Will the black community support Barack Obama no matter what? History says “Duh”. Even though the hits to the economy under Obama’s policies are hitting black communities disproportionally worse – the biggest possible defection from Obama’s 96% he got of black votes in 2008 is likely to be, as the video says “Goodbye 96%, hello 94”.
I’ve heard several black friends in different areas of the country since 2004 talk about the peer pressure of voting “the right way”. It’s unfortunate that people have bought into this, not because they should all be voting Republican, but because voting in a lock step like that hurts you by making you not matter. Black liberals shouldn’t be voting against their views just to shake things up obviously, but most blacks arent liberals. Most blacks have conservative positions on social issues and are a mixed bag on taxes, immigration and foreign policy – yet they do not vote that way. They vote one way only, every time.
Those are the people who’s ideology makes them a swing voter but since they do not ever swing their vote, it has no bargaining value. Just like if Libertarians never vote Republican, then their votes are already discounted and their ideology not argued by Republicans seeking their vote because they know they can’t get it. If a Libertarian alternates between sitting out/voting 3rd party and voting for the candidate closest to their ideology in the 2 major parties then they have some bargaining power because it shows in the election results.
Black Democrats arent open to this because of the old “Danger on the Right” meme that doesn’t even allow a voter to consider the ideas of the right-of-center side because it is immediately demonized as racist, sexist, bigoted, homophobic, islamophobic, xenophobic and in service to corporate greedheads.
Jon Stewart and his “Senior black correspondant” took a look at the economy, its effect on the black community and said voters likely reaction to it.
PS: Even though I have never heard of Godfathers Pizza chai, pizza is pizza and I too will vote for Hermain Cain if he hooks me up with free pizzas
The New York Times called Dan Hill, the president of Sensory Logic, a market-research firm in Minneapolis that uses facial expressions to quantify emotional response to explain the face that every politician makes when confessing they lied about something naughty. He explained:
Lips pursed and pulled tight is a sign of anger. Anger as an emotion typically means you feel like you’re not in control of circumstances. It arises from lack of progress, confusion, feelings that one’s being dealt with unfairly, i.e. resentment. These are powerful men used to being in charge. So it likely signifies feeling vulnerable (not in control).
The chin raiser, where the chin boss pushes upward, causing the lower lip to push upward, could also be called an upside-down smile. It’s a muscle movement implicated in expressions of anger, disgust and sadness.
Disgust is an emotion that relates back, in evolutionary terms, to “bad taste” or “bad smell.” The bad-taste version is as if to protect the mouth from taking in something that is poisonous. Clearly, these scandals are (sometimes fatally) poisonous to the politicians’ careers. It’s as if the whiff of scandal tastes bad to them.
Eyes and head down both correspond to sadness, i.e., disappointment in oneself. Regret. Like disgust, it’s a sign of withdrawal, as if to remove oneself from what has caused shame or embarrassment.
The basic package you’ve got here is anger, disgust and sadness.
I support Rep Weiner even if this turns out to be true. it was supposed to be private, so who cares and carry on. Even though he’s my favorite congressman* and I hope he comes out of this okay, even I have to admit that this is amusing, though unfortunate, given his last name.
he’s my fave cuz I think he’s honest, he’s bold, actually explains what he believes and never shys away from opposition – always willing to take it to Fox or a right wing show that invites him on and battles it out like a champ. Stick it out and stay in office!
PS: yes, I admit that I am not going into detail and/or posting the pictures here because I like the dude. I’m biased, but I’m forthright about it…
Look, we don’t want the Weiner story to be true. But we’ve done enough tweeting in our day to know all the tricks for reading someone’s social media tracks. We spent a couple of hours digging through tweets to find out more info. And, to us, there seems to be some evidence pointing in both directions on this story. The key thing for us is the existence of the rogue tweet, which was captured by TweetCongress.org even after it was deleted. But there’s also stuff that makes us wonder. The patient zero — the first person to retweet Anthony Weiner’s NSFW tweet — was this guy, who we’ve found in our research to be overly fixated on the congressman even BEFORE the tweet in question. In fact, he posted about a cheating scandaljust like this one over TWO WEEKS AGO. Really? How was he so quick to hit the trigger on this? Some other things we noticed from the scandal:
for On Twitter, Weiner noted the Seattle time of his Friday TV appearance. The recipient of the NSFW tweet, from Seattle, retweeted.
for The person at the center of the drama deleted her Twitter account — which was active as of yesterday — after the tweet.
for The girl in question said Weiner was her “boyfriend” in an April tweet. Yeah, so? Her and every other liberal teen female has!
against To disprove that the photo was of Weiner, Daily Kos has a testof the NSFW photo that suggested it was ‘shopped. Hm.
» The important things to take from this: We don’t think Weiner did anything wrong as of yet, but we do think that there is a lot to suggest one of two things: One, this was possibly a scandal planted by someone who had closely followed the congressman’s Twitter account (because, based on our research, people have), and there were somewhat bizarre things that may have connected Weiner to the girl. Given the track record of Big Journalism,where the story originated from, we’d like to see a better source tackle this thing, because we don’t trust Breitbart as far as we can throw him. We rate this an “inconclusive.”
-I don’t know what they’re talking about with Big Journalism’s track record and the author doesn’t elaborate. As far as I know, the site has a solid track record on facts (nothing has a solid record on opinion/commentary), but they may be referring to the Sherrod Brown thing, which was misreported by right wing outlets including Glenn Beck to claim Breitbart clipped a video out of context but the context was in fact present in the original post. Anyway: that part aside, I too am skeptical of this story, not because of inherit distrust of Breitbart but just cuz. Mostly cuz I want it to not be true. lulz. but whatever. Even if it is, I say if he doesn’t weasel out of it and just comes clean, he will get more support than before, including from some of his more fair minded critics. Maybe even Breitbart (who is being accused of making this whole thing up now). Actually, probably even Breitbart I’d bet. I’d put money on it that Breitbart would drop it and instead just note that no liberal would give a conservative the same free pass and move on.
UPDATE: I don’t know what any of this means but if it’s correct info then it is evidence in the direction of Weiners innocence.
UPDATE: oh wow… Breitbart issues challenge directly to Weiner and basically says exactly what I described his possible reaction being (though he might not be serious about it):
Aside from this very subtle lulz from Wikipedia – No punchline here – just saying: How classy is Maria Shriver? i mean gead daymn. unless there is some attention whoring tell-all book or string of Oprah appearances coming up, i gotta hand it to the lady for being Dignitary of the year.
“This is a painful and heartbreaking time,” Shriver said in a statement. “As a mother, my concern is for the children. I ask for compassion, respect and privacy as my children and I try to rebuild our lives and heal. I will have no further comment.”
Schwarzenegger and Shriver recently announcedtheir separation after 25 years of marriage, but failed to give a reason for the split. The Los Angeles Times reports that Shriver moved out of the family’s Brentwood home earlier this year when Schwarzenegger confessed his paternity.
Arnold had a kid with a member of the staff and kept it a secret through 2 successful elections as Governor…wtf?
“For at least 10 years, throughout a spectacular and closely-scrutinized political career, Arnold Schwarzenegger managed to hide the existence of a love child with a member of his own household staff. Only now, after leaving the governor’s office and splitting from his equally famous wife of 25 years, are we finding out… “It’s almost mindboggling that information like this did not become public over his political career,” said veteran California GOP strategist Dan Schnur, who now teaches at the University of Southern California. “If this had come out when he was running for governor, he wouldn’t have gotten elected.” – Washington Post
How pissed off is Meg Whitman right now? The former eBay CEO spent a record $150 Million of her own money to gain the privilege of saving California from bankruptcy and she was derailed by a phony scandal that caused weeks of election-costing bad press when Gloria Alred trotted out Whitmans former maid to cry in front of cameras for money and whine about how she is illegally residing in the country, lied to the Whitmans and got fired when they found out about her illegal status.
That was a big deal for some reason, while the previous Governor hiding a love child never got uncovered?? Dude…wtf.
Meg Whitman literally did everything she was supposed to do both legally and morally and handled the release with class, saying how the maid was a member of the family and following the legal obligation to fire her was very hard and that is big news. Sitting governor hides love child and that’s only an interest tidbit mentioned after his term. this is bananas.
California would have been better off with the scandal known and Arnold only serving 1 term from the recall election and the state having Whitman win a term or two after that democrat.
The link to the video version of this on my Facebook page gave birth to this exchange worth publicizing:
Jonathan Rich: Actually, our side wasn’t saying “don’t do it – it won’t work.” We were saying “don’t do it because secret assassination is immoral.” Big difference. And we still aren’t wrong about that.
It’s funny that the only thing you agree with Obama on is assassination. Cute.
I [literally] don’t know what makes him think I’m down on Obama at all, let alone 99%, save for “assassination”, but this is a regular theme in his comments to me. I mock aspects of religion and display my hopeful agnosticism and he thinks I’m an Onward-Christian-Soldier variety believer; I mock and debunk some Glenn Beckisms and he thinks I’m a Glenn Beck Republican Teabagger. It’s an endless demonstration of self delusion which I admit to not fighting against because 1) why should I? If a dude can’t read words, repeating them with big denials like I’m on a witch hunting trial aint gonna make a diff and 2) I don’t hate religion or Beck or Republicans, so if someone falsely ascribes me to any of those, it’s no different than when other people assume and call me a full blown atheist or gay. It falls into the “well, you’re wrong and you’d know that if you paid attention…but…meh” category. It all fits into a larger attempt to divide and classify people you disagree with on anything as being bad people who are on an opposing team. Big running theme with this guy. Here is my response, that you’ll recognize in it’s standard “mirroring of the absurd elements of the original” format, but I think was alas, lost on the individual, unfortunately:
Richard: Actually, I didn’t say the Left said it wouldn’t work but I *did* say what you incorrectly presumed to correct me on though so maybe try paying attention and you’ll know what’s going on (it makes commenting on subject matter a lot more productive).
It would be funny that you think this is the only thing I agree with Obama on if it wasn’t so transparent and dumb. You’re too cliche to be cute when you’re wrong. Why let the facts get in the way of an awesome black-and-white view of everything though, right?
Idk what your source is that it was an assassination due to your one-way policy on providing those. Unless there’s been new developments or changes to the originally reported description of the mission – Either you have intel that no other news sources including Al Jazeera has, or you dont know what assassinations are.
I’d be interested in the answer if you were able to show accurate comprehension or memory of something you just read seconds ago, let alone however long ago you learned this news about the SEAL mission.
For those of you following at home: I will update this post if it was in fact reported that the mission was an assassination and not the “capture or kill” military operation that took place in a war with the person who started said war by declaring it on our country and beyond in the 1990s and following through with that declaration with a series of murderous attacks on our civilians through the act of war that this leader remains a fugitive from.
UPDATE: He replied with this:
Jonathan Rich: “”This was a kill operation,” the official said, making clear there was no desire to try to capture bin Laden alive in Pakistan.”
None of which is either news, nor supportive of his claim. This dude has no desire to actually pursue truth so I’ll explain it to you after I show you what I responded to him:
Richard: text search for “assassin” yields zero results on both links. so I take it that’s your way of admitting you have no source to back up your claim and that in fact the action was the standard fare of war described in these 2 links and other reports. gotta admit you had me goin for a split second till I remembered that you got 3 things wrong about what I said on this very page, so it’s not really fair to expect anything but the same record of accuracy on wider matters.
Any killing “can” be referred to as an assassination no matter what the context in history, movies or video games, so for the word to have any meaning and for anyone to disagree about it’s usage and application, it obviously can’t mean just killing someone. So if the “same thing as killing any human” usage is out – and it clearly must be since no one thinks I’m denying the dude got killed in the raid – what is the traditional way the term is used? Answer: an unjust surprise murder for political reasons. Lincoln was assassinated. Caesar was assassinated. Malcolm X and Dr King were assassinated. JFK and Lee Harvey Oswald were assassinated. -noticing the trend here? I’ll give you a hint: none of these figures were founders and leaders of a group that their assassins were at war with.
For Bin Laden to have been “assassinated” in the sense that this dude used the term, he would have had to left his position within the group that he lead when he declared war on the United States and renounced that action and surrendered yet still shot in the face anyway…. None of that happened. Instead, all reports say Bin Laden was active in orchestrating American death and fled/resisted the troops when they raided his shithole whorehouse. Whether the conflicting reports saying the SEALS were not allowed to take him captive or whether they were just given orders to kill if necessary, is irrelevant to the accuracy of the application of the term.
When a known killers house is raided by the cops and the killer runs away into a room with guns and gets shot in the head before anything further can happen, that is not traditionally reported as an “assassination”. That’s why I would have found it interesting if any reputable news source used the word in that context and not in the sense of being parallel to “killed”.
UPDATE: He replied with 4 paragraphs that repeated the claim that “assassination = the word ‘killed'” which I’ve already dispatched with here and won’t rehash. It’s crystal clear that he did not use, or even mean to use the word as a synonym for the word “kill”, evidenced not least by the fact that I didnt dispute Bin Laden got killed..soo… if he knows I agree the dude is dead then why would he later argue “all I was saying was that he got killed and thats what assassinate means”? Because it’s easier than facing the actual wrongness of the context he meant it in, obviously. Pathetic.
President Obama said he would look for Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan regardless of whether Pakistan allowed such a sting or action plan and Hillary Clinton and Republicans scoffed at it. I did too.
After the sweeping Republican victories in the November elections, the newly elected House members are just today taking their offices in Washington and since Republicans now have a majority in Congress, the Speaker of the House (formerly San Francisco’s Nancy Pelosi) is now Ohio’s John Boehner (R). His name is pronounced “Bainer” because… he said so. which bugs me.
The dude shoulda just changed his friggin name instead of making everyone pronounce it “bay-ner”. NY Congressman Anthony Weiner (D) doesn’t make everyone pronounce his name “Whiner” – well, I guess that would be bad for other reasons – or “Winner”, so why can’t the new Speaker take a que?
These aren’t the only other name silliness I’ve noticed. In the 2004 Democratic Primary election, Joe Lieberman’s campaign chairs last name was Gobush and Lieberman pronounced it “Gobish” instead of “Go Bush” while acknowledging the humor of it in interviews and I thought that was the wrong move. He should have said “Ya his name is ‘Go Bush’. He’s my campaign chair precicely because I’m gonna be the guy to get Bush to Go out of public service and out of a job”. zing. but no…
I hold politicians to a higher standard because – duh – we all do, but Brett Favre is the worst committee of this name-crime. He was just like “everyone pretend that its “Farve” and say it like that, and everyone totally did without question and thats not even pronunciation – thats changing friggin spelling.
Theres a newly elected congressman in Idaho or something named Crapo and he’s saying its “cray-poe”. pleez… People: change your name if you dont like it. just cuz we go along with it for sports heroes doesnt mean we like it.
And here is Liberal radio talk show host Mike Malloy explaining the reason the Boehner cries so much during speeches and interviews (true) is because he’s a drunk. I don’t get the connection so much, but now that this dude is in a higher position of power, you can expect a lot more commentaries like the one below:
Also – I have no idea whether this Malloy video was made by a fan or a hater as there are signs of both in it. weird.
Here is my prediction for tomorrows election results (Red means Republican win, Blue is a Democrat win, Gray marks the states where there is no election):
Image created using ABC News’ iPad “what if” app, so it’s their fault that they don’t let you view the whole map at once (you have to scroll down even while zoomed out), so it’s their fault that Alaska is half cropped :p
Straight 50/50 split. In such cases, the Vice President takes on his role as President of the Senate and serves as tie breaker, and since he is a Democrat, that means the Republicans will fall 1 person short of winning the majority and taking back control of the Senate. Way to go Tea Partiers: you had that 51st vote in the bag in Delaware with a candidate (Mike Castle) who would have won by 11 points. Instead, you decided that he wasn’t fiscally pure enough for your standards and nominated Chistine “I’m not a witch” JesusCamp O’Donnell and now she will lose by 11 points. Had the GOP nominated Castle instead of O’Donnell, Republicans would have won both President Obama’s AND Vice President Bidens senate seats.
You missed a huge headline there, douchebagels.
The 2 states that could change are West Virginia and Washington. If Republican Dino Rossi wins in Washington, it will only be by a point or two so that means it’s also entirely possible for him to lose by a point or two – or worse – win by a narrow margin and get raped by a recount (something he has already experienced as the previous winner of the Governors race that was then yanked away from him during a recount). In West Virginia, popular Democratic Governor Joe Manchin is running for senate and is a few points ahead of Republican businessman John Raese. The most amusing part about this race is that Raese’s name is pronounced “Race-E” and it’s…a race, and Joe Manchin doesn’t have a very strong jawline. lolz. I guess it’s also kinda funny that the two dudes are trying to out-conservative each other. Watch this ad below and remember that this is the DEMOCRAT appearing here:
If the Republican wins in WV and loses in WA then nothing changes, obviously, but if they both win then the Republicans gain Senate control.
Whats certain is that the country is about to look like a Hawaiian Punch commercial as it’s washed in a Red wave of right-of-center candidates. This is good for everyone, so no one should really freak out over it. Republicans will like it – cuz duh. Moderates and Independents like me will think it’s alright because we’re okay with a little balance (the Democrats have held control of the House and Senate for 4 years and had the Presidency for 2 years so balancing Obama with a Republican congress isn’t exactly the end of the hope and changey world for the left). Also – these Tea Party candidates poised to win are not as looney tunes as initially thought. Rand Paul (R-KT) for example made me facepalm at first but now I’m alright with him and Marco Rubio (R-FL) has earned a lot of respect and street cred, including an endorsement by the left-of-center Miami Herald when he too was initially considered a dangerously right-wing nutjob. Also there are a lot of moderates getting elected tomorrow too, don’t forget. Mark Kirk (R-IL) is just barely a Republican and in the event that other longshot Republican wins were to happen (like Linda McMahon in CT or Carly Fiorina in CA – both self made business women) they would just be additions to the “oppose my party when it’s wrong” side and not the Tea Party kooks.
I voted for the least amount of Democrats I ever have this year in my mail-in ballot, so I’m somewhat reflecting the nationwide shift. I am hoping that a Republican congress with a Democrat president will work as good as it did under Clinton (quick history recap: Clintons first two years were as ambitious and as unpopular as Obama’s, but in 1994 during his midterm there was a Republican wave and Clinton became more centrist and more awesome).
Even Sharon Angle, the Republican running against Democrat Harry Reid for Senate in Nevada has proved to be not as bat-shit crazy as she initially came off as. I was dead set against this creepy freakshow right up until I watched the debate between the two and I felt shnookered. Reid, whom I previously thought was a loveable grandfatherly old bloke came off as slow, awkward and batty. Angle presented herself well and didn’t say anything that made me cringe. Actually, she impressed me by answering the questions asked of her – especially the yes or no ones, which she answered with yes and no. Reid on the other hand said 2- 4 sentences within his responses for each and dodged them. Example: “Should English be the Official National Language?”. Angle said Yes. Reid said “it already is the national language”. Well, that’s not a yes or no and it’s not even true. There was actually a vote to state it as such and Reid voted against it. Weaselly. I agree with Dennis Miller in that such a dim bulb shouldn’t be representing the state where Las Vegas is located. His son Rory is also on the ballot, running for Governor and is going to lose along with his dad. His commercials all just say “Rory” as he tries to hide his Reid-ness from voters (or maybe its just because “Rory Reid” is impossibly awkward to say).
And wtf is with the reruns? The former senator from Indiana, (R) the former Governor of Iowa (R) and the former Governor of California (D) are running for their old jobs again this year and all 3 of them are going to win. All of them held those jobs over 12 years ago – and in Jerry Browns case over 25 years ago! (god dayum). Couldn’t either party get some fresh blood in these races?
The rest of the map is all goofy too. Check out this weird pattern I noticed with Governors vs Senators in the following states:
Arkansas is going to elect a Democrat Governor by a decisive margin, but going to kick out their Democrat Senator (Blanche Lincoln) on the same ballot. Why? Lincoln isn’t a radical. She’s a Bill Clinton squish who will do what the polls say to do. Are you really THAT mad at her for her vote on Obamacare (rhetorical since the answer appears to be yes, but I still don’t get it). Course, I may get it with time. I’m late to the anti-Obamacare game since I initially supported it before finding out it’s gory power grab deficit steroiding details.
Ohio is going to elect their next Republican senator with a victory of 15 or more points ahead of the Democrat opponent, however they are only going to trade their Democrat Governor for Republican John Kasich by 2-4 points. That one is less interesting since it lacks the party divide, so that’s all I’ll say about it. The next one is the most wtf-er:
Connecticut is more interesting because it is going to elect a Republican Governor by a point or two yet it is going to reject the Republican candidate for senate by double digit margin (Update: The senate race went as I predicted but the Republican Tom Foley lost by 1% to Democrat Dan Malloy: 48%.9% to the Democrats 49.5% – or about 7,000 votes). It’s insane because Connecticut is a dark blue Democrat state and the Republican Governor they’re about to elect seems more conservative than the Republican Senate candidate they’re going to reject. The Gov seems totally blah, while Linda McMahon for senate is an outstanding candidate running against the totally lackluster Democrat Sidney Blumethal. McMahon is a millionaire self funding her campaign and has vowed to work for god-damn free in the US senate, not take any special benefits in addition to not taking a salary and will only serve 2 terms if elected so she never becomes a corrupt career politician. The dude running against her lied about serving in Vietnam and will not only take his full salary and benefits but thinks the answers to solving our broken economy is more government spending, more government regulation and more taxes. Wtf Connecticut.
and WTF California? We have the former CEO of eBay running for Governor of our bankrupt state and we’re supposed to be scared of her for some reason. People are bashing her because she’s a billionaire, but not me. Cuz you know who else is a billionaire? Um, Tony Stark… also known as IRON MAN. And a young gentleman named Bruce Wayne aka BATMAN. So a billionaire using their millions to self fund a campaign they are trying to win with a platform of reducing the size of government (ie: give themselves LESS power for the benefit of the citizens)… and that’s…bad. According to…dumb people, I guess. Makes no sense.
My dumb state is also set to re-elect Barbara Boxer for a third term as Senator despite her being a useless waste and kindov a total bitch.
UPDATE: Colorado and Washington both went Democrat by slim margins and Harry Reid pulled out a 5 point win in Nevada, making my prediction map close, but still off by 3. Washington and CO I knew were gonna be tough bets but I am shocked by Nevada.
Is it even POSSIBLE for something karma-tically hilarious to happen in real life than “law maker who is vocally pro-illegal alien escapes death after illegal alien rear-ends him, while drunk…while wearing a Mariachi costume”?…. dude…
