Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Let there be snark.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

I was promised a recession.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

Infrastructure week. at last.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

The words do not have to be perfect.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2012 / Early Morning Open Thread: Then & Now

Early Morning Open Thread: Then & Now

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Stolen from David Remnick at the New Yorker, who has the transcription here. I think Remnick overestimates the willingness of today’s voter to listen to President Obama with the same openmindedness his electors offered Roosevelt, but it’s good to remember that the Republican message hasn’t changed a hair after almost three-quarters of a century.

Therefore:
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Sooo… what’s on the agenda today?

Reader Interactions

100Comments

  1. 1.

    Mustang Bobby

    If nothing else, that ad should put an end to the internet rumors about Morgan Freeman being dead….

    On the agenda today is Quaker meeting at 10:30, which I hope will clear my mind of all the noise and clamor of the week and brace me for another. And now that the Tigers won Game 1, I can feel a little better.

  2. 2.

    freelancer

    Couldn’t have gay porn for the trolls to whinge about on the front page for that long, eh?

    Well, here’s some more.

    Ron Silver, noted conservative, RIP, acting as someone righteously pissed off enough that no one has enough spine to fight for the disempowered.

    And here’s a speech from noted commie Dwight Eisenhower that a dollar spent on a missile that leaves a child hungry is completely Un-American:

    Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
    This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. . . . This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

    Fuck modern day “conservativism”. Fuck these people and kill their ignorance with white hot shame.

    I’m an Obama-Eisenhower moderate. If the GOP wants life from the 50’s, let’s call their bluff and agree. Let’s bring back taxes on the corporations and the wealthy back to where it was in their own mythical golden age. Not the 4% increase to where it was under Clinton at 39%, but the rate of the wealthiest under Eisenhower.

  3. 3.

    Big R

    On the agenda today is going outside. Also, preparing an affidavit to make opposing counsel look like a fool.

  6. 6.

    PurpleGirl

    I have been watching the Investigation Discovery channel quite a bit lately. All true crime stories. Well, right now they are replaying a documentary “Telling Amy’s Story” about domestic violence.

    I’d love to make every Republican in Congress watch this show. And then see if they still want to hold-up the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act 2012.

    (I know. I know. It won’t help. But I’ve supported this Act since it originated in 1994. I’ve known several women who suffered domestic violence.)

  7. 7.

    Kane

    The one thing that Roosevelt’s speech, Clinton’s convention speech, and Biden’s debate all have in common is that each in their own way called out the Republicans for their hypocrisy. I think voters want a little of that from Obama. I think they are still willing to listen to Obama, but they desperately want him to show that he is willing to fight for them.

  8. 8.

    amk

    @Kane:

    Never mind the 4 years of actually fighting for them, it has to come down to in-your-face aggro debate moment ” to show that he is willing to fight for them”? Redenculous.

  9. 9.

    magurakurin

    Holy Shit. Jeter broke his ankle and is out for the post season. Hate to be a dick about it, but I guess he should have gotten that hit in the tenth and won the game.

    So, will Ichiro be able to step up and become the hero of the Series. Or do the Yankees just go down in a ball of flaming hubris?

    Sigh. The one and only time I decide to cheer for the Yankees, and their captain breaks and ankle and A-Rod is proving himself to be washed up and worthless. Sigh.

    Come on Mr. President, wipe the floor with that charlatan Rmoney on Tuesday, and turn all these frowns upside down. I promise, it’ll be Doobie Snacks for all in the Situation Room after that.

  12. 12.

    gene108

    @freelancer:

    As amusing as Silver’s rant is the reality is that the decisive Presidential losses of 1980, ’84, and ’88 actually show that Americans happily agreed with the Republican framing of liberal.

    Even if President Obama carries every swing state, Romney won’t do as badly as the Democratic candidates in the 1980’s.

  13. 13.

    WereBear

    @gene108: I think it’s because Democrats just won’t lie the way Republicans will.

    Republicans say, “Let us crack some heads of people you hate, and dollar bills will rain down on the heartland.”

    None of it makes any sense. But some people just love to hear it.

  14. 14.

    CA Doc

    In Philadelphia for a big family medicine meeting. I’ve never been here before, so I’m excited.

  17. 17.

    JoyfulA

    @CA Doc: You’re in Philly for the first time, and it’s the day after the big water main break that turned much of the historic area into a lake! Here’s hoping all the extra water has been diverted into the Delaware River by now.

  19. 19.

    freelancer

    @gene108:

    If the concern is that Obama might underperform the electoral tallies of Carter, Mondale, or Dukakis; and that is what is freaking the left out, then I shall sleep soundly.

    The latest AZ poll has the state as a toss-up, with Obama leading. If AZ is in play, then NV and Colorado are a lock. Romney would have to sweep 4 of 4 in the remaining toss-up swing states to reach 270, and that’s a mathematical improbability.

    Again, I shall sleep soundly.

  20. 20.

    geg6

    All I know is that the last time Obama ran, I had to be careful where I talked about supporting him (bars were a particularly bad place) in order to spare myself racist rants. My car magnets were stolen eight times.

    This time around, almost no one disagrees with anything I say in regard to Obama/Biden and Rmoney/LRyan. And no one has touched my car magnets.

    And when you’re seeing a lot of Obama signs and “I’m union and I vote” signs in such places as Titusville and Franklin, you know that the worm has turned. They are finally looking past their racism and looking at their own self-interest.

  21. 21.

    magurakurin

    @CA Doc:

    Being from there, or the Philly ‘burbs to be more truthful, I know well that Philadelphia is often the object of jokes and teasing, and I myself knock it from time to time. But there actually are a lot of cool things there and one surely as to agree with W.C. Fields….all things considered, I rather be in Philadelphia…

    Definitely check out a cheese steak, may I recommend Delasandro’s on Henry Avenue?

  22. 22.

    MrSnrub

    Wife is working, kid and I are home for the day.

    Agenda includes:
    Going out for breakfast
    Some yard work
    Possible play date for the kid
    Football
    Try to make progress on the project-from-hell which I inherited at work
    Maybe some Badlands 2 if the kid’s play date is somewhere else

  23. 23.

    P. D. Obvious, M.D.

    I’m going to try to piece together an e-mail for a FB ‘friend’ who has gone total wingnut. I would like to ask all of you to help direct me to the more/most effective graphs/reports that illustrate:

    1. The culpability of the Republicans in our debt
    2. How much better the economy is doing under Obama
    3. The effect of the stimulus

    This friend was a classmate of mine from med school, so I know she has some intelligence, but she’s getting her ‘facts’ from Limbaugh/Beck (both ‘likes’ on her page — ugh). I’d like to think that she’s reachable if my e-mail summarizes things concisely and doesn’t come across as too judgmental.

  24. 24.

    jeffreyw

    Working on second pot of coffee. Keeping an eye on a pork butt that has been in the smoker since 6PM yesterday. Rainy and cool here. Thinking about breakfast. All the cats are back in from their pre-dawn scattering, waiting for Mrs J to notice they have not had their breakfasts, either.

  26. 26.

    freelancer

    @jeffreyw:

    JW, you are a soldier, and you surely live a life that 99% of us envy. Happy Sunday morning to you, sir.

    I’m sure you’re prepping something mouth-watering. Please share it with us later.

  28. 28.

    R-Jud

    @Svensker: the Herefordshire side of the Malvern Hills, in midwestern England. We had a frosty, misty start, but by 10:30 it was all clear.

  29. 29.

    PurpleGirl

    @jeffreyw: Today I treated myself to coffee and a croisant from the little shop across the street. I really like their coffee and for a packaged pastry the croisant isn’t bad. (No places nearby that make them fresh.) Sometimes you just have to go outside for what you want. (I cooked some sausage and a scrambled egg to go with the coffee and croisant.)

  32. 32.

    hep kitty

    The other day, I found myself wanting to wish the President into the cornfield.

    Why? Because he’s black.

    Because I can’t take the racism anymore. I did not want him to be the nominee for two reasons, I thought he was way too nice (and I was pretty pissed about a few things by that time) and he was black. Not that I cared that a black man might become president. His race was inconsequential to me personally. I was afraid the country wasn’t ready and that he would lose.

    Well, I was pleasantly surprised to find out I was wrong! Or so I thought.

    Then came the next 4 years. And I find out that blatant, burning, boiling racist hatred exists all around me.

    So you know, I guess I needed to know but it wasn’t particularly comforting after I found out.

    And I’m just so sick of it. I have been sick of him holding back b/c he is black.

    Regardless, he is branded as the angry black man, a foreigner, who wants to tear down Americam cannibalize white babies and let anarchy rule the day.

    I am just so sick to death of it. And 4 more years I will have to listen to that shit.

    I’m sorry to whine, I should be happy that his poll numbers are good. But I don’t want to hear it anymore. I’ve stopped watching the teevee for the most part.

  34. 34.

    Svensker

    @hep kitty:

    I am just so sick to death of it. And 4 more years I will have to listen to that shit.

    I can relate. But don’t black folks in the States have to listen to that shit their whole lives (correct me if I’m wrong AA peeps)? So we white folks can tough it out for 4 years don’t you think? Or as someone I know likes to say, “don’t boo, vote.”

  35. 35.

    Elizabelle

    Putting in a word for knocking doors for Obama campaign.

    It’s exercise, it’s positive, and you will meet some great people at the doors, who are excited to vote.

    Best antidote to the gloom and doom and confusion on teh internets.

  36. 36.

    freelancer

    @beltane:

    Again, we keep hearing about media blitzes in “swing states”, but at this point, given the math; there are swing states out there that don’t even know they can swing. And I’m not talking about Oregon or Vermont flipping to Romney, you dig? I’m talking, “Oh my pantswetting Egg Romney, put blinders back on Rafalca,” you might very well lose AZ, NC, Virginia, and someone somewhere back whispered the three syllables of “Georgia”.

    This country is full of dumbfucks, but those that can actually find the intestinal fortitude and the moral courage to pick up their ringy-dingy phones just might be telling the gorram truth.

  37. 37.

    Josie

    @Svensker: Yes, it is terribly important that these people living in their little racist bubble find out that they they are not in the majority. That needs to be proven to them over and over until they give up.

  38. 38.

    Hal

    @P. D. Obvious, M.D.:

    If she’s getting her info from Limbaugh and Beck, consider her a lost cause. When Obama was first elected and for maybe the first two years, I found myself countering bullshit lies and conspiracy theories from friends of my mother who would mass email everyone.

    It made not one bit of difference. No matter how much total bullshit was in the email (Obama bans under god at Arlington National Cemetery, Obama personally nixed the COLA increase for Medicare, the debt went up x percent his first year as President), nothing dissuaded this person from her beliefs.

    I’ve come to the conclusion that some people just can’t stand Obama and will use whatever to justify it.

  39. 39.

    Phylllis

    Watching the fascinating story of the Cuban Missile Crisis on CBS Sunday Morning (what happened to those threads, btw?). Going to make chicken salad for lunch, and a sirloin roast for supper. Read a little bit, and get the hubby out for a walk later.

  40. 40.

    beltane

    We allowed ourselves to get trolled but good last week. Lets not let it happen again. I feel like taking a whip to all our concerned and panicked “friends” out there.

  44. 44.

    WereBear

    @Hal: Yes, this.

    They have already decided what they want to believe. Reality doesn’t have anything to do with it; or they couldn’t listen to Limbaugh for more than 5 minutes.

    I just say, “That is nothing but lies.” Let them do their own homework, if they wish. I’m tired of beating my head on their brickwork.

  46. 46.

    hep kitty

    @Svensker: Well, it’s been a real eye-opener for this white person, as to what black folks have to deal with on a daily basis. If the President of the Harvard Law Review can be reduced, in the minds of the American people, to a gangsta thug, I can’t imagine what the ordinary black person must have to put up with on a regular basis.

  49. 49.

    hep kitty

    @WereBear: Whenever I think of someone listening to Limbaugh, I start thinking about Jeffrey Dahmer and how he drilled holes into his victims’ skulls and poured acid on their brains. I know that’s sick, but to me, you might as well just inject poison and filth directly into your brain.

  50. 50.

    WereBear

    @hep kitty: Exactly. That is why I say listening to Limbaugh is an overt act; you have to buy into his whole twisted worldview to keep from running away, screaming.

    People who enter that world have given up Reality entirely.

  52. 52.

    Schlemizel

    @amk:

    But BHOs style does not appear to be fighting (we can argue about if it actually is fighting when if appears to be more go a long to get along) and people want to see some desk pounding and posturing.

    Compare FDRs “I welcome their hate” to any particular quote from his current successor. Right or wrong many people want a forceful person to lead. Yes, I understand the social and historic constraints on a black man in America when it comes to this aspect of campaigning. But the guy has a big staff of some highly sophisticated experts and if they can not find a way, if he sleepwalks through another debate, there is an increased chance of the worst case scenario taking us all down the crapper.

  53. 53.

    bemused

    @P. D. Obvious, M.D.:

    You could try with analyses incl. charts from Bruce Bartlett who worked with Jack Kemp, served under Reagan and Poppy Bush along with other conservatives/Republicans who don’t dilute the real math with koolaid.

    However, Hal is right. If your friend is too deep in the rightwing fantasy world, she won’t even be swayed by conservatives/Republicans who tell it like it is.

  54. 54.

    Todd

    @hep kitty:

    Well, it’s been a real eye-opener for this white person, as to what black folks have to deal with on a daily basis.

    If you notice, white folks didn’t start criticizing cops until cops started treating them like they always treat black folks.

  56. 56.

    Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason

    @P. D. Obvious, M.D.: Scroll through Krugman’s blog for stimulus effects. Calculated Risk has very good graphs on the depths of the Great Recession and how deep a hole we have to dig ourselves out from.

  57. 57.

    max

    I keep hearing about people panicking, but Lord, was I not panicking. I’m still not panicking. Four bad years of graycoats getting up to their usual and I don’t have any panic left. Pissed off? Pissed off I got to spare. (The pundits keep talking about how angry all those right-wingers are and how we should accommodate them, but I am just as pissed off right back at them.)

    Pushed out more donations Friday night (Obama, Tammy Duckworth (like I said I would, Rob Zerban, Beto O’Rourke and the DCCC (cee-cee-cee-cee-cee…). Senate folks are up for the next round that I can scrape together.

    It’s dismal outside, so I will probably install software.

    Also, creepy!:

    The first builds upon research into the power of social habits. The Obama and Romney campaigns, as well as affiliated groups, have asked their supporters to provide access to their profiles on Facebook and other social networks to chart connections to low-propensity voters in battleground states like Colorado, North Carolina and Ohio. [P]When one union volunteer in Ohio recently visited the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s election Web site, for instance, she was asked to log on with her Facebook profile. Computers quickly crawled through her list of friends, compared it to voter data files and suggested a work colleague to contact in Columbus. She had never spoken to the suggested person about politics, and he told her that he did not usually vote because he did not see the point.

    max
    [‘Even when my side does it, yes.’]

  58. 58.

    magurakurin

    @Maude:

    I guess it’s not actually on his headstone, though. He wanted it put there though. He did say “I’d like to see Paris before I die…but Philadelphia will do.” in a movie scene though.

    This time of year always makes me think of the song Fall in Philadelphia

  60. 60.

    Woodrowfan

    I was struck by this morning’s story in the WaPost about Kaine and Allen’s visits to retirement communities. This part is what hit me…

    Republicans in the audience asked about President Obama’s executive orders, Iran’s nuclear weapons program and the possibility that the Senate might grant taxing power to the United Nations. Democrats pointedly asked Allen about the consequences of repealing health-care reform and his support for “personhood” legislation, which would define life as beginning at conception.

    The “executive orders” thing comes from a bogus email that claims Obama has issued over 900 such orders, more than all his predecessors. Actually, he’s issued less than 175, fewer than any of his predecessors. In other words the elderly repubs are worried about 2 nonsense issues and one exaggerated one. The Democratic elders are worried about 2 real issues.

    There’s the crux of the problem. A good chuck of our country’s voters are so sucked into the RW BS machine that they can no longer tell what is real and what isn’t.

  61. 61.

    Elizabelle

    @Hal:

    Agree that this woman might be too far down the rabbit hole.

    But Balloon Juicers: please continue to answer “Dr. Obvious’s” request.

    help direct me to the more/most effective graphs/reports that illustrate:
    __
    1. The culpability of the Republicans in our debt
    2. How much better the economy is doing under Obama
    3. The effect of the stimulus

    It will be helpful to me (among others!), for passing along to actual independents I talk to. Those who might scoff at Paul Krugman, but would believe Bruce Bartlett.

    Always on the lookout for new sources, and there are definitely persuadable people out there who have not focused in on the election yet.

  62. 62.

    bemused

    @WereBear:

    I knew a female relative was a Republican but I was utterly horrified about a year ago when I found out she listened to Michael Savage. I was so appalled, I blurted out a brief ‘Savage is disgusting’ rant. She said she thought he was funny.

  63. 63.

    Schlemizel

    @hep kitty:

    Thats an apt analogy Listening to Mush Lamebrain is exactly like drilling a hole in your skull and pouring acid in there.

    Also, don’t beat yourself up about supporting Edwards. I got taken in by him too. It is entirely possible he really does believe the two Americas concept and would have been a huge supporter of policies that would have a real positive impact on the country. That he was a slimeball as a man? Well that ends up being really unfortunate.

    Imagine if FDR’s illicit relationships had kept him out of office? Don’t let a few dicks around here reinforce the idea – merrily sold by the GOP and their corporate masters – that an immoral man cannot be a great President. They only care about that when the man is a Dem – there are plenty of immoral GOP Presidents that do not bother them in the least.

  64. 64.

    hep kitty

    @Schlemizel: I hate to be an ass but Hope and Change time, ppl seemed to like the idea of Obama’s “bipartisan” approach. Whine: we want everybody to get alooooong! That’s how we get things done.

    HUH!

    Now, after 4 years and relentless, shameless, filthy attacks, it’s gotten a little stale, Mr. President!

    No, you are not a fist-pounder. Bring your humor to the debate, as Biden did. You’re good at that, with that sort of incredulous half-laugh that you do after recounting some republican absurdity. Do that thing you do. Make fun of them, turn them into comic characters, as your VP did. That will be enough for me.

    I don’t want to hear no soaring speeches, we need some red meat. Deliver it in your own style, but we are starving, Mr. President. Starving.

  65. 65.

    Anya

    @P. D. Obvious, M.D.: I agree with the others that your friend might be a lost cause. I really hate to give up on people (I think there’s always hope that a thinking person can evolve) but your friend’s choice of source of information tells me she’s either uninformed or made a choice. Limbaugh and Beck are so overt in their hate that anyone who chooses to listen to them is fully in camp hate. Hate to say it but charts will not penetrate this level of denial of facts.

    For those panicking about the polls here’s Constant: Stop Fucking Panicking, Liberals

  66. 66.

    Svensker

    @Woodrowfan:

    There’s the crux of the problem. A good chuck of our country’s voters are so sucked into the RW BS machine that they can no longer tell what is real and what isn’t.

    Yup. And sweet reason doesn’t reach these folks. If they don’t have a “road to Damascus” moment themselves, it’s pretty much impossible.

  67. 67.

    Boudica

    Thought Chris Hayes’ segment on employer vote coercion this morning was fascinating and scary. Loved the point that was made that these 1% can’t stand that come election day, their vote has no more power than the lowly worker they pay a pittance.

  68. 68.

    geg6

    @MikeJ:

    Yes, and I’m convinced that they were ratfuckers, every single one. That secret UNLIMITED CORPORATE CASH! pays for a lot of ratfucking.

  69. 69.

    Steeplejack

    On the agenda: mobilizing to go out sooner than I expected or wanted to. Bro’ man and his partner are having a brunch/barbecue in their renovated and relandscaped backyard, and a while ago I got the “Eek! We’re running late can you bring ice/soft drinks/something else ZOMG!” text message. So I’m going to shower and head out. Was hoping to laze around here for a couple of more hours.

    The housecat has been fed and has started into her morning nap on her heated microfleece throw, so at least things here are going according to God’s Ceiling Cat’s plan.

  70. 70.

    redshirt

    From the “Make your own Reality” file, I heard my first political ad on the radio yesterday. From the NRA’s PAC. It dropped all the right buzzwords – Obama is one SC justice away from seizing your guns; he’s going to give the UN control over your guns; do you want more guns? STOP OBAMA.

    It was pure Birch, and it makes me sad – a significant portion of our society is poisoned with insanity. It’s going to be a long road getting them back.

  71. 71.

    geg6

    @hep kitty:

    You need to calm down. You’ve been freaking out for over a week and I understand how election season gets all of us on a feedback loop of highs leading to lows and higher highs leading to lower lows and all that. But it really is counterproductive. It’s the kind of hysteria that, IMHO, caused the drop in the polls after the presidential debate. We need to take a cue from O, the calmest person in the room.

    Are you doing any campaign work? You need to channel all that anxiety in a positive way. I’ve long since stopped worrying about that debate or the shit on cable tv or the loud idiots in my life who will never, never, never vote for Obama or for anything in their own self-interest because they are too stupid to put 2 and 2 together and get 4. And that’s because I’ve been volunteering and working with real people on the streets and on the phone. It’s been amazing and it certainly keeps your spirits up. If you’re not doing it, you should. You’d change your whole view of this thing.

  72. 72.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @WereBear:

    I just say, “That is nothing but lies.” Let them do their own homework, if they wish. I’m tired of beating my head on their brickwork.

    You’re right that you can’t argue them out of it–they just double down with their own personal Gish Gallop.

    More in sorrow than anger, I say,

    These people you listen to are lying to you. They’ve been lying to you for years and years. Someday they’ll say something you know from your own experience is untrue, and you’ll start to understand that they’ve been lying to you all this time. And when that happens, don’t come back & tell me I was right. Ask yourself why they’ve been lying to you. Ask yourself who’s been benefiting from so many people believing those lies. Then go talk to someone who still believes the lies, & help them come back to reality.

  74. 74.

    Chris

    You know, the sad thing about that FDR speech is that there really did use to be Republicans who said they believed in these things, actually did believe in them, and work to make them real when they were in office. Some of them in FDR’s day, many more of them after. And George Romney was one of them.

  75. 75.

    Davis X. Machina

    1. The culpability of the Republicans in our debt

    One chart.

    It won’t matter though. People vote party, tribe, religion, region, family history, narrative, affect — and then based on facts. The facts they listen to, they listen to because they jibe with their already-exisitng party, tribe, religion, region, family history, narrative…

  76. 76.

    Chris

    @Todd:

    If you notice, white folks didn’t start criticizing cops until cops started treating them like they always treat black folks.

    I noticed that about the TSA freakout two Thanksgivings ago, after they installed the new full-body scanners.

    There’s something more than ordinarily disgusting about watching the people who spent seven years under Bush screaming to allow any and all police powers to the state up to and including torture and warrantless wiretapping, screaming bloody murder and fascism because they suddenly have to stand in a booth for five seconds.

  77. 77.

    lamh35

    @Svensker: Abso-freakin’-lutely.

    You not only have to deal with regularly, you can’t even mention that you have to deal with it without being accused of playing the “race card” or just “whining” about “da man”

    So to white people who are so shocked that we are NOT i a post racial America, I always jsut say “No Shh Sherlock”

  78. 78.

    Elizabelle

    @geg6:

    Good advice!

    Get involved. Channel that anxiety and frustration.

    Step away from the keyboard, as much as you can.

  79. 79.

    Elizabelle

    @beltane:

    Has that “psl37” whatever poster been around a long time?

    I started scrolling right past that creature’s (false?) angst.

    But it can poison a thread.

  80. 80.

    lamh35

    Was reading twitter during my morning break and I swear I saw a tweet about a CNN Arizone poll that had Obama ahead by 1%. If it wasn’t just a figment of my imagination, that poll coupled with the other one yesterday, makes Arizona interesting.

    Would be interesting to see POTUS do just one big rally in AZ to get some good local press.

  81. 81.

    Chris

    @Schlemizel:

    They only care about that when the man is a Dem – there are plenty of immoral GOP Presidents that do not bother them in the least.

    That, and when did “morality” become a synonym for “sex?” Killing people has moral implications too, Religious Right to the contrary. So does starving them to death in order to feed billionaires.

  83. 83.

    Honus

    @geg6:the liberal enclave of Titusville, sure but what about out in Oil City?
    /snark/ never been there but my grandmother was from Oil City. Grandpa was from Titusville. German but he was baptized at St Titus (the Irish church) instead of with the Germans at St Warburg.

  84. 84.

    Elizabelle

    @arguingwithsignposts:

    What was the nym? Not wyld pirate!

    Checked in on the DSK thread immediately following, and psy37 is on there making sense, very thoughtful comment, so now I feel bad!!

    But I can’t stand non-stop whingeing. I would read an “I’m a liberal and Obama sucks” blog if I wanted that.

  87. 87.

    divF

    Working on lecture notes for my students that I hope will magically turn into something that can be sent to a publisher. This thing has been hanging around in various forms for 20 years, and remarkably enough is still mostly not out of date. I want it off my bucket list, *now*.

  88. 88.

    RaflW

    I had a brief snit last night watching SNL last night (btw, they skewered Apple but good last night on their Chinese labor practices…), but the Obama campaign ran the asinine Big Bird ad. In Minnesota. At about 11pm during SNL.

    It had the tag asking ppl to donate 10 bucks to the campaign. Maybe some lonely, half-drunk folks would pony up because of that ad, but its just an awful 30 seconds.

    We hear all the time about how smart the Obama campaign is. I just don’t get how they think the big bird meme isn’t over, over, over. It looks petty and petulant now.

    I still support Obama, just gave thru the BJ Act Blue a couple days ago, and I know I’m not a trained campaign tactician. But I truly cringed when I realized it was the big bird ad.

    OK. Onward. Time to talk Photo ID to my Unitarian peeps here shortly…

  89. 89.

    geg6

    @Honus:

    LOL! If you’ve never been there, you should go one day. Simply one of the most beautiful places in all of PA and that’s saying something.

    But Titusville, Oil City, and Franklin are in the part of PA that those of us that live in the more civilized areas call, affectionately and not-so-affectionately, Pennsylbama. Or Pennsyltucky. Either way, same thing.

    And though I saw a lot of Obama/Biden signs and bumper stickers, I saw even more Rmoney signs and those completely absurd “Obama is destroying coal!” signs. We were happy to see, though, that the people who hang out at the VFW (we’re members here, so the membership transfers to the one up there) are mostly in the Obama camp simply on the strength of his support for veterans.

  90. 90.

    lamh35

    The father of the late Ambassador Chris Stevens pleads for his son’s death not to be exploited as part of the presidential campaign.

    From Bloomberg …
    “The father of Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya who was killed in the attack in Benghazi last month, said his son’s death shouldn’t be politicized in the presidential campaign.“It would really be abhorrent to make this into a campaign issue,” Jan Stevens, 77, said in a telephone interview from his home in Loomis, California, as he prepares for a memorial service for his son next week.
    Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee, has criticized President Barack Obama for not providing adequate security in Libya, saying the administration has left the country exposed to a deadly terrorist attack.”

  91. 91.

    rickstershierpa

    Can you imagine on the cluck, clucking, by the VSPs about FDR about he was so “unserious” and failed to “respect” his opponents? Notice the laughter his humor provokes from the audience.

  92. 92.

    fourmorewars

    Just please tell me that Obama’s gonna roll out some commercials excerpting that video that Tom Hanks narrated, in the swing states. I do believe Tom polls well, so mainly go with the parts he’s voiceovering.

  97. 97.

    LadyNorth

    @Uncle Cosmo: I think yours is the best approach. Yelling at them, confronting them directly is counterproductive. They have been lied to, it’s the simple truth. You’re planting the seeds of doubt. And it will be easier for them to accept that they’ve been lied to and manipulated, instead of recognizing that they’re wrong about things. It will be painful for them, but at least if they wake up, they’ll redirect their anger at the right target: the manipulators.

    Would you accept that I copy your quote and use it when convenient ?

  98. 98.

    hep kitty

    @geg6: I don’t know what the hell you are talking about, I am trying to keep a friend from freaking out about the election right now

    Excuse me for expressing some frustrations on this blog, which I do not express elsewhere. I used to think this was a place for that, a little bitching and moaning you wouldn’t do in front of other people.

    But how intolerant some of you are/have become. Fuck all that judgmental shit. I’m tired of it and you do not know what in the fuck I am doing nor to I feel any compunction to share my previous political activities with you.

    You people, some of you, need to get over yourselves and getting all “freaked out” when somebody doesn’t fall in lockstep every single one of your grand ideas.

    Stop with the self-righteous bullshit and assumptions. I have nothing to feel guilty about, I can promise you that, nothing at all.

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