creative, not memorize things. And people in the USA are so against paying taxes, that many poor and middle class districts are underfunded.

1. I agree that "teaching to the test" isn't a valid measure.
2. Pension liabilities are also a problem that will explode soon.
3. Schools of course be adequately funded.
4.Schools should have all Federal mandates/crap eliminated. The States are quite capable of handling this. The department of education and all of it's rules need to go away. Then just send a per pupil block grant with the money saved by getting rid of aforementioned cruft.
5. The administrative costs/pupil needs to be rationalized. We do not need vice principals that we (where I live) have now. We didn't have this cruft when I went to school.
6. No spending on trophy buildings/white elephants like stadiums. The stadium issue may be a regional, South problem. Football is NOT the reason kids go to school! Instead, teachers should have the tools they need to do their job instead.
7. The meals kids get are just fine. The USDA school meal program is rational. Kids don't learn well if they're hungry.

Originally Posted by playwrite

<snip>
However, I will note that mistakenly wiping your rear with poison ivy beats that all! It's one of those, "please shoot me" moments that last for days!

Why? Poison ivy is just a plant. It has a noxious habit of climbing trees. I just yank the vines off. No fuss, no muss. Though I might plant some by my windows as a burglar deterrent. Besides, I think it makes a nice landscaping plant. It has pretty shiny leaves and white berries.

Mosquitoes? They think I suck. OTOH, if we're talking about grass and ragweed, totally different story. Those are plant that aren't nice to me.

Originally Posted by annla899

No Boomer is ever going to win the snark prize. We try. Those of us in the later years can take a stab at it, but we are weaklings compared with Xers.

Well you have a good point there. I guess we await the crowning of the king.

Copperfield???

(playwrite could upset the no-boomer rule though.....)

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Well you have a good point there. I guess we await the crowning of the king.

Copperfield???

(playwrite could upset the no-boomer rule though.....)

I'm sorry but playwrite is usually beat in the snark department by herbaltee and Ragnarok'62, by my accounts. Why is that? Because it's too obvious that playwrite works at it (and from what I can tell he works very hard at it--so A for effort, I guess). For herbaltee and Ragnarok'62 there seems to be an effortless quality to their snark... it just rolls right off the tongue, it's like they weren't even trying to snark you, but it just so happened that they did... well doesn't that just suck for you...

So who'll be placing their bets on who wins the Snarkity Snark Snark contest? I'm sure with Gen X's gift for snarking we could have a lot of contestants and a lot of dough pass a lot of hands...

Now, if the few remaining Losts we still have were still in their prime (there's about 19 of them left in the entire world)... oh, Gen Xers wouldn't stand a chance. Because we all know that the Lost Generation is the standard to which all Nomad generations must now live up to.

~Chas'88

Originally Posted by Chas'88

I'm sorry but playwrite is usually beat in the snark department by herbaltee and Ragnarok'62, by my accounts. Why is that? Because it's too obvious that playwrite works at it (and from what I can tell he works very hard at it--so A for effort, I guess). For herbaltee and Ragnarok'62 there seems to be an effortless quality to their snark... it just rolls right off the tongue, it's like they weren't even trying to snark you, but it just so happened that they did... well doesn't that just suck for you...

So who'll be placing their bets on who wins the Snarkity Snark Snark contest? I'm sure with Gen X's gift for snarking we could have a lot of contestants and a lot of dough pass a lot of hands...

Now, if the few remaining Losts we still have were still in their prime (there's about 19 of them left in the entire world)... oh, Gen Xers wouldn't stand a chance. Because we all know that the Lost Generation is the standard to which all Nomad generations must now live up to.

~Chas'88

My favorite Lost is Mae West:

It isn't what I do, but how I do it. It isn't what I say, but how I say it, and how I look when I do it and say it.

Originally Posted by Weave

Not only was it a HUGE gaffe it was a lie as well.

No, it wasn't a lie, and all you have demonstrated with the remainder of your post is that you are clueless about what he said and meant.

First as President you have the "Bully pulpit" to move issues you favor and influence public opinion to get things accomplished. T.R. FDR, Kennedy, Reagan and Clinton were good at this. Obama's admitting he cant do this.

No, he didn't. In fact, he said he was GOING to do this. He was going to CONCENTRATE on doing this from now on, because that is the ONLY way to change Washington: with pressure brought from outside.

He also lied using health care as an example.

No he didn't. It was a perfect example, not only of how the process can work but of how he needs to improve his own use of it, and how he has made a mistake thinking he could change Washington purely through the mechanism of government, as an insider running the Executive Branch.

The health-care reform was passed at all only because there was popular agitation for a change in the system we had before it. Lobbyists, especially the health-insurance and pharmaceutical lobbyists, worked very hard to prevent any reform happening or, failing that, to ensure that any reform that happened was one they could live with, that continued their ability to gouge people. The people didn't get what they wanted. If they had, we'd have a single-payer system or at least a public option. (And THAT, by the way, si the reason why Obamacare "never had majority support." People like you cite that statistic as if it meant the opposition to it was all coming from the right. It wasn't. More than half of it came from the left, because Obamacare doesn't do enough.)

So what was Obama's mistake? Exactly what he said: trying to change Washington from the inside, and not pulling in the people with his leadership to apply pressure to Congress. Instead, he let Congress work it out among themselves, and when he inserted his own leadership it was only over Congresscritters, without mobilized popular backing. The President, under our Constitution, has no authority over Congress whatsoever, except the power of the veto. Obama managed to get a bill out of Congress, but not as good a bill as he could have if he'd properly mobilized the people behind it.

That's what he was saying. And he's absolutely right.

Originally Posted by Chas'88

Now, if the few remaining Losts we still have were still in their prime (there's about 19 of them left in the entire world)... oh, Gen Xers wouldn't stand a chance. Because we all know that the Lost Generation is the standard to which all Nomad generations must now live up to.

~Chas'88

My favorite is Lt. Tragg.

Originally Posted by Ragnarök_62

Exhibit A.


Exhibit B.


Nope, I think we have a winner. From the above and other posts, I dub playwrite the king of snark. He's a Boomer as well. I know that arrangement will cause feathers to fly in the royal palace, but hey, not all arrangements make for harmony.

PS. playwrite misspelled "grammar". I fixed it for him in my post. Now if he'd get a real web browser like Firefox, he'd have a spell checker built in.

Well, thanks, Rags; I think.

You know I've only recently come to this discipline of snark but maybe I have subconsciously absorbed it from the masters that are on this forum.

Pretty sure, I don't want to be crown king; remember, it comes with a certain queen. I'm just not up for that.

I'd rather be known from my creative grammar and spelling, and, of course, my well-placed use of 's

Originally Posted by Weave

Not only was it a HUGE gaffe it was a lie as well.

First as President you have the "Bully pulpit" to move issues you favor and influence public opinion to get things accomplished. T.R. FDR, Kennedy, Reagan and Clinton were good at this. Obama's admitting he cant do this. This projects weakness on his part and another reason he should be fired.

He also lied using health care as an example. His plan never had majority support and it had toslither through in an overwhelmingly Democrat Congress by using "Cornhusker Kickbacks" and other skanky deals to get passed by a bare majority. The law has never been popular since...hardly an example of pressure from the outside.....

I think it was a brilliant pivot; somewhat risky but showing the growing confidence Team Obama has about having Romney on the ropes.

They're now turning to the question of Congress and not only the GOP obstructionism but the willingness of you douche bags to take the country down if need be (e.g. debt ceiling, fiscal cliff). The Senate appears to be in the bag for the Dems. It won't be filibuster proof but there are ways of working around that (e.g. budget reconciliation) and possible a rules change. I think a second term Obama WH and Dem Senate are going to play hardball from the get-go and not even think about the GOP as anything but the enemy - very very different than in the first term.

The key is the House. The Dems can't take it back this time; too much gerrymandering will serve as a shield to do that for a while. However, here is some brilliant analysis that it will likely only take the GOP losing about 20 seats to set up a completely different dynamic in the House, which would also greatly influence the Senate as well -

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archive..._the_house.php

But what about the House? Consider two scenarios. Scenario 1—the Dems pick up fewer than five seats. Scenario 2—the Dems pick up 18 to 20 seats. World of difference in my opinion. In scenario 1, it’s pretty much status quo. The house tea partiers feel vindicated—“Hey, even with a jerk like Romney at the top of the ticket, we only lost a few seats! F you, Obama!” Compromise would not be impossible, but it would be pretty unlikely. Now suppose the Dems pick up 18 to 20 seats. First off, that pick up would be seen as a fairly significant rebuke to the GOP and no amount of spinning would change that. Second, Boehner would have only a 10 to 15 vote margin to work with. Any time seven or eight GOPers peeled off and voted with a united Democratic party, Boehner would lose. So Boehner would be getting pressure on two fronts: first, from the purveyors of conventional wisdom who would say that the voters have demanded the GOP give ground, and second from those House GOPers who recognize that compromise is essential to help the country. How many of those are there? A couple dozen? Certainly not fifty or sixty, but I’m pretty sure there are enough to create a very realistic threat that seven or eight of them will make common cause with the Democrats to break the gridlock. Especially given that Obama and the Dems would probably be prepared to do a deal that would be give the GOP a lot of what they want for the small price of telling Grover Norquist to pound sand.


If you’re with me so far, then it becomes really, really important to know whether were looking at a five seat pickup or worse, or whether an 18 to 20 seat pickup (or better) is possible or even likely. And here’s the thing. I’m inclined to think an 18 to 20 seat pickup or better is a reasonable bet. I base this on (a) the generic congressional ballot (GCB), and (b) Democracy Corps’ battleground polls. The GCB looks like about plus two for the Dems right now. On average over the last four cycles, the popular vote has come in about two points worse (for the Dems) than the mid-September average in the GCB. So that suggests the popular vote will be about even (most likely case). And research I’ve done in the past (and I think correlations Nate Silver has discussed in the past would show the same thing) suggests that would translate into about a 20-seat pickup for the Dems. If you read the last Democracy Corps memo on their battleground poll of the 54 most competitive districts, the bottom line seems to be about the same, but of course using totally different data. And that was before the conventions. But if the trend continues, the question may no longer be whether Republicans can win the Senate — but how vulnerable they are to losing the House. Finally there is this tidbit (teaser?) from Nate Silver at the very end of yesterday’s post on the Senate: “But if the trend continues, the question may no longer be whether Republicans can win the Senate — but how vulnerable they are to losing the House.”

To sum it up, I think the question of where the battle for the House stands is the underreported story of the last month.

And why can Team Obama be confident enough to pivot to essentially running against the House?

It’s no secret that only a small fraction of the population really remains undecided over the course of the campaign. Now two political scientists, UCLA’s Lynn Vavreck and George Washington University’s John Sides, have estimated just how small that fraction is: 6 percent.

Vavreck and Sides, along with collaborators Simon Jackman and Michael Tesler, had YouGov conduct a poll of almost 44,000 people in December 2011, asking who they would support in a Romney-Obama match-up. 94 percent of respondents said that they had made up their minds, and only six percent were undecided.

The team then interviewed the same 1,000 people out of that sample every week from then to the present. They found that the results have remained remarkably stable. Of those who originally said they’d vote for Obama, 2 percent have switched to Romney and 2 percent have become undecided. Of those who originally said they’d vote for Romney, 3 percent switched to Obama and 3 percent switched to undecided.

So the “undecided” count has stayed pretty constant at 6 percent. It’s just a different group of people each week.

What about the people who were undecided in December? Who are they breaking toward as the race heats up? 30 percent are still undecided, but 70 percent now state a preference. Of those, 37 percent back Obama and 33 percent back Romney, and, more recently, Obama’s support among these undecideds has been on an uptick:

Essentially, there are very very few people who haven't made up their mind about who they will vote for. And as that group has dwindled, they have gone slightly more to Obama than to Romney. What's left, and there's a big question as to whether these folks will go to the polls, is not enough to help Romney unless nearly all of what is left votes for him. Not going to happen.

It is now really a matter of ground game and getting voters to the polls to take the time to cast for the guy they decided on months ago. GOP turnout is always a given. Its the Dem turnout that matters. In fact, if all those eligible to vote actually did, there would be no GOP in power!

The question is how good is Team Obama's ground game. I think this pivot to taking on Congress answers that. You all are being rope-a-dope into pushing the discussion to exactly where the Dems want you take it. We thank you for your support.

Originally Posted by Chas'88

I'm sorry but playwrite is usually beat in the snark department by herbaltee and Ragnarok'62, by my accounts. Why is that? Because it's too obvious that playwrite works at it (and from what I can tell he works very hard at it--so A for effort, I guess). For herbaltee and Ragnarok'62 there seems to be an effortless quality to their snark... it just rolls right off the tongue, it's like they weren't even trying to snark you, but it just so happened that they did... well doesn't that just suck for you...

So who'll be placing their bets on who wins the Snarkity Snark Snark contest? I'm sure with Gen X's gift for snarking we could have a lot of contestants and a lot of dough pass a lot of hands...

Now, if the few remaining Losts we still have were still in their prime (there's about 19 of them left in the entire world)... oh, Gen Xers wouldn't stand a chance. Because we all know that the Lost Generation is the standard to which all Nomad generations must now live up to.

~Chas'88

But there is a difference between wit and snark.

After over a week of the media pounding breathlessly about the awful Romney mistakes the race is essentially tied 47-47 in the latest Gallup survey and O47-R46 in Rasmussen. Obama's Approval is 47%. Obama's scrambling, lying and obfuscating on the Univision won't help. it would be nice if the "mainstream" media would start asking a some tough questions as well....

You liberals shouldnt get too excited yet...another month to go. It looks like if Obama wins, he wins ugly with a Repub House and possibly Senate too..hardly a prospect to cheer for especially since 2nd terms are awful for Presidents...and would set up a nasty 2014 mid term. And thats IF Obama wins...doesnt look to likely if he is at 47% approval in November.

Keep on spinning though....

http://www.gallup.com/home.aspx

Originally Posted by Weave

Obama made a major gaffe today...... http://freebeacon.com/obama-you-cant...om-the-inside/

The President does not have dictatorial powers that allow him to foist legislation upon a Congress that does not want that legislation. Congress matters as much as does the Presidency, as the Tea Party House demonstrates. Give it a President who believes that no human suffering is excessive if there is a profit to turn from it and flip the Senate to a clique that will do as Karl Rove and Grover Norquist tells it to do, and you might get the Christian and Corporate State of your dreams and my nightmare.

No, I do not want the President to have dictatorial powers. So long as we have the potential for a Commodus -- I mean George W. Bush -- as President, we had better not have an all-powerful president. But that said, I don't want the Republican party or its front groups to wield the real power.

Will the media obsess over this ad naseum for over 4 days??? Im not holding my breath....

Will George Step-on-all-of-us, Brian Williams and other former Democrat hacks now parading as "journalists" breathlessly announce how damaging this is? Im not holding my breath....

You are about to go back on my ignore list for that smear. Remember what you called Rachel Maddow?

Will they highlight the malfeasance in the state dept, that , depite warnings, despite the fact that Sept 11th is a date that Terrorists might strike, they did nothing....in fact Hillary didnt allow Marine Guards in Egyp to even be armed.....Im not holding my breath....

All days are potential days for terrorist strikes. The US Navy did make some maneuvers in the eastern Mediterranean, and the new President of Egypt (Muslim Brotherhood) started singing a different tune about demonstrations in front of a US embassy.

By the way -- please use spell-check. It does a good job of catching typos and misspellings that offend educated sensibilities.

Nope they'll continue to try to set the narrative that Obama has this in the bag....pathetic...

No, they are only saying that time is running out on any chance for a Romney Presidency. Mitt Romney has had his opportunities and so far has blown them. He's taking bigger and bigger risks -- but if those risks go awry he makes a fool of himself. At best for him he can try to force things to get closer and hope for the best... but he can also lose Arizona and Georgia, both of which long looked safe for Romney... and irrelevant for Obama.

Originally Posted by playwrite

The (Obama team is) now turning to the question of Congress and not only the GOP obstructionism but the willingness of (right-wingers) to take the country down if need be (e.g. debt ceiling, fiscal cliff). The Senate appears to be in the bag for the Dems. It won't be filibuster proof but there are ways of working around that (e.g. budget reconciliation) and possible a rules change. I think a second term Obama WH and Dem Senate are going to play hardball from the get-go and not even think about the GOP as anything but the enemy - very very different than in the first term.

It is telling that in a state in which the Presidential race and the Senate race are settled (like Michigan), attention now goes to the House of Representatives and the state legislature. Democrats get to challenge low-achieving puppets of Rove and Norquist whose votes are sure things.

The key is the House. The Dems can't take it back this time; too much gerrymandering will serve as a shield to do that for a while. However, here is some brilliant analysis that it will likely only take the GOP losing about 20 seats to set up a completely different dynamic in the House, which would also greatly influence the Senate as well -

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archive..._the_house.php

Political realities are in flux, and generally not to the benefit of Republicans. If voter behavior in 2012 is much like that of 2008, then lots of Republicans are in political trouble. Quality candidates can win in districts that seemingly favor the other Party -- if the other guy is a flop. Gerrymandering can fill a state with two D+25 districts and a bunch of R+5 districts (as in Indiana)... but R+5 is no guarantee in a Democratic wave election. The only good thing that I can say about the Tea Party pols is that they have yet to get involved in entrenched corruption. Reps will be asked about local issues.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sk8oDFHU2mI

This worked in 2006. It was simple and effective.

And why can Team Obama be confident enough to pivot to essentially running against the House?

Those R Reps who get a second chance will be up for re-election in 2014 -- and voting 100% against Obama will be wise only in ultra-safe districts. They will have to address local issues, some of which might not be the appointed choice of Rove, Norquist, or GOP front groups.

Essentially, there are very very few people who haven't made up their mind about who they will vote for. And as that group has dwindled, they have gone slightly more to Obama than to Romney. What's left, and there's a big question as to whether these folks will go to the polls, is not enough to help Romney unless nearly all of what is left votes for him. Not going to happen.

It is now really a matter of ground game and getting voters to the polls to take the time to cast for the guy they decided on months ago. GOP turnout is always a given. Its the Dem turnout that matters. In fact, if all those eligible to vote actually did, there would be no GOP in power!

The question is how good is Team Obama's ground game. I think this pivot to taking on Congress answers that. You all are being rope-a-dope into pushing the discussion to exactly where the Dems want you take it. We thank you for your support.

Except in late-campaign collapses, undecided voters tend to go ineffectively toward the eventual loser.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

The President does not have dictatorial powers that allow him to foist legislation upon a Congress that does not want that legislation. Congress matters as much as does the Presidency, as the Tea Party House demonstrates. Give it a President who believes that no human suffering is excessive if there is a profit to turn from it and flip the Senate to a clique that will do as Karl Rove and Grover Norquist tells it to do, and you might get the Christian and Corporate State of your dreams and my nightmare.

No, I do not want the President to have dictatorial powers. So long as we have the potential for a Commodus -- I mean George W. Bush -- as President, we had better not have an all-powerful president. But that said, I don't want the Republican party or its front groups to wield the real power.



You are about to go back on my ignore list for that smear. Remember what you called Rachel Maddow?



All days are potential days for terrorist strikes. The US Navy did make some maneuvers in the eastern Mediterranean, and the new President of Egypt (Muslim Brotherhood) started singing a different tune about demonstrations in front of a US embassy.

By the way -- please use spell-check. It does a good job of catching typos and misspellings that offend educated sensibilities.



No, they are only saying that time is running out on any chance for a Romney Presidency. Mitt Romney has had his opportunities and so far has blown them. He's taking bigger and bigger risks -- but if those risks go awry he makes a fool of himself. At best for him he can try to force things to get closer and hope for the best... but he can also lose Arizona and Georgia, both of which long looked safe for Romney... and irrelevant for Obama.

So let me get this straight...its hunky dory when you compare Republicans like Scott Walker to members of the most vicious regime in history (the Nazi's) but my mild alteration of George Steps name is a concern to you? Please.... Sorry but I have a problems with a former Democrat hack parading around as an "objective" journalist who we are supposed to take seriously....

Any President has the power to bring public pressure to bear on Congress by using the bully pulpit. Take Reagan for instance. When Congress was stalling his economic measures he went to the airwaves and asked them to write congress...telegrams and letters flooded in and Tipsy ONeil caved....Obama hasnt been able to do this in any way. His "signature" achievement health care has NEVER gotten majority support...it is hated to this day. He is weak and feckless. You stated in another post how honest he is...please....He lied several times in his Univision interview. Claiming Fast and Furious (began in Oct 2009) was started by the Bush admin....LIE!

Originally Posted by annla899

But there is a difference between wit and snark.

There is?

<Prince, singing to himself>

I feel pret-ty! Oh, so pret-ty! I feel...*ahem*

Me, me, me ,me......

Huh. That's strange. I could've sworn that song was in C. I must B#!


Prince

PS:....for I'm loved by a pretty wonderful boy!

Who knows what the outcome will be, but here's an interesting chart:



On average, the incumbent's final result was 3.7% worse than their standing in Gallup at this time of the election year. There are some outliers that could be discounted, like 1996 where a bunch of Perot voters bolted for Dole at the last minute, but the pattern is still pretty strong.

Another very strong pattern: no incumbent has ever been re-elected with a smaller percentage of the popular vote than their first win, and no incumbent except one* has ever won with a smaller percentage of the electoral vote.

*Woodrow Wilson got a huge electoral college victory in his first win because of Teddy Roosevelt's third party candidacy, and got a smaller percentage the second time around in a two-way race.