Bill was wrong. Thank goodness.
Maybe there are fewer idiots than we thought.
Categories: Bill Maher, Elections
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KGB ReportObservations by and for the vaguely disenchanted.
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Tempting the wrath of the whatever from high atop the thing. ISSN: 1525-898X Published Monday-Thursday. Usually. |
"Barkes writes like he speaks... incoherently."
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Bill was wrong. Thank goodness.
Maybe there are fewer idiots than we thought.
Categories: Bill Maher, Elections
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Bill Maher is usually correct with his political predictions. He warned us in 2018 that Trump wasn't going to go quietly.
Let's hope he's wrong this time around...
Categories: Bill Maher, Elections
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-----
Uvalde teacher who lost 11 kids in his classroom says 'there is no excuse' for officers' delay in taking down gunman. "You're supposed to protect and serve. ... There is no excuse for their actions. And I will never forgive them."
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Most Americans don't accept the mass slaughter of children. Why does the GOP? (Washington Post gift article.)
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Fox News Channel to skip live primetime broadcast of Jan. 6 committee hearings because of course. Fox News will be the only major news network not to air the entire Jan. 6 Committee hearings live, and instead will provide its own coverage "as warranted" through the filter of its regular prime-time programs and hosts.
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Nightclub needle attacks puzzle authorities across Europe. It's not just France: Britain's government is studying a spate of "needle spiking" there, and police in Belgium and the Netherlands are investigating scattered cases, too.
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The 'Benjamin Button' effect: Scientists can reverse aging in mice. The goal is to do the same for humans. Using proteins that can turn an adult cell into a stem cell, researchers have reset aging cells in mice to earlier versions of themselves. In the first breakthrough, published in late 2020, old mice with poor eyesight and damaged retinas could suddenly see again, with vision that at times rivaled their offspring's.
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World Bank warns global economy may suffer 1970s-style stagflation. The World Bank on Tuesday slashed its global growth forecast to 2.9% and warned that many countries could fall into recession as the economy slips into a period of stagflation reminiscent of the 1970s.
Domino's Pizza offering half off all online pizza orders until June 12. All regularly priced pizza items are part of the deal, including specialty pizza offerings like Brooklyn style or pan pizzas. The deal can be applied to pick-up or delivery orders.
Target is ramping up discounts. Here's why. Target is stuck with too much home decor and too many TVs. To clear out the glut, it will ramp up discounts.
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Five biggest Supreme Court cases to watch. The U.S. Supreme Court tends to issue its biggest decisions in June. With a conservative super majority of justices, the public is focused on what new precedents the court could set - or even overturn.
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The GOP drive to install thousands of poll workers sets off alarms. Raises alarms that Republican election deniers could infiltrate official election operations and undermine the process.
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They thought they bought Obamacare plans. What they got wasn't insurance.
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10 secrets snack companies don't want you to know. Well, this is depressing.
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Neural 'poisonous flowers' could be the source of Alzheimer's plaque, says study.
Neuroscience says this simple sleep habit literally cleans your brain. We're not sure why it works. But it seems to have a significant effect.
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Paramount sued over 'Top Gun' copyright as 'Maverick' soars at the box office.
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Miscellany:
Birthdays
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On this date in:
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Today is:
Daniel Boone Day, June Bug Day, National CAPHPACH Day, National Chocolate Ice Cream Day, Trial Technology Day, and VCR Day
Categories: Aging (Ageing), Alzheimer's Disease, Domino's Pizza, Economics, Elections, Fox News, Mass shootings, Needle spiking, Obamacare, Paramount Pictures, Republicans, Stagflation, Supreme Court, Target, Top Gun, Uvalde school shooting
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It's 19 weeks into the year and America has already seen 198 mass shootings. "This is planned violence. There is, in every one of these cases, always a trail of ... behavioral warning signs."
A fringe conspiracy theory, fostered online, is refashioned by the G.O.P. (NY Times free story) Replacement theory, espoused by the suspect in the Buffalo massacre, has been embraced by some right-wing politicians and commentators.
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Potentially alive 830-million-year-old organisms found trapped in ancient rock. What could go wrong?
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Americans can expect to pay a lot more for medical care in retirement. No kidding. A 65-year-old couple retiring this year can expect to spend an average of $315,000 in health-care and medical expenses in their retirement, according to a new estimate by Fidelity Investments. That's 5% higher than last year's estimate.
And what do they get for it? One in four Medicare patients harmed in hospitals, nearly half preventable. Among the roughly 1 million Medicare patients who were discharged from hospitals in October 2018, a total of 258,323 experienced an adverse or temporary harm event during their stay. And 12% experienced events that led to longer stays, lifesaving interventions, permanent harm, or death. "This projects to 121,089 Medicare patients having experienced at least one adverse event during the 1-month study period," the report stated.
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Whiny space tourists say they were too busy on the space station. They wanted to look out the window.
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The other scary thing about Alito's draft ruling on abortion... The dissents Alito stakes his argument on don't have to do with only abortion. They suggest threats to other constitutional rights, such as contraception access or LGBTQ protections. (Washington Post free article.)
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"I cannot survive on $260 a week": US retail and fast-food workers strike. Workers who bore the brunt of the Covid pandemic at billion-dollar companies such as Dollar General, McDonald's and Wendy's are leading a surge in action.
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Pennsylvania US Senate candidate Fetterman suffers stroke but says he's 'well on my way to a full recovery'. Don't bet against anybody who looks like Thanos. Election Day is tomorrow. Don't miss it.
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Yale research identifies causes of cancer. TL;DR: Essentially, being a living being on Earth.
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Confirmed: Disney Officially Replaces Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow. Though the Mouse House still uses Johnny Depp's likeness for new Jack Sparrow merchandise, as well as features the man in their famous Pirates of the Caribbean attractions at Disney Parks, Disney has officially dumped Depp forever.
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Pizza has a delivery problem. The difficulty finding and keeping employees has hampered businesses across multiple sectors, but the restaurant industry has been hit particularly hard, leading to shorter operating hours and longer wait times for customers.
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The strange post-Trump politics of the Pennsylvania republican primaries. A few theories for why the former President's endorsement of Mehmet Oz failed to clear the field.
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Before Russia's invasion of the Ukraine, only 20% of Finland's citizens were in favor of joining NATO. Now it's 75%.
And in response...
Russian state TV suggests deploying nuclear weapons against Finland, Sweden. "Their official reason [to join NATO] is fear. But they'll have more fear in NATO. When NATO bases appear in Sweden and Finland, Russia will have no choice but to neutralize the imbalance and new threat by deploying tactical nuclear weapons," presenter Dmitry Kiselyov reportedly said on the channel.
Remember the old truism that the United States was never involved in conflicts with countries that had McDonald's franchises? McDonald's to leave Russia for good after 30 years.
-----
Aging, and the chronic diseases that come with it, is considered just an inevitable part of life. But what if it wasn't? What if aging itself was a disease- a disease that can be treated? Many scientists are doing just that, and the results are nothing short of shocking. Just how close are we to a cure for aging?
-----
Tweets, observations, and diversions:
Things you discover looking up other things: Back when rat infestations were commonplace, people found that rats loved chewing on paper. In an effort to save your notes while also offering a bit of papery delicacy to disease-carrying rodents, companies added wide margins to all four sides of notebook paper.
Some clickbait just doesn't work. "Unsettling Don Knotts secrets you never knew." Don't think so.
Trump supporters are white people for whom being born white in America
wasn't enough of an advantage.
-Middle Age Riot
Questions for the people who are scared of becoming a minority: Why is
that? Are minorities treated differently?
-Padma Lakshmi
You don't really think the party that yawned while its public health
policies killed over 1,000,000 Americans with COVID is ever going to
care if its ahistorical Second Amendment fetish kills thousands of
Americans with gun violence, do you?
-Mrs. Betty Bowers
Categories: Abortion, Aging (Ageing), Cancer, Disney, Elections, Finland, Joe Scott, John Fetterman, Johnny Depp, Mass shootings, McDonald's, Medicare, Medicine, Mehmet Oz, NATO, Pirates of the Carribean, Pizza, Replacement Theory, Republicans, Retirement, Russia, Science, Space, Supreme Court, Sweden, Ukraine, Unions
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...when the only election that mattered was the Democratic Primary.
The only difference between the Democrats and the Republicans is that the Democrats
allow the poor to be corrupt, too.
-Oscar Levant
Categories: Democrats, Elections, Republicans, The Daily KGB Report
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This year's presidential election has the potential to be one of the greatest political trainwrecks in American history.
The founding fathers had a low opinion of the average citizen. That's why Presidents are selected by the Electoral College and not by popular vote.
The founders also didn't believe in partisan politics, which is why there's no mention of political parties in the Constitution, so the present method of primary elections, caucuses, and party conventions evolved erratically over the years.
While most savvy voters know the president and vice president aren't elected by popular vote, and that each party's nominees are selected by delegates attending national conventions, they may not know that, in most cases, those delegates can vote for whomever they want, regardless of the results of their state's primaries or caucuses after the first ballot. There are even five states and territories who don't hold primaries or caucuses, resulting in 112 delegates who can vote according to their personal preferences without direction from voters.
Consider the 1968 Democratic convention. Despite the fact that over 80 percent of primary voters had supported anti-Vietnam war candidates, the "peace" candidate, Senator Eugene McCarthy, was defeated by Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who had not competed in any of the primaries, instead gaining his delegates in caucus states that were controlled by party leaders.
The Humphrey business resulted in many- but not all- states to adopt rules where delegates are bound to vote for the winning candidate during the convention's first ballot. After that, it's a free-for-all.
The worst case scenario to date was the 1924 Democratic convention, a 16-day marathon that required 103 ballots to select a candidate. Wikipedia notes that during his 1960 campaign, John F. Kennedy cited the dilemma of the Massachusetts delegation at the 1924 convention when making light of his own campaign problems: "Either we must switch to a more liberal candidate or move to a cheaper hotel."
What could happen this year? Say Trump is nominated, despite the party's efforts to thwart his campaign. Disgruntled Republicans could put together a third-party ticket, in an effort to prevent any candidate from winning the absolute majority of 270 electoral votes necessary to win the general election.
Should that happen, the president would be chosen by that shining example of civic responsibility, the U.S. House of Representatives, composed of lame duck Congressmen, many with an axe to grind. The U.S. Senate gets to pick the vice president.
Could it come to that? Probably not. But the odds are good the Republicans will have a brokered convention, and the Democrats may have one as well, if Bernie Sanders can convince uncommitted superdelegates to take his side.
Categories: Congress, Democrats, Elections, Electoral College, Politics, Republicans, Voting
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A black man voting for the Republicans makes about as much sense as a
chicken voting for Colonel Sanders.
-Buddy Watts, Sr.
A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a
tax can escape the obligation to pay it.
-Alexis de Tocqueville
A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls.
-Dan
Quayle
A society is not 'free' merely because the freedoms the people are doing
away with are those they voted at the last election to do without.
-William
F. Buckley, Jr.
A straw vote only shows which way the hot air blows.
-O. Henry
Along with voting, jury duty, and paying taxes, goofing off is one of
the central obligations of American citizenship.
-Sarah Vowell
Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may
cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.
-John
Quincy Adams
America is a land where a citizen will cross the ocean to fight for
democracy- and won't cross the street to vote in a national election.
-Bill
Vaughan
And political parties, overanxious for vote catching, become tolerant to
intolerant groups.
-Wendell Willkie
Applause, mingled with boos and hisses, is about all that the average
voter is able or willing to contribute to public life.
-Elmer Davis
As people do better, they start voting like Republicans... unless they
have too much education and vote Democratic, which proves there can be
too much of a good thing.
-Karl Rove
As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are
used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by
destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people
will solemnly vote against their own interests.
-Gore Vidal
As to my political faith- I have never voted. My father was a Democrat,
my mother a Republican, and I am an Episcopalian.
-George C.
Marshall
Ask a man which way he is going to vote, and he will probably tell you.
Ask him, however, why, and vagueness is all.
-Bernard Levin
Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote.
-George
Jean Nathan
Decision by democratic majority vote is a fine form of government, but
it's a stinking way to create.
-Lillian Hellman
Democracy is being allowed to vote for the candidate you dislike least.
-Robert
Byrne
Democracy means that people can say what they want to. All the people.
It means that they can vote as they wish. All the people. It means that
they can worship God in any way they feel right, and that includes
Christians and Jews and voodoo doctors as well. It means that everybody
should have a job, if he's willing to work, and an education, and the
right to bring up his children without fear of the future. And it means
that the old shall be provided for, without shame to themselves or to
their families. It means do unto others as you would have others do unto
you. It also means the prayers of the pilgrim fathers in the wilderness,
and the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution of the United
States, and the Bill of Rights, and the Emancipation Proclamation, and
the dreams of an immigrant mother for her children. And that's what I
believe in.
-Dalton Trumbo
Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on
what to have for dinner.
-James Bovard
Don't buy a single vote more than necessary. I'll be damned if I'm going
to pay for a landslide.
-Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr.
Don't vote. It only encourages them.
-Unattributed
Elections are won by men and women chiefly because most people vote
against somebody rather than for somebody.
-Franklin P. Adams
Ever occur to you why some of us can be this much concerned with animals
suffering? Because government is not. Why not? Animals don't vote.
-Paul
Harvey
Every American election summons the individual voter to weigh the past
against the future.
-Theodore H. White
Every guy looks in his pocket and then votes.
-Will Rogers
Every new baby is a blind desperate vote for survival: people who find
themselves unable to register an effective political protest against
extermination do so by a biological act.
-Lewis Mumford
Every time you spend money, you're casting a vote for the kind of world
you want.
-Anna Lappe
Everybody says not enough people vote. Now, I don't know nothing, but
after the midterms, pretty obvious to me, that too many people vote.
-Will
Durst
Finally, it occurs to me that the biggest problem with our elections is
that however you vote, you wind up electing a politician.
-Burt
Prelutsky
Florida's number three industry, behind tourism and skin cancer, is
voter fraud.
-Dave Barry
Given a choice between two bald political candidates, the American
people will vote for the less bald of the two.
-Vic Gold
Given the choice between a Republican and someone who acts like a
Republican, people will vote for the real Republican all the time.
-Harry
S. Truman
Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than
Christianity has made them good.
-H.L. Mencken
Half the American people never read a newspaper. Half never vote for
President- the same half?
-Gore Vidal
Here's the thing about rights. They're not supposed to be voted on.
That's why they call them rights.
-Rachel Maddow
I can understand the poor and stupid voting for Marxism or one of its
fashionable variants. If you've no hope of being other than a slave, you
may as well opt for the most efficient form of slavery.
-P.D. James
I didn't vote for change, but that's all I have left.
-Unattributed
I do not know if the people of the United States would vote for superior
men if they ran for office, but there can be no doubt that such men do
not run.
-Alexis de Tocqueville
I have never had a vote, and I have raised hell all over this country.
You don't need a vote to raise hell! You need convictions and a voice!
-Mary
Harris Jones (Mother Jones)
I have this fear that one day there's going to be a fire in the Senate
and there are only going to be 57 Senators there and they'll all die
because they won't have the 60 votes to allow themselves to leave the
building.
-Barney Frank
I hope some of the men who get the most votes will be elected.
-Will
Rogers
I learned a long time ago in Hollywood that the only person I should
vote for is myself.
-Jack Nicholson
I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for
Nixon. Where they are I don't know. They're outside my ken. But
sometimes when I'm in a theater I can feel them.
-Pauline Kael
I mean to live my life an obedient man, but obedient to God, subservient
to the wisdom of my ancestors; never to the authority of political
truths arrived at yesterday at the voting booth.
-William F.
Buckley, Jr.
I think it's about time we voted for senators with breasts. After all,
we've been voting for boobs long enough.
-Claire Sargent
I vote for the same reason that I would punch a bear that was eating me.
I don't think it will make a big difference in the outcome, but at least
it doesn't look like I want to be eaten by a bear.
-Nick Doody
I voted for the Democrats because I didn't like the way the Republicans
were running the country. Which is turning out to be like shooting
yourself in the head to stop your headache.
-Jack Mayberry
I'm so crazy I plan to vote for Eisenhower again this November.
-Ken
Kesey
I'm sorry, but voting for a presidential candidate because you like the
choice for vice president is like getting married to a woman because you
like her cat.
-Kevin G. Barkes
If all power is in the people, if there is no higher law than their
will, and if by counting their votes, their will may be ascertained-
then the people may entrust all their power to anyone, and the power of
the pretender and the usurper is then legitimate. It is not to be
challenged since it came originally from the sovereign people.
-Walter
Lippmann
If God had wanted us to vote, He would have given us candidates.
-Jay
Leno
If pigs could vote, the man with the slop bucket would be elected
swineherd every time, no matter how much slaughtering he did on the side.
-Orson
Scott Card
If the Gods Had Meant Us to Vote They Would Have Given Us Candidates
(book title)
-Jim Hightower
If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal.
-Emma Goldman
If you agree with me on 9 out of 12 issues, vote for me. If you agree
with me on 12 out of 12 issues, see a psychiatrist.
-Ed Koch
If you don't vote, then you may be leaving the decisions up to someone
dumber than you.
-Jesse Ventura
If you make less than $50,000 a year and vote Republican, you are a
moron.
-Rack Jite
If you voted for change, you better start counting it.
-Unattributed
If you're listening to a rock star in order to get your information on
who to vote for, you're a bigger moron than they are. Why are we rock
stars? Because we're morons.
-Alice Cooper
In a democracy, the votes of the vicious and stupid count. On the other
hand, in any other system, they might be running the show. (from The
Boston Globe)
-Unattributed
In any relatively close election you can generally credit almost any
subgroup as providing the marginal votes.
-Duncan Black
In democracy it's your vote that counts. In feudalism it's your count
that votes.
-Mogens Jallberg
In most places in the country, voting is looked upon as a right and a
duty, but in Chicago it's a sport.
-Dick Gregory
In my lifetime, we've gone from Eisenhower to George W. Bush. We've gone
from John F. Kennedy to Al Gore. If this is evolution, I believe that in
twelve years, we'll be voting for plants.
-Lewis Black
In really hard times the rules of the game are altered. The inchoate
mass begins to stir. It becomes potent, and when it strikes... it
strikes with incredible emphasis. Those are the rare occasions when a
national will emerges from the scattered, specialized, or indifferent
blocs of voters who ordinarily elect the politicians. Those are for good
or evil the great occasions in a nation's history.
-Walter Lippmann
Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no
right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of
rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities.
-Ayn
Rand
It doesn't matter who you vote for, the government always gets in.
-Unattributed
It is just as impossible to help reform by conciliating prejudice as it
is by buying votes. Prejudice is the enemy. Whoever is not for you is
against you.
-John Jay Chapman
It isn't money itself that causes the trouble, but the use of money as
votive offering and pagan ornament.
-Lewis H. Lapham
It makes no difference who you vote for- the two parties are really one
party representing four percent of the people.
-Gore Vidal
It's not the voting that's democracy; it's the counting.
-Tom
Stoppard
Legislators represent people, not trees or acres. Legislators are
elected by voters, not farms or cities or economic interests.
-Earl
Warren
Like the effect of advertising upon the customer, the methods of
political propaganda tend to increase the feeling of insignificance of
the individual voter.
-Erich Fromm
Majority rule only works if you're also considering individual rights.
Because you can't have five wolves and one sheep voting on what to have
for supper.
-Larry Flynt
More often than not Democratic Law works to the advantage of the few
even though the many have voted; this, of course, is because the few
have told them how to vote.
-Charles Bukowski
Never pass up an opportunity to appear on C-Span. C-Span viewers vote.
-Lamar
Alexander
Never vote for the best candidate. Vote for the one who will do the
least harm.
-Frank Dane
No politician is perfect. But in every election in your life, there will
be one choice that is better than the others. Go out and vote for that
one.
-Bill Maher
Nothing can so alienate a voter from the political system as backing a
winning candidate.
-Mark B. Cohen
One's right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free
press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may
not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.
-Hugo
Black
Our only hope is to control the vote.
-Medgar Evers
People vote their resentment, not their appreciation. The average man
does not vote for anything but against something.
-H.H. Munro Saki
Politics is how you live your life, not whom you vote for.
-Jerry
Rubin
Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign
funds from the rich by promising to protect each from the other.
-Oscar
Ameringer
President Bush has said that he does not need approval from the UN to
wage war, and I'm thinking, well, hell, he didn't need the approval of
the American voters to become president, either.
-David Letterman
Quite a few people have to believe something is normal before it becomes
normal- a sort of voting situation. But once the threshold is reached,
then everyone demands to do whatever it is.
-Alan Kay
Some politician some years ago said that bad officials are elected by
good voters who do not vote.
-Dwight D. Eisenhower
Son, if you can't take their money, drink their whiskey, screw their
women, and then vote against 'em, you don't deserve to be here.
-Sam
Rayburn
Television is the most perfect democracy. You sit there with your remote
control and vote.
-Aaron Brown
Texas has a lot of electrical votes.
-Yogi Berra
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with
the average voter.
-Winston Churchill
The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a
democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you
don't have to waste your time voting.
-Charles Bukowski
The difference between corporations and governments is governments have
a monopoly on force. It's a lot easier to vote with your feet or your
wallet than it is to change a government with your vote.
-P.J.
O'Rourke
The effort to calculate exactly what the voters want at each particular
moment leaves out of account the fact that when they are troubled the
thing the voters most want is to be told what to want.
-Walter
Lippmann
The great thing about democracy is that it gives every voter a chance to
do something stupid.
-Art Spander
The laws and the entire scheme of our civil rule, from the town meeting
to the State capitals and the national capital, is yours. Your every
voter, as surely as your Chief Magistrate, under the same high sanction,
though in a different sphere, exercises a public trust.
-Grover
Cleveland
The next time they give you all that civic bullsh*t about voting, keep
in mind that Hitler was elected in a full, free democratic election.
-George
Carlin
The only way to change is to vote. People are responsible.
-Paul
Wellstone
The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which
other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce a man
to slavery, for slavery consists in being subject to the will of
another, and he that has not a vote in the election of representatives
is in this case.
-Thomas Paine
The right to vote, or equal civil rights, may be good demands, but true
emancipation begins neither at the polls nor in courts. It begins in
woman's soul.
-Emma Goldman
The universe is not rich enough to buy the vote of an honest man.
-Dick
Gregory
The votes elected officials make should be based on the best interests
of the American people, not the fear of retribution when shadowy groups
spend millions of dollars on negative advertisements.
-Bernie
Sanders
The world would be a better place if people stopped voting for folksy
candidates they could have a beer with and started voting for people
smarter than they are.
-Marcus Sakey
There are men whose sense of humour is so ill developed that they still
bear a grudge against Copernicus because he dethroned them from the
central position in the universe. They feel it a personal affront that
they can no longer consider themselves the pivot upon which turns the
whole of created things.
-W. Somerset Maugham
There are no moderate Republicans left, with the exception of a few who
would vote with us when it doesn't make any difference. It's the most
rigid ideological party since before the Civil War.
-Barney Frank
There is but one unconditional commandment, which is that we should seek
incessantly, with fear and trembling, so to vote and to act as to bring
about the very largest total universe of good which we can see.
-William
James
There is no Constitutional issue here. The command of the Constitution
is plain. There is no moral issue. It is wrong- deadly wrong- to deny
any of your fellow Americans the right to vote in this country. There is
no issue of States' rights or National rights. There is only the
struggle for human rights.
-Lyndon B. Johnson
There is no hope even that woman, with her right to vote, will ever
purify politics.
-Emma Goldman
There's a true schizophrenia where if you say to voters, you know, do
you think the federal government spends too much money and they should
spend less, they say yeah, absolutely. Then you name specific things,
like Pell grants for students and they say, no, not that. How 'bout NIH,
medical research funding? Nah, you really shouldn't cut that. And pretty
soon you've proved that what the American public is against is
arithmetic.
-Bill Gates
To make democracy work, we must be a notion of participants, not simply
observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.
-Louis
L'Amour
Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our
ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead.
-G.K. Chesterton
Truth is not determined by majority vote.
-Doug Gwyn
Unfortunately, you can't vote the rascals out, because you never voted
them in, in the first place.
-Noam Chomsky
Vote for the man who promises least; he'll be the least disappointing.
-Bernard
Baruch
Vote, n. The instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a fool
of himself and a wreck of his country.
-Ambrose Bierce
Voters don't decide issues, they decide who will decide issues.
-George
F. Will
Voters inclined to loathe and fear elite Ivy League schools rarely make
fine distinctions between Yale and Harvard. All they know is that both
are full of rich, fancy, stuck-up and possibly dangerous intellectuals
who never sit down to supper in their undershirt no matter how hot the
weather gets.
-Russell Baker
Voters quickly forget what a man says.
-Richard M. Nixon
Voting is like driving... you choose 'D' to move forwards and 'R' to go
backwards.
-Unattributed
We are going to lose 51 states. Puerto Rico will demand statehood just
for the chance not to vote for this guy.
-James Lileks
We live in a country where voting rights get gutted but Sharknado gets a
sequel.
-John Fugelsang
We need to be asking for the vote in the most powerful way possible,
which is to have people asking for the vote who are comfortable and look
like and sound like the people that we're asking for the vote from.
-Karl
Rove
We'd all like to vote for the best man, but he's never a candidate.
-Frank
McKinney (Kin) Hubbard
What's real in politics is what the voters decide is real.
-Ben J.
Wattenberg
When a party can't think of anything else they always fall back on lower
taxes. It has a magic sound to a voter just like Fairyland is spoken of
and dreamed of by children. But no child has ever seen it. Neither has
any voter ever lived to see the day when his taxes were lowered.
-Will
Rogers
When the political columnists say 'Every thinking man' they mean
themselves, and when candidates appeal to 'Every intelligent voter' they
mean everybody who is going to vote for them.
-Franklin P. Adams
When too many Americans don't vote or participate, some see apathy and
despair. I see disappointment and even outrage. And I believe that out
of this frustration can come hope and action.
-Paul Wellstone
When your opponent sets up a straw man, set it on fire and kick the
cinders around the stage. Don't worry about losing the Strawperson-
American community vote.
-James Lileks
Whenever a fellow tells me he is bipartisan, I know he's going to vote
against me.
-Harry S. Truman
Where a government has come into power through some form of popular
vote... the guerrilla outbreak cannot be promoted, since the
possibilities of peaceful struggle have not yet been exhausted.
-Che
Guevara
Where is the politician who has not promised to fight to the death for
lower taxes- and who has not proceeded to vote for the very spending
projects that make tax cuts impossible?
-Barry M. Goldwater
Why do the people humiliate themselves by voting? I didn't vote because
I have dignity. If I had closed my nose and voted for one of them, I
would spit on my own face.
-Oriana Fallaci
Yet in all our rejoicing let us neither express, nor cherish, any harsh
feeling towards any citizen who, by his vote, has differed with us. Let
us at all times remember that all American citizens are brothers of a
common country, and should dwell together in the bonds of fraternal
feeling.
-Abraham Lincoln
You take your classified telephone directory, and open up 'Churches',
and have a ruler in your hand. And you will find that the longest space
is occupied by authoritarian, Bible-banging churches. And these people
are barbarians, who take the written word of the Bible literally.
Because they need terribly, they have a personal need, for something to
depend on.... The government realizes that there is a very large number
of people like that; and therefore, to keep their votes, they have to
pander to those kind of people. And these are the boys who never grew
up; they always need Papa.... The trouble is that the boys who need
Papa, are violent. They have the guns. And they are the types of people
who like to be soldiers, policemen- tough guys. And therefore they have
a great deal of power.
-Alan Watts
You tell me your favorite novelists and I'll tell you whom you vote for,
or whether you vote at all.
-Stephen Vizinczey
You will never escape the will of the mob. About the best anyone has
ever figured out to do is herd them into voting booths.
-Barry
Shein
-----
(November 3 is also the birthday of James Reston and Roseanne Barr.)
Categories: Elections, Quotes of the day, Quotes on a topic, Voting
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Skippy actually listens to a complete Ted Cruz speech.
Categories: Elections, Politics, Ted Cruz
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KGB Report welcomes you to 2013: May this arbitrary, transient point in your solipsistic sense of the space-time continuum delineate the initiation of a series of random events which trend in a manner which you perceive to be favorable.
Categories: Barack Obama, Cartoons, Elections, History, Holidays, Mass shootings, New Years, Photo of the day, Politics, Second Amendment, The Big Bang Theory, U.S. Constitution, WTF?
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Failure to write a concession speech is what sealed Mitt Romney's fate:
(YouTube video: "Election Night" episode, The West Wing)
Sam Seaborn: You wrote a concession?
Toby Ziegler: Of course I wrote
a concession. You want to tempt the wrath of the whatever from high atop
the thing?
Sam Seaborn: No.
Toby Ziegler: Then go outside, turn
around three times and spit. What the hell's the matter with you?
Categories: Elections, Mitt Romney, Politics, TV, Video, YouTube
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(Paul Noth, The New Yorker)
Categories: Cartoons, Elections, Politics, The New Yorker
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Purist conservatives are like idiot hipsters who can't like a band that's popular. They believe that a group with any kind of a following can't be a good band, just as show-off social conservatives consider it a mark of integrity that their candidates- Akin, Mourdock, Sharron Angle, Christine O'Donnell- take wildly unpopular positions and lose elections.
It was the same thing with purist libertarian Barry Goldwater, who... nearly destroyed the Republican Party with his pointless pursuit of libertarian perfection in his vote against the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
-Ann Coulter
(No, I'm not going to give a link to her site. I don't want kgbreport.com
showing up in her server logs.)
Categories: Ann Coulter, Elections, KGB Opinion, Observations, Politics
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by
Rob
Ellsworth
(published on his Facebook
page).
I'm seeing Americans post photos of our Flag hung upside down because the President won reelection. They're defending this action as a "Naval sign of distress". Let me tell you something: you are not on a battleship, you are a manager at McDonalds in Follansbee, WV, and you are in fact, a lunatic.
I've avoided "spiking the football" over a great night for the President and for common sense in the Senate - Richard Murdock and Todd Akin deserved more than a loss. But I've held off, because I respect, am friends with, and on certain issues agree with, many patriotic Republicans who work hard to make this country a better place and simply disagreed with who should be Commander in Chief. That's fair and healthy.
And, I also didn't spike the football because I've lost elections before and I know how terrible it feels.
It's called maturity and not enough people in either party have it.
The following jaw punch is not directed at common sense Republicans, nor does it condone radicals on the Left. It is directed at the right wing fanatics who put party before country, conspiracy before reality, and ideology before science and intellect.
To Tea Party Patriots and hardcore Religious Engineers:
Republicans lost because their party leadership and most candidates feared you, listened to you, and looked the other way on important issues as you picked the dumbest, craziest nominees in key primaries (Murdock and Akin), or converted otherwise sensible, experienced candidates to Crazy Town (Romney).
There's nothing wrong with wanting limited government. I do. There's nothing wrong with believing in God, the Golden Rule, or wanting to reduce abortions. I do, too. But you've taken it too damn far and scare the shit out of people you could otherwise persuade.
Yes, the message and messenger matter (you're failing at both, BTW), but no Madison Avenue PR firm, K Street lobbying firm, Fox News "analyst", or local chapter of "Freedom Works" can sell the flaming dung you're slinging.
Smart people can lose. But smart people always learn.
You didn't lose because you "weren't conservative enough" or because the country has become full of lazy "takers" who don't want to earn a living or just want America to "turn in to Europe".
You didn't lose because of Hurricane Sandy or because Chris Christie hugged the President on TV- they were both doing their jobs.
You didn't lose because of a liberal media, liberal college campuses, liberal polls that were "weighted to Democrats" (mostly because they were accurate), or because of "election fraud"... actually, that probably benefited you this time.
No. You lost because your policies, tone, conspiracies, rigid inflexibility and irrational rhetoric helped align enough moderates, swing voters, and minority groups whom otherwise could be persuaded by Republicans, to align with Democrats and a beatable incumbent.
It's not that you didn't get your message out, it's that we all actually heard it and threw up a little in our mouths.
There isn't a mandate for Democrats in this election. Liberalism wasn't rewarded in this election. However, calm pragmatism, compassion, working together, compromise and sincerity were rewarded. People may not have agreed with President Obama, but more felt he was sincere and that he understood their daily problems, fears, and dreams. If you don't trust what the polls say, take a look at who is sworn in on January 20th. I thought you'd at least believe in math when it came to counting to 270.
Sincerity is the only thing in politics you can't fake. You can't teach it. No matter how shiny a candidate's bio is, how smooth he is, or how perfect the gray hairs rest on his temples- any average Joe on the street can spot a bullshitter.
Mitt is a generous and good man, but he didn't know who he was or "needed" to be at any given time in that campaign. That's largely his fault for lacking core convictions or personal toughness (Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush possessed both traits- that's why they won).
But you, the right wing base of the party, who drove so many of us moderate republicans out the door years ago, were the main catalyst. Your inability to reason, compromise, or let new facts and evidence challenge your predetermined outcomes led millions of moderates to no longer be able to stand on stage with you.
Frankly, you're embarrassing- more so than a crazy family member at dinner, or having your mom drop you off at a high school dance.
You say stupid shit and look stupid saying it.
You pass amendments to ban flag burning and then hang it upside down and post it on Facebook when you lose.
You preach limited government in the economy when Democrats are in charge and then look the other way when you're in charge.
You want a government small enough to stay out of corporations and banks but big enough for bedrooms and hospital respirators (see Schiavo, Terri).
There's a hatred inside of you that burns in a way that scares normal people.
You made unlikely allies in large corporations who are more interested in tax breaks and loopholes even if the government has to cut your Medicare and Social Security or cut education to a point where states and local governments have no financial choice but to educate your children in portable trailer classrooms with 35 other students.
Would these corporations do this just to help pad their quarterly earnings reports with certain tax and regulatory policies? You bet your sweet ass they do. And you better believe they're happy to have you make the "freedom" argument as "concerned citizen patriots" on their behalf.
Yet, after those corporations spent billions on TV adds and herded you like sheep over the last half decade to discredit Barack Obama for everything from being a "Godless communist"- to his "being born in Kenya and hatching a secret plot to take down America"- to Obamacare's "death panels and job killing regulations"-
YOU still lost.
After having a Senate Republican Leader state that his party's top priority in Congress was to make "Obama a one term President" and a House of Representatives that blocked everything he tried to do and then had the brass to criticize him for "not getting anything done"-
YOU still lost.
After attacking gay people who want equal protection under the law (BTW, I'm referring to the 14th amendment to the constitution, I know you forget most of the amendments after the 2nd one)-
YOU still lost.
After attacking the Hispanic community who's tired of being spoken "at" like criminals, attacking low income women who rely on Planned Parenthood for services of which 98% have nothing to do with abortion, and attacking relatively trivial things like PBS that children and adults enjoy as "1" damn television channel that doesn't include Honey Boo Boo or a "Fox News Breaking Alert" announcing Obama's latest "Czar" appointment-
YOU still lost.
And after throwing all the red meat in your warped political base out to the rest of the country to eat, the majority of Americans weren't hungry for it and didn't trust ordering from your unhealthy, de-regulated menu-
YOU still lost.
You can read me the constitution, but you clearly don't have a practical understanding of what you've read, heard on television, or forwarded to your entire email list of like minded xenophobes.
This country is great because our founders were smart enough to limit the government's power and give the people enough freedom and authority to correct their own mistakes in pursuit of a "more perfect union" (it's in the first damn line of the Preamble, in case you can't find it in your Tea Party Constitution Cliffs Notes).
Our founders were utterly brilliant and sophisticated. I don't like to speak for them, but I doubt they would have been friends with Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh or Sarah Palin. Nah, they wouldn't have made the guest list at Mt. Vernon or Monticello.
But let's be clear, our founders weren't perfect. They owned slaves. Only white male property owners had a say in things. Women, blacks, native Americans, and other constituencies had to wait for an American dream and in many cases, are still waiting and working for it. Speaking of work, children were working 12-16 hour days with zero safety protections in statute. Zero.
The constitution, subsequent amendments and Supreme Court rulings and opinions since 1800 aren't perfectly clear (those who think they are tend to have had a healthy serving of Kool-Aid and have never watched oral arguments at the Supreme Court).
The founders knew that they, and the constitution they drafted, weren't perfect. This is why they added a Bill of Rights and why they created a Supreme Court and a process that has allowed us to add 27 amendments to their work of art.
Their imperfection is what led to a Civil War to prove that human and civil rights aren't a "states' rights issue" - they're endowed by our creator, not by legislatures in Mississippi or Alabama, and they're protected equally in our constitution, but also in our democratically passed laws.
I run from the Capitol steps to the Lincoln Memorial most mornings that I'm in Washington. I may not be fast or smart, but I can read what's carved in stone.
Please. I welcome a challenge to what I've said. If you think because I voted for President Obama that I'm a socialist or that I don't want a better America, I'm happy to take time from running a business I've co-founded and time from money I'm trying to raise for Big Brothers Big Sisters of America to pause and give you a fresh one. At no charge.
But I do ask this: be a real Patriot. Look at that flag you've hung upside down. Look at what you've done to it and what that means. Thousands of our bravest men and women, braver than me, just lost limbs and in many cases their lives so that Iraqis and Afghanis could vote however they see fit. I did that on Tuesday and so did you. That's what that flag stands for- equal access to a process, not a guarantee for any of our desired outcomes.
A country that defeated Hitler, Mussolini, and bin Laden won't crumble because the guy you wanted to be President got beat.
You lost. Now learn from it.
Sincerely,
A Proud American
Categories: Elections, Politics, Rob Ellsworth
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That famous quote by Mythbuster Adam Savage is, simply, the reason why the Republicans were handed their lunch on Tuesday.
Here are two essays which address the issue in a sane, rational manner. The videos that follow, from last night's Daily Show, are a bit more... bombastic.
-----
Ohio really did go to President Obama last night, and he really did win. And really was born in Hawaii. And he really is legitimately President of the United States. Again. And the Bureau of Labor Statistics did not make up a fake unemployment rate last month. And the Congressional Research Service really can find no evidence that cutting taxes on rich people grows the economy. And the polls were not skewed to over sample Democrats. And Nate Silver was not making fake projections about the election to make conservatives feel bad. Nate Silver was doing math. And climate change is real. And rape really does cause pregnancy sometimes. And evolution is a thing. And Benghazi was an attack on us. It was not a scandal by us. And nobody is taking away anyone's guns. And taxes have not gone up. And the deficit is dropping, actually. And Saddam Hussein did not have Weapons of Mass Destruction. And the moon landing was real, and FEMA is not building concentration camps. And UN election observers are not taking over Texas. And moderate reforms of the regulations on the insurance industry and the financial services industry in the country are not the same things as Communism.
Listen. Last night was a good night for Democrats and liberals for very obvious reasons. But it was also possibly a good night for this country as a whole. Because in this country we have a two party system in government. And the idea is supposed to be that the two sides both come up with ways to confront and fix the real problems facing this country. They both propose possible solutions to our real problems. And we debate between those possible solutions. And by the process of debate, we pick the best idea. That competition between good ideas from both sides about real problems in the real country should result in our country having better choices, better options, than if only one side is really working on the hard stuff. And if the Republican party and the conservative movement and the conservative media are stuck in a vacuum-sealed door-locked spin cycle of telling each other what makes them feel good, and denying the factual lived truth of the world, then we are all deprived as a nation of the constructive debate between competing feasible ideas about real problems.
Last night the Republicans got shellacked. And they had no idea it was coming. And we saw them in real time, in real humiliating time, not believe it as it was happening to them. And unless they are going to secede, they are going to have to pop the factual bubble they've been so happy living inside... if they do not want to get shellacked again. And that will be a painful process for them, I'm sure, but it will be good for the whole country, left, right and center. You guys, we're counting on you. Wake up. There are real problems in the world. There are real knowable facts in the world. Let's accept those and talk about how we might approach our problems differently. Let's move on from there. If the Republican party and the conservative media are forced to do that by the humiliation they were dealt last night, we'll all be better off as a nation.
And in that spirit, congratulations everybody.
-----
If You're Surprised By The Election Results, You're The Reason You Lost, Or: A Plea for Useful Republicans.
Dear Republicans:
I know the despair you feel this morning, and sympathize, because I've been there. In 2004 my stiff, robotic millionaire lost to a President he should have soundly thumped, and I was so hurt I took a week off from the Internet afterwards. I am completely sympathetic with that slow terror that the country is now in the hands of an incompetent, and the voters don't even know it.
But I noticed a weird difference between the way Republicans and Democrats reacted to a losing candidate. In 2004, when the polls turned against Kerry and it was obvious he was going to lose, the Democrats asked "How can we fix that?" Oh, they asked in their glum, incompetent way, but when I personally talked to other Democrats both in real life and online, we were all pretty cognizant of the fact that Kerry was the underdog.
The Republicans of 2012, however, became increasingly convinced that Romney was going to win.
Everywhere I looked on Twitter and Facebook, I saw my Republican friends- not straw men, but actual people- talking about how terrible Nate Silver's methods were, how these Rasmussen polls showed Romney's real strength, and eventually you got the travesty of UnSkewedPolls.com, which cherry-picked the data and even today has their prediction of not just a Romney win but a landslide, Romney 311 to Obama 227. (Actual result: Obama 332, Romney 206.)
It all crystallized for me when my friend Brad Torgerson said, "Liberals and Democrats have Nate Silver and his 538 blog. Conservatives and Republicans have the U of CO guys. It's an epic cage match of predictive numbers geekery!"
Look there. Right at that post- one not too dissimilar from a thousand other dismissals of Nate Silver and the other aggregated polls. See what Brad did there? The way the guy bringing you news he didn't like was automatically assigned a partisan bias, and the only rational solution was to get a guy on your side with better numbers? As if reality was merely a function of getting enough guys on your side?
That's why you lost.
Stop confusing hard reality for partisan opposition.
It's time to step out of the bubble, dear Republicans, because we fucking need you. I don't trust the Democratic party to run the country single-handedly. I want a Republican party I can rely on for real solutions- and you've become lazy, voodoo-like, dismissing any data you don't like as partisan opposition.
Jay Lake is fond of saying, "Reality has a liberal bias." That's not because reality inevitably verifies liberal thinking, but because the Republican response to anything that challenges them is now to write off the data.
And let me repeat: we need you. I want a counterweight to Democratic power, not a deadweight that refuses to acknowledge the issues. I want a Republican party that will look at the numbers for climate change and not go, "I don't like what those scientists are saying, so I'll call it a silly liberal bias!" but say, "We're business experts, we know how to motivate rich people to do what we want, how do we fix this?" I want a Republican party that will realize while yes, we're spending far too much and should cut down, the results of thirty years of trickle-down theory and tax cuts won't actually provide enough revenue, because we are at the lowest effective tax rates we've had in thirty years.
And yes, you can argue all my statements here. But in that, smart person, you're like a driver with an SUV in Alaska. A person with a car in Alaska is going to get stuck in the snow eventually; that's a fact. But if you have an SUV, you're gonna get stuck way the heck out in the woods where no one can get at you, because you have the strength to do it and won't stop when common sense tells you to. I had a ton of Very Smart friends dissecting all the reasons why Nate Silver was wrong, why his methodology sucked, why these pollsters who said what they liked over here had better ways of slicing the data- and all that flurry of so-called "facts" amounted to was an elaborate justification of personal biases that had no basis in reality.
It's time to stop fighting the obvious. It's time to stop assuming that anyone who presents contradictory data is out to get you.
You should have won, guys. You had a President with an economy in the doldrums, a guy who'd lost a lot of his electoral mojo in the realities of politics. But instead of rising from the grave, you chose a candidate who never actually gave us firm numbers on what expenses he'd cut to fix the economy. You chose a candidate who said he'd get rid of Obamacare, but never actually named the parts he'd destroy. You chose someone who, though all politicians lie, lied a lot more than almost any modern Presidential candidate.
You had a guy who should have sliced Obama to ribbons- and he lost, in large part, because he said, "Trust me" instead of giving us a plan. And you let him get away with it.
You let him get away with it because you're indulging in a great deal of magical thinking. You let him get away with it because facts have ceased to matter; as long as someone tells you something you want to hear, you'll find a way to justify it with pseudo-science and trust and spit and baling wire. You don't like to hear how bad a candidate Mitt was, because you came so close this year, but it's true; the problem is that so much of the country has abandoned listening to reality that you can get massive votes and never touch a fact.
If you can't be honest today, in the aftermath of this great defeat, then you're never going to see the truth.
If you seriously thought that Romney had a good chance of winning, then you're part of the problem. Wake up. I implore you: learn from this. Look at your deepest beliefs, and see whether the numbers support them. Start thinking, maybe those people with data I don't like are right.
If you think the lesson to be learned is "We weren't conservative enough," then you're handing me a great victory in 2016. I want to have a real choice then.
Love,
T.F. (The
Ferret)
---
Megyn Kelly teaches Karl Rove the power of scientific gobbledygook.
"If only President Bush could have been so lucky as to have a massive hurricane on his watch, then... oh, right..."
It's just arithmetic.
Categories: Barack Obama, Bill O'Reilly, Chick-fil-A, Daily Show, Elections, Fox News, Hypocrisy, Jon Stewart, Karl Rove, Megyn Kelly, Mitt Romney, Nate Silver, News Media, Politics, Rachel Maddow, Sarah Palin, The Ferret, YouTube
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(Credit: The Onion)
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Forget economic policy, stances on social issues, lying and flip-flopping. On June 28, 2007 I realized I could never support this man.
Compassion for animals is intimately connected with goodness of
character; and it may be confidently asserted that he who is cruel to
animals cannot be a good man.
-Arthur Schopenhauer
I predict no politician will ever tie a dog to the roof of his car again.
-KGB
Categories: Elections, Mitt Romney, Quotes of the day
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Experts say the entire 2012 election could come down to just eight
states. The states are: confusion, dismay, depression, apathy, shock,
disbelief, despair, and anxiety.
-Jay Leno
After the debate... experts agreed that President Obama won on substance
and I thought: Well, big deal, Lance Armstrong won on several
substances.
-David Letterman
In fairness to Sarah Palin, "shuck" and "jive" are just two of the many
thousands of words she doesn't know the meaning of.
-Andy Borowitz
One week after Election Day, the banks will be closed and the military
will be marching in the street.
It's called Veterans Day.
I'm tired of every Republican politician being a medical supergenius on
vaginas. I want to hear gynecologists talk about the national debt.
-Bill
Maher
This campaign has dragged on so long Newt Gingrich is abandoning it for
a younger, hotter, healthier campaign.
-John Fugelsang
Karl Rove said the Tea Party is “not sophisticated;” which is sort of
like saying the Jonas Brothers are “not black.'
-John
Fugelsang
I have never been more ashamed for a candidate, Politicizing fallen
Americans is pitiful and unacceptable.
-Colin Powell
Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama. Makes sense. They're both moderate
Republicans.
-@Indecision
There's something wrong with our politics if we can't even agree about
rape anymore.
-Andy Borowitz
I’ll be glad when this election’s over so I’ll know for sure whom I
should have voted for.
-Steve Martin
The audience at the debate was instructed to turn off their cell phones
because they might interfere with Mitt Romney's circuitry.
-Triumph,
The Insult Comic Dog
Categories: Andy Borowitz, Barack Obama, Bill Maher, Colin Powell, David Letterman, Elections, Jay Leno, John Fugelsang, Sarah Palin, Steve Martin
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(YouTube video: President Obama answers Jay Leno's question, "What's this thing with Trump and you?" )
Categories: Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Elections, Jay Leno, TV, Video, YouTube
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Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets because the nature of our military has changed.
We have these things called aircraft carriers where planes land on them. We have these ships that go
underwater, nuclear submarines. And so, the question is not a game of Battleship where we're
counting ships, it's “what are our capabilities?”
Barack Obama
Categories: Barack Obama, Elections, Mitt Romney, Politics, Quotes of the day
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From social media, collected in real time during the debate:
Elayne Boosler:
“Boca Raton.” Mouth of the Rat. Just sayin'.
Maybe Mitt could fire Iran.
Mitt: “Gender equality for the middle east.” But not for American women.
Wait. Is this a rerun?
He's gonna ask his parents for the money.
Blame the tumult of the middle east on Obama, because it started only four years ago.
Tumult, that's three! Can meshuga be far behind?
We owe China billions. They've kept us afloat. Let's threaten them!
Mali just declared war on Appleton Wisconsin.
Forget the flag pins. They should have worn squirting carnations.
---------
Albert Brooks:
Romney won the coin toss so the line between them is white.
Romney can see Russia from two of his houses.
Even Syria is bored with this debate.
Romney's expression says “The afterlife is going to be so tough for you.”
The Pentagon just turned to Monday Night Football.
A half hour in. What have we learned? They both don't like war and like peace. Wow.
I don't know who's winning but Iran has just gone to Def Con 4.
Okay. We're back home again. They couldn't talk foreign affairs for more than 30 minutes. That scares me.
Romney keeps bragging about the Olympics. I saw him. His figure skating was embarrassing.
This Christmas Neiman Marcus is selling maps without Israel.
Get tough on China. Make Walmart close at six.
If Romney sweats any more, I get a royalty.
Romney will call China a currency manipulator. China will laugh and sell him another flag pin.
Romney needs a binder full of kleenex.
---------
John Fugelsang:
It's unfair to say Mitt Romney is politicizing the tragedy of Benghazi when he's actually exploiting it.
“The only way to deal with your enemy is to make him your friend.” Abraham Lincoln, appeaser.
“We can't kill our way out”- Mitt Romney. “We need to kill them.”- Mitt Romney, two minutes later
“We have to help these nations build civil societies”- Mitt Romney, previously opposed to Nation Building.
If Iran develops a nuclear weapon Romney/Ryan would respond with the strongest possible tax cuts.
Barack Obama just said the debate table was round & Mitt Romney said it's actually flat.
Mitt Romney will stand up to Iran, Syria & Putin and is also afraid to go on The View.
”Attacking me is not an agenda“ Mitt Romney, whose foreign policy plan has consisted of attacking the president on Benghazi.
Romney strongly supports gender equality in middle east; and will get back to you with his opinion on Lily Ledbetter act here.
It's fitting that Mitt Romney resembles Reed Richards from Fantastic Four as his magic power is superhuman stretching.
Mitt just said we should've been more involved in Syria & also been less involved. Those Bush aides were worth every penny.
Mitt Romney believes our government has to solve problems in Syria while letting the Free Market solve problems here.
Romney is clearly winning on making the foreign policy debate not about foreign policy
Mitt Romney just found a way to bash teachers' unions during a foreign policy debate.
I want Bob Schieffer to grab Romney by the lapels and scream “WHERE'S THE MONEY, LEBOWSKI?!”
Mitt wants to repeal Obamacare and increase the Pentagon budget to defend Israel's right to universal (health) care.
Mitt just mentioned how he balanced the budget for the Olympics, leaving out the millions in government earmarks that balanced it.
Non millionaires who voted for Bush and support Romney deserve presidents like Bush and Romney.
Hey, Mitt- If you hate our tax system and want a religious conservative government with no abortion or gay marriage, Iran is waiting for you.
Mitt Romney is ahead on impersonating Albert Brooks' flop sweat from Broadcast News.
“The tightest sanctions must be tightened.”- Mitt Romney. He said that.
Obama took out bin Laden but wait til President Romney takes out Oscar the Grouch
Somewhere in Hell Richard Nixon is embarrassed over Mitt Romney debate sweat
GOP blaming Obama for the slow recovery is like Lucy blaming Charlie Brown for missing the football.
---------
Andy Borowitz:
Romney: “No one has more experience abroad than my money.”
Romney: “I would bring all female troops home in time to cook dinner.”
Both candidates' use of the numbers 1 through 5 underscores the importance of keeping Sesame Street.
If he loses, Mitt Romney has a bright future as a Clipart character.
Romney: “Across the Middle East, women are being kept in binders.”
When Romney is listening he looks exactly like my dad did when I told him a lie.
We are now discussing the most pressing foreign policy issue facing America today, the reading tests of fourth graders.
Romney: “There's no place more important to me than Israel except Ohio.”
Romney: “If the Prime Minister of Israel called me, I would do what I do whenever someone talks to me: interrupt him.”
Romney: “Not only do I believe in drones, I am one.”
Romney: “The greatest threat to the world is nuclear powered women.”
---------
Beachwood Reporter
Suddenly every schmo on Twitter is a foreign policy expert.
“That's a perfect segue into the next question which neither of you will answer.”
“And now, a ridiculous question that allows each of you to dispense talking points to your base.
---------
Bill Maher:
Trouble already: Mitt says he wants to impose sanctions on ”Romnesia“.
“Kill our way out of this mess” is the theme of every American movie not about talking animals or weddings.
Aside from talking points, Mitt doesn't know his Assad from a hole in the ground.
Mitt, you do know that most of America thinks Mali is one of Obama's daughters, right?
It's good they agree armed Americans should be involved with everyone, everywhere. We loved armed intervention like Paula Dean loves butter.
Aside from talking points, Mitt doesn't know his Assad from a hole in the ground
Mitt's entire debate strategy: What he just said, but from a white guy.
That's an amazingly specific number Mitt keeps pulling out of his ass, 12 million new jobs. But fellas, this is the foreign policy debate!
Jobs, teachers, education - gentlemen, please, can we get back to killing foreigners?
Bob Scheiffer, could you ask about what's IN the military budget? If people knew specifics,”I wouldn't cut nuttin'” wouldn't sound so good
I like hearing Mitt say how great he was for Massachusetts, the state that will never, ever, ever vote for him.
I can't be the only one who's surprised to find out Buster Posey is a white guy. Sorry, flipped to the game.
I've seen wider ideological differences between Jehovah's Witnesses.
Oh no he din't- Romney said his ultimate BubbleFact, “Apology Tour” right in front of the guy who NEVER WENT ON ONE.
To clarify, Mitt is for moving heaven and earth, but only in regards to mining.
You're losing, Mitt- bring up the fact that we have fewer knives and rocks than we did during the French and Indian War.
Shorter version of Romney: Me strong. Obama weak. Hulk smash.
OK Mitt, one more try: we have fewer catapults and barrels of boiling oil than we had in the crusades.
First debate, all agreed, Obama lost; second one, i say he won, but Romney not trounced. But this one? Only bubbledwellers can say Mitt won
Mitt keeps taking issue with being criticized tonight - did they tell him this is a debate?
OK, one last try: We have fewer Andrews Sisters and Ritz Brothers than we did in 1944. So glad we're done with THAT!
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Wonkette:
“The audience has taken a vow of silence.” But not celibacy, one hopes.
We are debating during the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis. This is very important, because we are painfully aware that neither of these men is a Jack Kennedy.
Cutting Obamacare, which the CBO has projected will reduce the deficit, will save money, because MAGIC.
Mitt is in favor of crippling sanctions like the ones Barry has put in place. If elected, he will have the Doctor take him back to the Bush administration to put them in place sooner, and more crippling-er.
Mittens, again with the “tumult.” Why does it sound like Yiddish when he says “tumult”?
You know all about shipping jobs overseas, don’t you Governor? BOOM!
Mitt is pretending that he can feel empathy... Brent Spiner pulled this off a lot more convincingly.
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Various fact checkers:
Politifact rated the claim that the U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force are smaller than in 1917 and 1947 “pants on fire.”
Romney wants to add $2 trillion to defense that it didn't ask for it. True.
Obama 'promised' 5.4 percent unemployment? Mostly False.
---------
The Onion:
Romney Pledges To Replace All Foreign Policy With Jobs Right Here In America
Categories: Albert Brooks, Andy Borowitz, Barack Obama, Bill Maher, Elayne Boosler, Elections, John Fugelsang, Mitt Romney, Observations, Politics, The Beachwood Reporter, The Onion, The Wonkette
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(Mo Rocca on CBS' Sunday Morning, explaining how the Electoral College works, and a way to fix it without amending the U.S. Constitution.)
Categories: CBS Sunday Morning, Elections, History, Mo Rocca, Video
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(YouTube video in which The President of The United States offers hope to those suffering from "Romnesia")
Categories: Barack Obama, Elections, Mitt Romney, Politics, Video, YouTube
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Ladies and gentlemen:
From force of long habit I almost said, "My fellow delegates."
Tonight you and I join forces for the 1936 campaign.
We enter it with confidence. Never was there greater need for fidelity to the underlying conception of Americanism than there is today. And once again it is given to our party to carry the message of that Americanism to the people.
The task on our part is twofold: First, as simple patriotism requires, to separate the false from the real issues; and, secondly, with facts and without rancor, to clarify the real problems for the American public.
There will be- there are- many false issues. In that respect, this will be no different from other campaigns. Partisans, not willing to face realities, will drag out red herrings as they have always done- to divert attention from the trail of their own weaknesses.
This practice is as old as our democracy. Avoiding the facts- fearful of the truth- a malicious opposition charged that George Washington planned to make himself king under a British form of government; that Thomas Jefferson planned to set up a guillotine under a French Revolutionary form of government; that Andrew Jackson soaked the rich of the Eastern seaboard and planned to surrender American democracy to the dictatorship of a frontier mob. They called Abraham Lincoln a Roman Emperor; Theodore Roosevelt a Destroyer; Woodrow Wilson a self- constituted Messiah.
In this campaign another herring turns up. In former years it has been British and French- and a variety of other things. This year it is Russian. Desperate in mood, angry at failure, cunning in purpose, individuals and groups are seeking to make Communism an issue in an election where Communism is not a controversy between the two major parties.
Here and now, once and for all, let us bury that red herring, and destroy that false issue. You are familiar with my background; you know my heritage; and you are familiar, especially in the State of New York, with my public service extending back over a quarter of a century. For nearly four years I have been President of the United States. A long record has been written. In that record, both in this State and in the national capital, you will find a simple, clear and consistent adherence not only to the letter, but to the spirit of the American form of government.
To that record, my future and the future of my Administration will conform. I have not sought, I do not seek, I repudiate the support of any advocate of Communism or of any other alien "ism" which would by fair means or foul change our American democracy.
That is my position. It always has been my position. It always will be my position.
There is no difference between the major parties as to what they think about Communism. But there is a very great difference between the two parties in what they do about Communism.
I must tell you why. Communism is a manifestation of the social unrest which always comes with widespread economic maladjustment. We in the Democratic party have not been content merely to denounce this menace. We have been realistic enough to face it. We have been intelligent enough to do something about it. And the world has seen the results of what we have done.
In the spring of 1933 we faced a crisis which was the ugly fruit of twelve years of neglect of the causes of economic and social unrest. It was a crisis made to order for all those who would overthrow our form of government. Do I need to recall to you the fear of those days- the reports of those who piled supplies in their basements, who laid plans to get their fortunes across the border, who got themselves hideaways in the country against the impending upheaval? Do I need to recall the law-abiding heads of peaceful families, who began to wonder, as they saw their children starve, how they would get the bread they saw in the bakery window? Do I need to recall the homeless boys who were traveling in bands through the countryside seeking work, seeking food - desperate because they could find neither? Do I need to recall the farmers who banded together with pitchforks to keep the sheriff from selling the farm home under foreclosure? Do I need to recall the powerful leaders of industry and banking who came to me in Washington in those early days of 1933 pleading to be saved?
Most people in the United States remember today the fact that starvation was averted, that homes and farms were saved, that banks were reopened, that crop prices rose, that industry revived, and that the dangerous forces subversive of our form of government were turned aside.
A few people- a few only- unwilling to remember, seem to have forgotten those days.
In the summer of 1933, a nice old gentleman wearing a silk hat fell off the end of a pier. He was unable to swim. A friend ran down the pier, dived overboard and pulled him out; but the silk hat floated off with the tide. After the old gentleman had been revived, he was effusive in his thanks. He praised his friend for saving his life. Today, three years later, the old gentleman is berating his friend because the silk hat was lost.
Why did that crisis of 1929 to 1933 pass without disaster?
The answer is found in the record of what we did. Early in the campaign of 1932 I said: "To meet by reaction that danger of radicalism is to invite disaster. Reaction is no barrier to the radical, it is a challenge, a provocation. The way to meet that danger is to offer a workable program of reconstruction, and the party to offer it is the party with clean hands." We met the emergency with emergency action. But far more important than that, we went to the roots of the problem, and attacked the cause of the crisis. We were against revolution. Therefore, we waged war against those conditions which make revolutions- against the inequalities and resentments which breed them. In America in 1933 the people did not attempt to remedy wrongs by overthrowing their institutions. Americans were made to realize that wrongs could and would be set right within their institutions. We proved that democracy can work.
I have said to you that there is a very great difference between the two parties in what they do about Communism. Conditions congenial to Communism were being bred and fostered throughout this Nation up to the very day of March 4, 1933. Hunger was breeding it, loss of homes and farms was breeding it, closing banks were breeding it, a ruinous price level was breeding it. Discontent and fear were spreading through the land. The previous national Administration, bewildered, did nothing.
In their speeches they deplored it, but by their actions they encouraged it. The injustices, the inequalities, the downright suffering out of which revolutions come- what did they do about these things? Lacking courage, they evaded. Being selfish, they neglected. Being short-sighted, they ignored. When the crisis came- as these wrongs made it sure to come- America was unprepared.
Our lack of preparation for it was best proved by the cringing and the fear of the very people whose indifference helped to make the crisis. They came to us pleading that we should do, overnight, what they should have been doing through the years.
And the simple causes of our unpreparedness were two: First, a weak leadership, and, secondly, an inability to see causes, to understand the reasons for social unrest- the tragic plight of 90 percent of the men, women and children who made up the population of the United States.
It has been well said that "The most dreadful failure of which any form of government can be guilty is simply to lose touch with reality, because out of this failure all imaginable forms of evil grow. Every empire that has crashed has come down primarily because its rulers did not know what was going on in the world and were incapable of learning."
It is for that reason that our American form of government will continue to be safest in. Democratic hands. The real, actual, undercover Republican leadership is the same as it was four years ago. That leadership will never comprehend the need for a program of social justice and of regard for the well- being of the masses of our people.
I have been comparing leadership in Washington. This contrast between Democratic and Republican leadership holds true throughout the length and breadth of the State of New York. As far back as the year 1910, the old Black Horse Cavalry in Albany, which we old people will remember, was failing to meet changing social conditions by appropriate social legislation. Here was a State noted for its industry and noted for its agriculture- a State with the greatest mixture of population- where the poorest and the richest lived, literally, within a stone's throw of each other- in short a situation made to order for potential unrest. And yet in this situation the best that the Republican leaders of those days could say was: "Let them eat cake." What would have happened if that reactionary domination had continued through all these hard years?
Starting in 1911, a Democratic leadership came into power, and with it a new philosophy of government. I had the good fortune to come into public office at that time. I found other young men in the Legislature- men who held the same philosophy; one of them was Bob Wagner; another was Al Smith. We were all joined in a common cause. We did not look on government as something apart from the people. We thought of it as something to be used by the people for their own good.
New factory legislation setting up decent standards of safety and sanitation; limitation of the working hours of women in industry; a workmen's compensation law; a one-day-rest-in-seven law; a full train-crew law; a direct-primary law- these laws and many more were passed which were then called radical and alien to our form of government. Would you or any other Americans call them radical or alien today?
In later years, first under Governor Smith, then during my Governorship, this program of practical intelligence was carried forward over the typical and unswerving opposition of Republican leaders throughout our State.
And today the great tradition of a liberal, progressive Democratic Party has been carried still further by your present Governor, Herbert H. Lehman. He has begun a program of insurance to remove 'the spectre of unemployment from the working people of the State. He has broadened our labor legislation. He has extended the supervision of public utility companies. He has proved himself an untiring seeker for the public good; a doer of social justice; a wise, conscientious, clear-headed and businesslike administrator of the executive branch of our Government. And be it noted that his opponents are led and backed by the same forces and, in many cases, by the same individuals who, for a quarter of a century, have tried to hamstring progress within our State. The overwhelming majority of our citizens, up-state and down-state, regardless of party, propose to return him and his Administration to Albany for another two years.
His task in Albany, like my task in Washington, has been to maintain contact between statecraft and reality. In New York and in Washington, Government which has rendered more than lip service to our Constitutional Democracy has done a work for the protection and preservation of our institutions that could not have been accomplished by repression and force.
Let me warn you and let me warn the Nation against the smooth evasion which says, "Of course we believe all these things; we believe in social security; we believe in work for the unemployed; we believe in saving homes. Cross our hearts and hope to die, we believe in all these things; but we do not like the way the present Administration is doing them. Just turn them over to us. We will do all of them- we will do more of them we will do them better; and, most important of all, the doing of them will not cost anybody anything."
But, my friends, these evaders are banking too heavily on the shortness of our memories. No one will forget that they had their golden opportunity- twelve long years of it.
Remember, too, that the first essential of doing a job well is to want to see the job done. Make no mistake about this: the Republican leadership today is not against the way we have done the job. The Republican leadership is against the job's being done.
Look to the source of the promises of the past. Governor Lehman knows and I know how little legislation in the interests of the average citizen would be on the statute books of the State of New York, and of the Federal Government, if we had waited for Republican leaders to pass it.
The same lack of purpose of fulfillment lies behind the promises of today. You cannot be an Old Guard Republican in the East, and a New Deal Republican in the West. You cannot promise to repeal taxes before one audience and promise to spend more of the taxpayers' money before another audience. You cannot promise tax relief for those who can afford to pay, and, at the same time, promise more of the taxpayers' money for those who are in need. You simply cannot make good on both promises at the same time.
Who is there in America who believes that we can run the risk of turning back our Government to the old leadership which brought it to the brink of 1933? Out of the strains and stresses of these years we have come to see that the true conservative is the man who has a real concern for injustices and takes thought against the day of reckoning. The true conservative seeks to protect the system of private property and free enterprise by correcting such injustices and inequalities as arise from it. The most serious threat to our institutions comes from those who refuse to face the need for change. Liberalism becomes the protection for the far-sighted conservative.
Never has a Nation made greater strides in the safeguarding of democracy than we have made during the past three years. Wise and prudent men- intelligent conservatives- have long known that in a changing world worthy institutions can be conserved only by adjusting them to the changing time. In the words of the great essayist, "The voice of great events is proclaiming to us. Reform if you would preserve." I am that kind of conservative because I am that kind of liberal.
Citation: Franklin D. Roosevelt: "Address at the Democratic State Convention, Syracuse, N.Y.," September 29, 1936. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=15142.
Categories: Elections, FDR, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, History
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