ThurstonBlog

Peevish some, Tammy?

2012-01-28T00:27:00.000-08:00

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myolivercat
Where are the death notices for 1/26/12 and 1/27/12 ? ?
- 15 hours ago
Tammy McGee , Moderator for TheOlympian.com
Will you PLEASE contact The Olympian when you have a complaint or a question, rather than posting in the comment threads? The comment threads are for commenting. If you have a question or a complaint, call the newsroom.
- 15 hours ago
- in reply to myolivercat

http://www.theolympian.com/2012/01/25/1962900/missing-headline-for-25deathss.html
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Doesn't look like we need to worry about Ron Paul

2012-01-27T23:34:00.000-08:00

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What Did Ron Paul Know, and When Did He Know It?
By Megan McArdle, JAN 27 2012

The Washington Post is reporting that Ron Paul actively signed off on the not-so-veiled racism in the newsletters published under his name in the 1980s. I'm sure that in the next few days, there will be some hot denials, and some Paulistas and paleolibertarians complaining about the Koch-funded conspiracy to destroy him. (See, liberals? You're not the only ones who think that Charles Koch is spending his massive fortune to destroy America).

I think the arguments and counter-arguments about what he knew and when he knew it will be rather beside the point. It is simply not credible that Ron Paul never saw any of the newsletters published under his name, and so the minimum working thesis has to be that whether or not Ron Paul believed that the biggest problem America faced was all those black folks getting one over on the white man, he was perfectly willing to encourage such sentiments if doing so would advance his political goals. This alone should disqualify him from office, so we shouldn't need to waste time litigating other charges on the indictment.

Now, if Ron Paul were to sorrowfully admit that he had once harbored such beliefs--or failed to understand what it really meant to encourage such thoughts in others--then I would probably agree that we should forgive and forget. But that is not what he has done. What he has done is to cravenly attempt to avoid responsibility by blaming his subordinates.

Even if it were actually true that Ron Paul had allowed a newsletter to be published under his name without ever reading it, this would not do; the first thing that any aspiring leader should learn is that you are responsible for what is done by your subordinates, whether you knew about it or not. "I am the kind of leader who allows my subordinates to run a multi-year racist newsletter under my name without ever once stopping by, or even picking up the damn newsletter, to see how they were getting along without me" is not mitigation. Rather, it should be the first count on the indictment.

Moreover, since even before the Post report, it seemed really unlikely that this was what had actually happened, Ron Paul is not merely guilty of unmanly buck-passing, but also of lying like a truant teenager.

Such behavior is unworthy of the Oval Office. Fortunately, it looks like he won't get there, so we don't need to devote much more energy to the question.
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Democrats should be pushing for Gingrich!

2012-01-27T23:09:00.000-08:00

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Lunar Colonies, Lunacy and Losses

By CHARLES M. BLOW, Published: January 27, 2012

Newt Gingrich is spaced-out. Literally.
Anyone who remembers him from his days as speaker of the House in the ’90s remembers how erratic, unpredictable and off-the-wall he could be, but, so far, this campaign season he has managed to conceal his many absurdities and eccentricities.
Furthermore, many Republican primary voters seem willing to forgive and forget his past. Others seem not even to remember it. He has been able to pass himself off as a wise elder statesman — a historian without a history — able to capture the anger and anxiety of the right and articulate it with force, lucidity and gravitas.
Oh, it is to laugh! That is if you’re on the left.
But for those on the right with firsthand knowledge of working with Gingrich when he was in Washington, this is a nightmare scenario. The outside possibility that Gingrich could win the nomination and wreck the party scares them to death. Their panic over this has reached a fever pitch.
And this is not without merit.
An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released this week found that Gingrich now enjoys a 9-point lead nationally among registered Republican likely primary voters. However, Gingrich fared worse than all other Republican candidates when tested against Obama. The poll suggested that Obama would trounce Gingrich by 18 points.
(Luckily for Mitt Romney, Gingrich’s surge in Florida may be fizzling. A Quinnipiac poll of likely Republican voters in that state found that Romney leads Gingrich by nine percentage points. If that holds, Romney and the establishment Republicans will have dodged a bullet like Neo in “The Matrix.” A Romney loss in Florida would call his candidacy into question and send the party scrambling for a more attractive replacement.)
One of the latest establishment Republicans to try to avert the Gingrich catastrophe is former Senator Bob Dole, who wrote a letter to the Romney campaign on Thursday saying: “I have not been critical of Newt Gingrich, but it is now time to take a stand before it is too late.” It only got better from there. Dole continued, “hardly anyone who served with Newt in Congress has endorsed him, and that fact speaks for itself. He was a one-man-band who rarely took advice.”
Dole’s concern in his statement, and the concern of countless others, is: “If Gingrich is the nominee it will have an adverse impact on Republican candidates running for county, state and federal offices.”
As Peter D. Hart, a Democratic pollster, told MSNBC, “Gingrich is Goldwater.” He continued, “In the general election, Gingrich not only takes down his ship, he takes down the whole flotilla.”
Part of the reason for this is Gingrich is thoroughly unlikable among the electorate at large and utterly nonsensical in his approach to real problem-solving. The fact that he has convinced some primary voters that he is an intellectual is one of the best electoral sleights of hand I can recall. As Dole said of Newt when he was in Washington: “Gingrich had a new idea every minute, and most of them were off the wall.”
To that point, Gingrich told a crowd on Florida’s so-called Space Coast on Wednesday that “by the end of my second term, we will have the first permanent base on the Moon. And it will be American.” And he said that he would push for the introduction of a “Northwest Ordinance for Space” so that when the number of colonists reached 13,000, they could petition for statehood.
(By the way, I find it interesting that Gingrich didn’t insist on answering the question about Puerto Rican statehood at Thursday’s debate, yet he’s advocating for a state on the Moon. Earth to Newt: phone home.)
In the speech, Gingrich implied that he was “bold” and “romantic” and called himself “visionary” and “grandiose” in the vein of Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy and the Wright brothers. Gingrich is a virtual supernova of megalomaniacal madness.
In a way, the space speech made sense. Gingrich was doing what he does: tossing out random ideas like darts at a board, hoping to score. He was repackaging the idea of Manifest Destiny for the Moon and appealing to an area of the country whose pride and purpose were wounded by the ending of the space shuttle program.
But, on the other hand, this is exactly the kind of election-year lunacy that establishment Republicans have been worrying about. Florida has one of the highest state unemployment rates in the country and has one of the highest foreclosure rates in the country. The last thing that people who can’t hold on to their jobs and houses here on Earth want to hear about is a colony on the Moon. The whole thing bespeaks a man detached from the real world concerns of real people.
As Dole’s statement went on to say, “In my opinion, if we want to avoid an Obama landslide in November, Republicans should nominate Governor Romney as our standard-bearer.”
The truth is that the Republican Party has no good choice at this point. It only has bad choices and worse choices. And the American public is beginning to recognize that. As the Republican courtiers of incompetence beat up each other, knock down each other and reveal each other’s flaws, a number of recent surveys have found that President Obama’s poll numbers on a number of metrics have begun to trend upward.
That’s because an election is a choice, a zero-sum game — the worse the Republican field looks, particularly if Gingrich is at the front of it, the better President Obama looks by comparison, regardless of one’s misgivings about his first term.
Establishment Republicans understand this simple, painful truth: Romney is no guarantee of victory, but Gingrich is an absolute guarantee of defeat. At least here on Earth.
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Will Newt be going down with the ship?

2012-01-26T18:58:00.000-08:00

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A patriotic voter is quoted saying....

2012-01-26T15:49:00.000-08:00

"They’re making me actually Show Up at that disease-ridden ‘tard corral that is jury duty, tomorrow. f@$^inghell."

Now, guess which local blog this quote came from.

It might be fun to hang out near the courthouse.....

Up and Powered

2012-01-24T08:13:00.000-08:00

Power back at 9:30 last night.

Hopefully Anonymous will get back online.

Meanwhile, we welcome others to post.

Here's to having power back on!!!

2012-01-20T20:50:00.000-08:00

Hope the rest of you ThursonBloggers are staying warm and if you don't currently have power, get it back soon.

More about Santorum

2012-01-18T13:44:00.000-08:00

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How Rick Santorum Ripped Off American Veterans

By Andy Kroll

| Wed Jan. 18, 2012

A controversial land deal by the presidential candidate robbed a vets' home of tens of millions of dollars.

Like any good presidential candidate, Rick Santorum heaps praise on America's soldiers and veterans. He's pledged [1] to "make veterans a high priority" if elected president, adding, "This is not a Republican issue, this is not a Democratic issue, it is an American issue." But as a US senator, Santorum engineered a controversial land deal that robbed the military's top veterans' home of tens of millions of dollars and worsened the deteriorating conditions at the facility.

The Armed Forces Retirement Home, which is run by the Department of Defense, bills itself as "premier home for military retirees and veterans." The facility sprawls across 272 acres high on a hill in northern Washington, DC, near the Petworth neighborhood. The nearly 600 veterans who now live there enjoy panoramic views of the city—the Washington monument and US Capitol to the south, the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception to the east. At its peak, more than 2,000 veterans of World Wars I and II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War lived at the Home.

But with the rise of the smaller all-volunteer military, the Home began to run into serious financial problems. It was clear that one of its primary sources of revenue—a 50-cent deduction from the paychecks of active-duty servicemembers—wasn't enough to keep the Home operating fully. In the 1990s, the Home scrambled to find ways to avoid insolvency [2], trimming its staff by 24 percent and reducing its vet population by 800. Still, the money problems began to show, with its older historic facilities slipping into disrepair and decay. To grapple with its worsening shortfall, officials running the Home eyed a valuable, 49-acre piece of land worth $49 million as a potential financial lifeline.

Under one scenario, by leasing the parcel of land and letting it be developed, the Home could pocket $105 million in income over 35 years for its trust fund, David Lacy, then-chairman of the Home's board of directors, told Congress in 1999. Lacy stressed that the Home wanted to keep the property, and not offload it to a buyer. "Once land is sold," he said, "it is lost forever as an asset."

Enter Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Penn.). At the behest of the Roman Catholic Church, and unbeknownst to the Home, Santorum slipped an amendment into the 1999 National Defense Authorization Act handcuffing how the home could cash in on those 49 acres. The amendment forced the Home to sell—and not lease—the land to its next-door neighbor, the Catholic University of America. Ultimately, the Catholic Church bought 46 acres of the tract for $22 million [3]. The Home lost the land for good, and by its own estimates, pocketed $27 million less than the land's value and $83 million less than what it could've made under the lease plan. Santorum's amendment sparked an outcry from veterans' groups and fellow US senators, who barraged his office with complaints.

Laurence Branch, then the executive director of the Home's board, says Santorum's amendment was "a travesty" and the Church's lobbying for the land a case of "coveting thy neighborhood's goods." To this day, Branch says he blames Santorum for the Home not receiving more money for the 49-acre parcel of land. "I'm convinced Sen. Santorum is no friend of veterans," Branch says. (A spokesman for Catholic University did not respond to a request for comment.)

At the time, Santorum said the amendment was the product of "a consensus agreement" and "was certainly not an attempt to shortchange the veterans." (A spokesman for the Santorum campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)

Santorum's advocacy for Catholic University isn't at all surprising. A practicing Catholic, Santorum embodies the church's anti-abortion and anti-gay-marriage positions as well as its support for charities and alleviating poverty. While in Congress, he was a fierce advocate for the Catholic Church. A former Santorum aide told [4] New York Times Magazine in 2005 that the senator was "a Catholic missionary who happens to be in the Senate." That same year, Time magazine named him [4] one of America's ''25 Most Influential Evangelicals.''

Meanwhile, the $22 million from the land sale hardly stanched the flow of red ink at Armed Forces Retirement Home. Financial records, court documents, and government reports from the 2000s show how the Home cut back on the services it provided veterans as it grappled with funding problems. The slashing of services got so bad that in 2003 veterans living at the Home filed a class-action suit against the Home and its director, Timothy Cox, alleging shoddy health care and less access to that care. As a result of cutbacks and declining quality in care, the suit claimed, the suicide rate at the Home spiked from 59 in 2000 to 131 in 2003.

In 2007, an investigation by the Government Accountability Office came to similarly troubling conclusions. The watchdog's head, David Walker, reported that one Home resident had been admitted [5] to the hospital with maggots in a wound. Other vets were admitted with bad pressure sores, suggesting they'd been left unattended for dangerously long stretches of time by the Home's health care employees. In the aftermath of the GAO's investigation, Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) demanded an independent investigation into the quality of health care at the Home.

Yet today, despite some improvement in the Home's financial health, its campus is pocked with boarded-up, decrepit buildings. All but one of the Home's gatehouses is shuttered, as are some of the Home's more elegant buildings, including the historic Grant building (named after the Civil War general) and the red-brick hospital that now sits empty, bearing a sign warning off trespassers. Some veterans believe the Home's constant financial struggles have led to a slow-motion decline of the Home. As longtime resident and Navy vet Robert Devaney says, "I like to call it demolition by neglect."
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In my opinion, Santorum should be forced to live in that facility without any of the comforts he's accustomed to having!

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Lighter Shade of Pale

2012-01-18T08:22:00.000-08:00

And yet Glenn Church tried to say he's not a racist -

For a guy who seemed to say that “black people” shouldn’t get handouts, Rick Santorum keeps stepping into sticky racial issues even when he is not trying too.

As he traveled across South Carolina on Thursday, Mr. Santorum urged voters to dismiss the conventional wisdom that Mitt Romney has an upper hand in the nominating contest. He said the party can win back the White House only by offering a “clear contrast” with President Obama.
“We need contrasts,” Mr. Santorum said, “not just a paler shade of what we have.”

It doesn’t help that Santorum made this statement while trampling through South Carolina and shouting the praises of Strom Thurmond.

Wikipedia, Craigslist and other popular sites shut down for the Internet's first such stoppage

2012-01-17T23:22:00.000-08:00

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Websites flexing muscle in push against online piracy bills
The temporary shutdown by thousands of Internet sites is the latest salvo fired in a battle against Hollywood's efforts that has Washington lawmakers caught in the middle.

By Jim Puzzanghera and Richard Verrier, Los Angeles Times. January 18, 2012

Reporting from Washington and Los Angeles—

Until this week, entertainment industry executives thought they had the votes for new federal legislation cracking down on foreign websites that traffic in pirated movies and music and cost them billions.

They lined up support from the powerful pharmaceutical industry and labor unions, and organized an impressive bipartisan coalition in Congress.

Then Silicon Valley struck back and appears to have outflanked Hollywood.

The result was on full display Tuesday night as Wikipedia, Craigslist and other popular sites shut down for a threatened 12- to 24-hour strike, said to be the Internet's first such stoppage. As many as 10,000 others had also threatened to go dark.

Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia's founder, said the strike was meant to protest the legislation's "frightening precedent of Internet censorship for the world." Visitors to Wikipedia's English-language site and others participating in the strike were met with a page urging them to write to Congress to oppose two proposed bills.

The swelling online opposition persuaded the White House to call over the weekend for lawmakers to remove the legislation's most controversial provision, which would have required U.S. search engines and payment networks to block access to websites focused on pirated materials. Supporters of the legislation say it would target foreign websites trading in stolen intellectual property, including movies and music. Critics say it would unfairly penalize legitimate websites too, such as the online classified ad service Craigslist or the photo sharing service Flickr.

Congressional sponsors are expected to remove the site-blocking provision, and to try to forge a compromise that focuses largely on cutting off the money to foreign piracy websites.

While Hollywood and other backers focused their firepower inside the Beltway, tech giants such as Google Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., along with websites and online activists, made a broader case and took it mainstream.

They successfully shifted the debate from piracy to Internet freedom, calling the legislation a threat to free speech that could stifle the massive Web economy. And they waged an unprecedented online campaign to slow the momentum of the fast-moving bills and endanger their passage.

"It was assumed by everyone that the content owners were going to get what they asked for," said Eric Goldman, director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University School of Law. "What's happened is that the opposition campaign has gone viral. It's not just Silicon Valley speaking up, it's the public at large."

USC media professor Marty Kaplan said the Motion Picture Assn. of America is partly at a disadvantage because tech companies have a higher "brand appeal" in the general public.

"In the fight between a message that says, 'The sites you love will be shut down' and 'The expensive content you love won't be available,' I think Silicon Valley wins that argument," Kaplan said.

Although all sides agreed foreign piracy sites are a problem and preached the need to find consensus, that could be difficult given the inflamed rhetoric.

"It's time to move forward on a narrowly crafted bill," said David Hirschmann, president of the Global Intellectual Property Center at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a major backer of the legislation. "Whether the politics in an election year will allow for that, I still don't know yet."

The proposed legislation aims to cripple foreign-based websites that trade in pirated or counterfeit material by cutting off money from U.S. credit card companies and ad networks as well as removing the sites from search engine results and in some cases blocking access.

Opponents said the legislation risks entangling legitimate websites and adding onerous legal costs to Internet start-ups.

"The definitions and language and provisions are extremely broad and extremely vague," said Erik Martin, general manager at Reddit. "It would seem to be written without anybody who knew the technology."

But supporters of the legislation said opponents are mischaracterizing it and criticized the protests.

Former Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, now chief executive of the MPAA, called the strike a "gimmick" and "PR stunt." House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) said Wikipedia and other sites participating in the blackout were "promoting fear instead of facts."
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FROM WIKIPEDIA'S HOMEPAGE DURING THE BLACK OUT:

Imagine a World
Without Free Knowledge

For over a decade, we have spent millions of hours building the largest encyclopedia in human history. Right now, the U.S. Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open Internet. For 24 hours, to raise awareness, we are blacking out Wikipedia. Learn more:

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FROM CRAIGSLIST'S HOME PAGE DURING THE BLACK OUT:

STOP PIPA (Senate 968) & SOPA (HR 3261)

Imagine a world without craigslist, Wikipedia, Google, [your favorite sites here]...

News Corp, RIAA, MPAA, Nike, Sony, Comcast, VISA & others want to make that world your reality.

80 Members of Congress are in their sway, 30 against, the rest undecided or undeclared.

★ ★ ★ Please take a minute to tell your Members of Congress you OPPOSE PIPA & SOPA ★ ★ ★

CLICK HERE for MORE INFO & EASY ACTION ITEMS

PS: corporate paymasters, KEEP THOSE CLAMMY HANDS OFF THE INTERNET!

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Sheesh, Sarah, fuhgeddaboutit! Why do you think we care?

2012-01-17T19:07:00.000-08:00

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Sarah Palin slams Newsweek for giving ‘conspiracy kook writer’ Andrew Sullivan cover story
By Dylan Stableford, January 17, 2011

Like many conservatives, Sarah Palin is up in arms over this week's controversy-baiting Newsweek cover story by Andrew Sullivan, who asks, "Why Are Obama's Critics So Dumb?" Unlike many conservatives, Palin's beef with Sullivan is personal.

"Know what's truly 'dumb'?" Palin wrote in a Twitter message to Newsweek. "Giving a cover story to the Trig Truther conspiracy kook writer who thinks I didn't give birth to my son."

The former Alaskan governor and vice presidential candidate is referring to the birther-like conspiracy theory--fueled by Sullivan and others--that she is not Trig Palin's real mother, and that Palin "faked the pregnancy to avoid embarrassment for her daughter [Bristol] or for political gain or some combination of reasons."

Sullivan's response?

I have no idea, as I have said time and time again, whether Sarah Palin gave birth to Trig, and have never written such a thing. All I ever asked for a person who could become president was some basic evidence for her insane story, like medical records that most candidates have no problem providing. She never provided any, and preferred to withdraw from seeking public office rather than do so. Of course, no response to the substance. She doesn't do substance. Neither, it seems, does much of the rightwing blogosphere.

The cover story drew the ire of conservative bloggers in particular. Joel Pollak wrote what amounts to the official conservative blogger response on Andrew Breitbart's Big Government in post entitled, "Why Is Andrew Sullivan So Dumb?"

"You'd have to be stupid, fanatical, and dishonest to argue—as Trig Truther Sullivan does—that Barack Obama's failures are part of an ingenious 'long game' that is destined to succeed," Pollak wrote. "If this is the best Obama's supporters can do, Obama's only hope for re-election is the weak Republican field."

During a Fox News segment on Sullivan's article on Monday, the network blurred out Sullivan's name when showing the Newsweek cover.

"They are far too afraid to have me on to defend it," Sullivan wrote. "I've been on the blacklist for years. Like Ron Paul, too dangerous for Fox."
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Pseudonymous comments are of higher quality

2012-01-17T13:17:00.000-08:00

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Fake Names Better on Comments: Study
By John P. Mello Jr., PCWorld Jan 16, 2012

People who use pseudonyms when they participate in online communities make higher quality comments than those who use real names or are anonymous, according to researchers.

That's the finding of a study of some half a billion comments made by more than 60 million users of the Disqus comment platform.

Disqus based its findings on user ratings of comments made at websites that use its platform. Its analysis found that comments by people using pseudonyms were "liked" or replied to by 61 percent of the people who read them. That compares to 51 percent for commenters using their real names and 34 percent who were anonymous.

Pseudonym users also have higher participation rates than others, 6.5 times that of anonymous commenters and 4.7 times that of those who use their real names.

Disqus admits that its exercise in comment quality isn’t an exact science nor can its methodologies be considered "lab-quality."

Moreover, the service does have an interest in website owners allowing their visitors to use pseudonyms, since it competes with Facebook, which some websites use as a comment platform. Since Facebook requires use of real names, it benefits Disqus if website owners believe they're diminishing the quality of their communities by screening out users who want to use pseudonyms as a condition for participating in those forums.

Use of pseudonyms has been a controversial subject among online communities. When Google's social network, Google+, instituted its real names policy last year, it was greeted with protest.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Justice Department is supporting expanding its power to prosecute people who violate a website's terms of service agreement. Such agreements sometimes have requirements that people use their real names when opening accounts on a website.
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"What the Right Gets Right".... (if anything?)

2012-01-16T22:18:00.000-08:00

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What the Right Gets Right
By THOMAS B. EDSALL, January 15, 2012

With the competitors for the Republican presidential nomination engaged in an intriguing and unexpected debate over the dangers of capitalism’s “creative destruction,” this is the appropriate moment to explore the question: What does the right get right?

What insights, principles, and analyses does this movement have to offer that liberals and Democrats might want to take into account?

I recently posed a question to conservative think tanks: If given a free hand, how would conservatives deal with the unemployed, those dependent on government benefits (food stamps, Medicaid), and, more generally, those who are losers in the new economy — those hurt by corporate restructuring, globalization and declining manufacturing employment?

The Heritage Foundation, rather than answer the question, sent me links to the following papers: “Extended Unemployment Insurance Payments Do Not Benefit the Economy,” “A Free Enterprise Prescription: Unleashing Entrepreneurs to Create Jobs,” “Confronting the Unsustainable Growth of Welfare Entitlements: Principles of Reform and the Next Steps,” and “An Effective Washington Jobs Program: Do Less Harm.”

A conservative policy intellectual from a different think tank sent me an email suggesting that I read Paul Ryan’s budget proposal, “The Path to Prosperity: Restoring America’s Promise.”

All the answers evaded the question posed and, in my view, amounted to ideological pap.

I decided it might be better to ask liberals what they liked about conservatism. I submitted a new question to a small group of academics and activists on the left: what does the right get right?

The answers they gave describing the strengths the right has were illuminating and help to explain why the Republican Party has won seven of the last eleven presidential elections; controlled the Senate from 1981 to 1987 and from 1995 to 2007; and controlled the House from 1996 to 2006 and 2011 to 2013.

Andy Stern, former president of the Service Employees International Union (one of our era’s few highly successful labor organizations) and now a senior fellow at Columbia University’s Richman Center, made five points about conservatives in an email to me:

“They appreciate more instinctively the need for fiscal balance.”
“They understand people’s more innate belief in hard work and individual responsibility and see government as too often lacking that understanding.”
“They are more suspicious from a philosophical point of view of big government as an answer to many issues and are suspicious of Wall Street institutionally and not just their high salaries, and bad practices.”
“They respect the need for private sector economic growth (although their prescription is lacking).”
“They are more pro-small business.”

Gary Jacobson, a political scientist at the University of California at San Diego, is the author of “A Divider, Not a Uniter,” a harsh critique of the presidency of George W. Bush, whom Jacobson treats as a conservative apostate. Genuine conservatism, in Jacobson’s view, has a number of strengths:

It recognizes “the importance of material incentives in shaping behavior, and the difficulty in keeping bureaucracies under control and responsive to citizens.”
It is skeptical of “the application of social science theories to real world problems” and cognizant of “human fallibility/corruptibility.”
It places a high value on “liberty/autonomy.”
It places a similarly high value on “good parenting.”
It acknowledges “the superiority of market systems for encouraging efficient use of resources.”

Jonathan Haidt, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, is a liberal Democrat who has spent much of the past decade exploring the competitive strengths of conservatism. In his new book, “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion,” which will be published in March, Haidt makes several points. Conservatives, he argues, “are closer to traditional ideas of liberty” like “the right to be left alone, and they often resent liberal programs that use government to infringe on their liberties in order to protect the groups that liberals care most about.”

“Everyone gets angry when people take more than they deserve. But conservatives care more,” Haidt writes. And social conservatives favor a vision of society “in which the basic social unit is the family, rather than the individual, and in which order, hierarchy, and tradition are highly valued.”

What’s more, conservatives

detect threats to moral capital that liberals cannot perceive. They do not oppose change of all kinds (such as the Internet), but they fight back ferociously when they believe that change will damage the institutions and traditions that provide our moral exoskeletons (such as the family). Preserving those institutions and traditions is their most sacred value.

Haidt is sharply critical of some aspects of liberalism. Liberals’ determination to help victims often leads them “to push for changes that weaken groups, traditions, institutions, and moral capital.” For example, “the urge to help the inner-city poor led to welfare programs in the 1960s that reduced the value of marriage, increased out-of-wedlock births, and weakened African American families,” he suggests. “It’s as though liberals are trying to help a subset of bees (which really does need help) even if doing so damages the hive.”

Haidt, Jacobson and Stern described the positive or “flattering” view of conservatism; they were not asked about their opinions of conservatism’s shortcomings.

Much of the 2012 general election campaign will be taken up by the struggle between Obama and Romney — and, more broadly, between Democrats and Republicans — to define conservatism and the Republican Party in either favorable or hostile terms.

Two scholars, Philip E. Tetlock, professor of management and psychology at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, and Gregory Mitchell, a professor of law at the University of Virginia, have done provocative and useful work analyzing the pluses and minuses of liberalism and conservatism.

In “Liberal and Conservative Approaches to Justice: Conflicting Psychological Portraits,” Tetlock and Mitchell argue that the liabilities of conservatism include the following:

“Conservatives are too prone to engage in zero-sum thinking (either I keep my money or the government takes it). They fail to appreciate the possibility of positive sum solutions to social conflicts.”
Conservatives hold “the laissez-faire ‘minimal-state’ view that, although we have a moral obligation to refrain from hurting others, we have no obligation to help others. Conservatives cling to the comforting moral illusion that there is a sharp distinction between allowing people to suffer and making people suffer.”
“Conservatives fail to recognize that even if each transaction in a free market meets their standards of fairness (exchanges between competent adults who have not been coerced or tricked into contracts), the cumulative results could be colossally unfair.”
“Conservatives do not understand how prevalent situational constraints on achievement are and thus commit the fundamental attribution error when they hold the poor responsible for poverty.”
“Conservatives overgeneralize: From a few cases of poor persons who exploit the system, they draw sweeping conclusions about all poor persons.”
“Chance happenings play a much greater role in success or failure than conservatives realize. People often do not control their own destinies.”

The tensions between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ conservatism have already surfaced in the controversy over the corporate acquisition practices of Bain Capital when Mitt Romney was C.E.O. Both Romney and the firm are proponents of capitalism’s “gale of creative destruction.” The question is, has Bain produced enough creation to justify the destruction?

The ideological war has begun in earnest, even a little early. It pits the right, seeking to depict a conservatism that is essentially good and a liberalism that is essentially bad, against a left attempting just the opposite. Looked at another way, the two sides are fighting over what the role of government in redistributing resources from the affluent to the needy should and shouldn’t be.

While neither Romney nor Obama fits comfortably into the role of doctrinaire standard bearer, they have both been shaped by political and economic pressures that have forced them into philosophical confrontation. Political campaigns, especially re-election campaigns, are highly ideological, and this one will be no exception as the nominees try to determine the direction the country will take over the next decade.

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Mitt Romney-- serial killer?

2012-01-15T18:38:00.000-08:00

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The new ad from Stephen Colbert’s Super PAC:

“As head of Bain Capital, he bought companies, carved them up, and got rid of what he couldn’t use. If Mitt Romney really believes ‘corporations are people, my friend,’ then Mitt Romney is a serial killer.”

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Romney; god helping the Broncos

2012-01-14T18:59:00.000-08:00

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Illustrating the very real power regular people have...

2012-01-14T17:10:00.000-08:00

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Lawmakers Begin SOPA Retreat, Positive Signs For Free Speech Online
By E.D. Kain

Concerns over anti-piracy bills in congress are finally beginning to influence lawmakers. SOPA [Stop Online Piracy Act] architect Lamar Smith is, apparently, listening – especially now that the Obama administration is voicing its own concerns over the legislation.

In a statement, Smith said he will remove controversial DNS-blocking rules from the bill, though his counterpart in the Senate, Patrick Leahy, has only mentioned changing those rules.

“After consultation with industry groups across the country,” Smith said in a statement released by his office, “I feel we should remove DNS-blocking from the Stop Online Piracy Act so that the [U.S. House Judiciary] Committee can further examine the issues surrounding this provision.

“We will continue to look for ways,” Smith continued, “to ensure that foreign Web sites cannot sell and distribute illegal content to U.S. consumers.”

Cory Doctorow, writing at BoingBoing, points out that “Even without its DNS provisions, SOPA remains terminally flawed, creating a regime that would be terminally hostile to any site that contains links and any site that allows the public to post comments on it.”

Andy Greenberg also reports that Rep. Darrell Issa, an opponent of the bills, is delaying a hearing on the matter in light of the new concessions. The hearing would “have included Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian, domain name system researcher Dan Kaminsky, and other outspoken opponents of the bill from the tech industry,” according to Greenberg.

I’m a little nervous about the whole thing, honestly.

While this is good news for free speech advocates and the tech industry, the risk as it stands now is that minor concessions are made and then still very deeply flawed legislation pushes its way through congress. The Obama administration, meanwhile, has made positive noises about the bills but can’t be fully trusted to stand behind its statements.

Either way, at least we finally have a real debate on the issue and, for now at least, momentum has slowed, prompting Matt Yglesias to write:

“It increasingly looks like the SOPA/Protect IP fights are turning into an example of how the political system sometimes does work correctly after all. The con forces on these bills initially looked numerically overwhelmed in congress and hugely outspent. But opponents really mobilized vocally, got people and institutions who don’t normally focus on politics to write about this, and perhaps most important of all demonstrated that more people genuinely cared about this issue than most members of congress initially realized. Now the momentum has slowed incredibly and the White House technology policy team has come out against these bills.

To look a gift horse in the mouth for a second, however, I note that the White House statement does contain a “reasonable” to-be-sure line stating that “online piracy is a real problem that harms the American economy, and threatens jobs for significant numbers of middle class workers and hurts some of our nation’s most creative and innovative companies and entrepreneurs.”

I’m not sure this is our political system “working” so much as it illustrates the very real power regular people have, using technology to work together to raise awareness. The political system “working” too often means bipartisan efforts to do very bad things.
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Republican candidates don't deserve the job they seek

2012-01-14T02:48:00.000-08:00

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Romney’s rivals serve up a heaping helping of pious baloney
By Kathleen Parker, Published: January 11
[snipped]

Sometimes people need to be fired, and sometimes they shouldn’t be hired at all. That’s reality. The further, obvious reality is that several of those who do not deserve to have the job they seek are running for president of the United States.

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Karma's a bitch!

2012-01-13T15:58:00.000-08:00

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And here we were all thinking that Edwards was heartless!
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Judge: Ex-presidential candidate John Edwards has serious heart condition; trial delayed

By Associated Press, Updated: Friday, January 13, 2:50 PM

GREENSBORO, N.C. — Ex-presidential candidate John Edwards has a serious heart condition that will require a medical procedure next month and his illness limits his travel including for an upcoming court case over possible campaign violations, his doctor told a judge, who delayed the trial.

Federal Judge Catherine Eagles did not disclose the exact nature of Edwards’ illness Friday or what procedure he needed. However, she said the two-time presidential candidate had “three episodes” and indicated his condition could be life-threatening if left untreated.

[snipped]
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Gee, I didn't know that speaking a foreign language disqualified someone from running for President!

2012-01-13T14:34:00.000-08:00

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This is ridiculous! We're being encouraged on one hand to learn foreign languages so we can interact with the rest of the world, and yet GingrichTheFool mocks Romney (and Kerry) for speaking French!
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Gingrich mocks Romney for speaking French

Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich may have backtracked from a recent campaign ad attacking Romney as a job-killer during his tenure at Bain Capital, but he’s still accusing him of another act that may nettle some conservatives: speaking French.

In a web ad titled “The French Connection,” a deep-voiced narrator describes Romney as a liberal governor who authored government-mandated health care and raised taxes in his state of Massachusetts but who now masquerades as a conservative.

The narrator says, “Massachusetts moderate Mitt Romney, he’ll say anything to win — anything. And just like John Kerry, he speaks French.”

The ad then cuts to a video of Democratic Senator John Kerry saying haltingly, in French, “Let the good times roll!”

During the 2004 presidential campaign, Kerry was criticized for his connections to France, where he spent summers during his childhood. Romney, too, lived in France, where he served as a missionary for more than two years in the 1960s.

The ad closes with indisputable proof that Romney is Francophone–a shot from a video of Romney speaking in French to volunteers for the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, which he helped organize. He says, in French, “Hello, my name is Mitt Romney.”

[Video at the site]
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"What we're doing in Gitmo isn't American, isn't justice, and doesn't work" -- a fellow blogger's opinion

2012-01-13T12:54:00.000-08:00

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A system that doesn't work

Is this all true? How would we know? We don't take these people to court. We don't give them a trial. We don't let them have representation. Our government can do anything it wants and keep it all a secret. So how would we know?

Once they're taken to Gitmo, often on extremely flimsy evidence, that's it. And now they can take American citizens there, too. They can even take American citizens arrested on American soil. No trial. No habeas corpus. No rights at all. Whomever government officials want to lock up, they can.

President Obama did try to close Gitmo, I'll give him that. Of course, the Republicans wouldn't go along with it. The Republicans automatically oppose anything the president wants to do. And the Democrats themselves were too cowardly to support him in this. Big surprise, huh?

But Obama gave up pretty easily, too. You know, he should never give up. He's supposed to be a constitutional scholar, so let's see him stand up for the constitution!

Republicans are going to hate him no matter what he does, so why doesn't he stand up and fight for our side? I don't care if the rest of the Democrats are complete cowards. I don't care if it's unpopular. I don't care if Fox "News" goes ballistic. They will, anyway.

This was one of the great errors, one of the great tragedies of the Bush administration. We must close Gitmo! And if Obama can't close Gitmo, then he should never stop trying.

The fact that he failed doesn't bother me, not really. What bothers me is the fact that he gave up.

The American system of justice works. But what we're doing in Gitmo isn't American, isn't justice, and doesn't work.

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Stephen Colbert, presidential candidate?

2012-01-12T19:09:00.000-08:00

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Colbert in the race?: 'God’s good with it'
Andy Shain, The SC Primary Blog

Comedian and Charleston native Stephen Colbert will announce whether he will run for president in South Carolina on his show tonight.

After revealing that he was polling ahead of Jon Huntsman in South Carolina, "The Colbert Report" host asked his audience last night if he should run in a race he was hoping to pay $500,000 to sponsor.

He took a moment to prary [sic] and announced: “God’s good with it.”

“But obviously, I still have to go home sit down and talk it over with my money.”

A poll released this week has Colbert getting 5 percent of the vote in South Carolina -- slightly ahead of Huntsman, who finished third in New Hampshire.

When the former Utah governor learned of the news, Huntsman told Fox News that Colbert told him that when he as a guest on the show that he should get a “Colbert bump” in popularity.

“I’m sorry Governor Huntsman.” Colbert said. “I guess the Colbert bump reflected off of you and bounced back to me. That happens in the rare instances when my guests are whiter than I am.”

[includes video]

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Colbert transfers PAC to Stewart, hints at presidential run

Stephen Colbert isn't running for president — at least not yet.

During taping of the Thursday night episode of TheColbert Report, he legally transferred his super political action committee to his friend and Comedy Centralcohort Jon Stewart. Dropping by from The Daily Show, Stewart happily signed the super PAC documents and accepted the post.

The move potentially paves the way for Colbert to enter the Republican presidential primary in South Carolina, his home state. Campaigning politicians are prohibited from simultaneously running a super PAC.

But Colbert only hinted at such a decision. In true potential candidate form, he announced he's forming "an exploratory committee" to consider whether he would run for president of "the United States of South Carolina."

Colbert memorably attempted to run in the primary in the 2008 election.

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What will it take for reality to set in for the GOP?

2012-01-09T23:54:00.000-08:00

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Is Jon Huntsman the Future of the Republican Party?
JAMES JOYNER · SUNDAY, JANUARY 8, 2012

We here at OTB [Outside The Beltway] have spilled a lot of pixels already on Jon Huntsman, the major Republican candidate for president least popular among Republicans. But the former Utah governor’s comments to Politico‘s Jonathan Martin (“Trailing in New Hampshire, Jon Huntsman takes the long view”) reveal the real strategy behind the seemingly Quixotic run.

Huntsman already is sounding like someone taking a longer view of his own presidential fortunes and the political party he’s always called home.
In an interview Friday, the Utah governor turned China ambassador said bluntly that the GOP had lost its equilibrium in the Obama era but predicted it would eventually return to its bearings — and vindicate his own brand of pragmatism.
“I believe in the ideas put forward by Theodore White, the cycles of history,” Huntsman told POLITICO. “I believe we are in one such cycle. I think that cycle ultimately takes us to a sane Republican Party based on real ideas.”
Suggesting that the GOP currently is something other than sane isn’t the best way to win the support of Republican voters and may stir speculation that he’s preparing to launch a third-party bid. But Huntsman increasingly appears less focused on the political landscape of 2012 and more fixated on what his party will look like post-Obama — and what role he could have in it, come 2016.
Citing the cyclical theory of American political history — he’s confusing White for historian Arthur Schlesinger — Huntsman said the GOP’s transition away from its current moment of conservative purity may take years. ”[It's] hard to know, but cycles never come about quickly, there’s an arc to them,” he said when asked when the Republican Party would shift. “But I suspect that what I’m talking about now and what I am putting forward as remedies for the economic deficit and for the trust deficit ultimately will be the core of our Republican Party — a governing majority.”
He adds: “It could be this time it could be two, three, four years from now — it’s hard to know.”

In a Twitter conversation Friday with Matt Duss and Dave Roberts, I observed, “I hold out small hope that Huntsman represents what the GOP could become again. Very small hope.” Apparently, so does Huntsman.

It seems fanciful right now, I know. The Republican Party seems to be dominated by an alliance of religious extremists and warmongers. It’s a longstanding trend but one that captured the leadership of the party only with the 2010 elections.

[snipped]

Over the years, though, the party got captured by the people Reagan’s speeches were aimed at. Long people at the margins of American politics, they took over the grass roots of the Republican Party. Typically, Republicans had turned to candidates who had successful careers in some other business and then entered elective politics running for major offices: Congress, state governorships, or the US Senate. Indeed, one reason Democrats had dominated the House for decades was that they had a much stronger grass roots of candidates who had come up the hard way, through the school boards, county commissions, state legislatures, and so forth. That started to change, especially in the South and rural areas, with evangelicals taking over local school boards and running candidates for those low level offices Republicans had previously eschewed.

Over time, then, the Republican candidate base began to shift from the Chamber of Commerce types who had dominated the elite level of the party for decades to this new crop of ideological true believers. Beginning with the so-called Republican Revolution of 1994, they emerged in force in national politics and became the feeder system for not only the House but also the Senate and governorships. And, eventually, the presidency.

Thus far, they haven’t quite taken over the very top of the party. At the presidential level, they’ve still nominated the likes of Bob Dole, George W. Bush (who seems extreme in hindsight to some, but is considered a RINO by most Tea Party types), and John McCain. Currently, Mitt Romney is the frontrunner for 2012 but it’s not inconceivable that social conservatives could rally against Rick Santorum and put him over the top. At the congressional level, John Boehner and Mitch McConnell are traditional Republicans ideologically–albeit pushed to scorched earth tactics politically by a caucus that they can barely control. But Eric Cantor and Jon Kyl are knocking at the door.

It’s pretty obvious to dispassionate observers that the trend of the last twenty years or so is unsustainable if the GOP is to remain a nationally competitive party. Cultural and demographic changes are such that relying on Southern whites and a social message stuck in 1980 will mean permanently ceding the White House and the Senate to Democrats. While Ron Paul-style isolationism will never appeal to a majority of Americans, neither will perpetual war. While safeguarding our borders and enforcing our laws will remain popular, policies and rhetoric that come across as anti-Hispanic will not. And, as the younger generation supplants the older one at the ballot box, anti-gay, anti-science talk will come across as positively alien.

Now, while I happen to like Huntsman and would prefer him over all the candidates running this year, he’s almost certainly never going to be the Republican nominee. He’d make an excellent prime minister but he doesn’t have the campaign chops to come out on top in our presidential nominating system and wouldn’t even if the Republican nominating electorate were more moderate; he’s just not very charismatic on the stump. (True, that was also true of George H.W. Bush, the last Republican nominee in the Huntsman mold. But he likely wouldn’t have gotten the nod if he hadn’t been Reagan’s obvious successor.)

Whether someone like Huntsman will be the Republican nominee in 2016 depends almost entirely on what happens these next ten months. If Romney wins the nomination and loses to Obama–both of which seem likely right now–then we’ll likely see a swing to the right in 2016, as it would reinforce in the nominating electorate the notion that nominating moderates is a recipe for disaster. If Romney wins the nomination and beats Obama, he will, barring tragedy, be the nominee in 2016 and 2020 will proceed along something like the current path, with no lessons being learned.

The only real way to speed up the learning curve–and it might take two presidential cycles even then–would be if Santorum were to get the nomination and then lose in an Electoral College landslide to Obama despite a down economy. Were that to happen, it would be hard for the base to tell themselves that they got beaten because they didn’t get behind a Real Conservative. But the base itself would have to transform for them to rally around a Huntsman type in 2016. Nominate another Santorum type in 2020 and lose the White House a fourth straight time, though, and reality would have to set in.

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Uh huh.....

2012-01-09T01:48:00.000-08:00

Campaign finance : a dangerous return to the pre-Watergate era

2012-01-08T14:54:00.000-08:00

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What donors? Super PACs buy time to keep secrets
By JACK GILLUM, Sat, Jan 7, 2012

Independent political groups backing top Republican candidates are taking advantage of federal rules that essentially let them shield the identities of their donors until after important primary elections this month.

[snipped]

"It is secret money — you won't know until after the primaries have occurred who helped fund them," said Trevor Potter, a former Republican FEC commissioner and president of the watchdog group Campaign Legal Center. "Whether they're doing this for the right or wrong reasons, it's the opposite of what the disclosure system was designed to do."

[snipped]

The new super PACs sprung from a series of federal court rulings, including the Supreme Court's Citizens United case in 2010 that stripped away restrictions on corporate and union spending in elections. The groups can't coordinate directly with campaigns but many of them active in this election are staffed by longtime supporters of the candidates.

As a result, campaign-finance watchdogs have assailed the rulings as a dangerous return to the pre-Watergate era. The filing changes also have the effect, they say, of shielding donors until dates when many candidates might likely drop out.

[snipped]
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Sane Leaders?

2012-01-08T08:02:00.001-08:00

I read a commentary recently that described Jon Huntsman as the “sanest” of the crop of Republican presidential candidates. It brought to mind a similar comment that called the new leader of North Korea as the sanest of Kim Jong Il’s three sons.

Isn’t it a sad state of affairs when we’re reduced to deciding our future leaders not on the strength of their character; not on their vision; not on their ability to lead; but merely on the state of their sanity?

Gingrich: the Frankenstein’s monster emerging from his own shop of horrors

2012-01-07T22:17:00.000-08:00

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Newt’s Shop of Horrors
By TIMOTHY EGAN, January 5, 2012

There must be a Greek tragedy, a Shakespeare play or a “Daily Show” parody to explain the exquisite irony of Newt Gingrich being destroyed by the very forces he unleashed — a smack-down that sets up 2012 as the year the moneyed elite learn to use the limitless power granted them by the Supreme Court.

The deflated Newt balloon is pathetic, to use one of his favorite words. There he was, tired and bitter on election night, after getting carpet-bombed by advertisements painting him as a soulless hack tied to Washington like sea rust on the underside of a listing ship.

He complained about “millionaire consultants” buying every television outlet to “lie” about him. He whined about getting buried under “an avalanche of negative ads” that left him “drowning in negativity.” You get the picture: ugly, sudden death, the very life snuffed out of him by things he could not control.

And yet, of course, what killed Gingrich was in part his own creation, and not just because he himself is a millionaire consultant paid to destroy or inflate on demand. The Frankenstein’s monster emerged from his own shop of horrors.

Gingrich, for the last few years, has been partners in self-promotion with Citizens United, the group that prompted the worst Supreme Court decision of the nascent 21st century, the one that granted “personhood” rights to corporations and green-lighted them to dominate American elections. More to the point, that 2010 case gave birth to shadowy super PACs that can annihilate a candidate, no holds barred, no responsibility to those pulling the strings.

If you live in Cedar Falls, and didn’t like seeing Iowa nice turned into the scene from “Fargo” when a victim is ground up in the wood chipper, blame Citizens United, and the Supreme Court majority that Republicans can’t praise enough. Unlimited political filth by anonymous rich groups — this is John Roberts’s America.

It was a hit piece, after all, a film on Hillary Clinton produced by Citizens United, that led to the Supreme Court case. Gingrich and Citizens United have worked closely together on several other films. Gingrich loved the court decision. And on the one-year anniversary of the case, Gingrich was still effusive.

“I actually think that the Citizens United case is one of the best examples of a genuine strategy that I’ve seen in the years I’ve been in Washington,” he said.

Earlier, he’d sent out a video plea, saying, “Please join Citizens United and me in our fight for the First Amendment rights of every American.”

Yes, because every lone citizen’s voice is roughly equal to, say, the $3 million or so in negative advertising spent in Iowa to crush Gingrich. Those citizens who worked at corporations, or founded super PACs, were somehow denied their First Amendment rights, in the reasoning of the court and Gingrich. Money is speech, one and the same, in their world.

If Gingrich had any guts, or lasting principles, he would now sound alarms about the absurdity of a court decision equating the Norman Rockwell citizen standing at town hall to the anonymous millions that can kill a candidate in less than month. In Gingrich’s case, he fell 20 points in 20 days.

This is your democracy on meth — the post-Citizens United world. I saw it in Colorado in the 2010 election, a close senate race, where retail campaigning was overshadowed by more than $30 million spent by outside groups answering to no one. In the last month of that election, negative television ads ran nearly every minute of every day.

But Colorado was training wheels for the current presidential race, the first since the court unleashed the worst demons of American political life. Gingrich himself has a super PAC, Winning Our Future, and he’s now prepared to use it like a political suicide bomb as his campaign comes to its brutal end. That group, by the way, is not to be confused with Restore Our Future, the super PAC linked to Mitt Romney that took down Gingrich in Iowa.

By law, the super PACs are not supposed to coordinate with the candidates. Oh, heavens to Betsy, no! “My goodness,” said Romney, when asked about the wealthy PAC that does his bidding, “if we coordinated in any way whatsoever we’d go to the big house.”

So, who are the people behind Restore Our Future? They’re former associates of Romney’s at Bain Capital, business friends of his in Utah and some of the same donors who Swift-boated John Kerry in 2004.

This legalism of “no coordination” is a filament-thin G-string. Everyone coordinates. President Obama’s allies may spend up to $1 billion through their own super PAC, Priorities USA Action, and other groups. Karl Rove has promised to pollute the air waves with tens of millions of dollars in attack ads from his organization, American Crossroads.

All of this is the spawn of the Citizens United case — free speech dominated by the few, the powerful, the wealthy. It can be stalled only by forceful appeals from the leading candidates, a multi-lateral disarmament that is highly unlikely.

Among the losers, Gingrich has the least credibility complaining of the effects. What happened to him in Iowa is not what he wished for, but it is certainly what he asked for.

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The consequences of GOP success

2012-01-05T18:13:00.000-08:00

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What if the GOP wins in November?
By Steve Benen, January 05, 2012

It’s far too soon to say with any confidence who’ll win the 2012 presidential election, but it’s hardly unreasonable to believe a Republican victory is a distinct possibility.

But while there’s going to be all kinds of coverage, here and elsewhere, about the horse race, what matters most is the public understanding the consequences of GOP success.

It’s the focus of the Washington Monthly’s new print edition, and it’s one of my favorites. Here’s the editors’ summary, setting the stage for a fascinating and important package:

One simple question has dominated the coverage of the GOP presidential primary: which candidate is likely to win? But the most important question has been left largely unexamined: if one of these candidates actually becomes president and advances his policies, what would be the consequence for the nation?
To fill this gap, the Washington Monthly asked a group of distinguished journalists and scholars to think through the likely ramifications of a GOP victory in November. Here’s what they conclude:
* David Weigel reports that the Tea Party will control the agenda regardless of which Republican wins the nomination.
* Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann predict that there’s a “better-than-even chance” that the Senate filibuster will be destroyed.
* David Roberts shows that the GOP won’t eliminate the EPA, but will permanently cripple it.
* Harold Pollack disabuses liberals of the hope that health care reform can survive a Republican presidency.
* Dahlia Lithwick writes that one more round of judicial appointments by a Republican president will lead to a generation of anti-government rulings no future Democrat can undo.
Plus: Jonathan Bernstein on why campaign promises matter; Michael Konczal on the end of Dodd-Frank; James Traub on the GOP’s “more enemies, fewer friends” doctrine; and Paul Glastris on why, this time, conservative anti-government aspirations will be fulfilled.
Read a sneak preview of the Washington Monthly’s January/February cover package, “What if Obama Loses? Imagining the consequences of a GOP victory.”

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McCain hates President Obama with the heat of a thousand suns!

2012-01-05T13:20:00.000-08:00

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Can McCain define "destroy"?
By Steve Benen, January 04, 2012

As we talked about earlier, John McCain probably didn’t want to endorse Mitt Romney today, but he did. Was this largely a matter of party loyalty and the Republican establishment rallying behind their guy? Probably, though there are a couple of related angles to consider.

For one thing, as much as McCain dislikes Romney, he dislikes Rick Santorum more. For another, as much as McCain dislikes Romney and Santorum, he hates President Obama with the heat of a thousand suns.

McCain took the microphone and delivered a full-throated rebuke to Obama: “My friends, our message to President Barack Obama is you can run, but you can’t hide from your record of making this country bankrupt, from destroying our national security and for making this nation one that we have to restore with Mitt Romney as president of the United States of America.”

That struck me as a curious indictment, especially for a prepared speech.

The country is “bankrupt”? What does that even mean? We have the world’s largest economy; we pay our debts; and the world is still eager to loan us an enormous amount of money at extremely low interest rates. Is McCain just throwing around words again without understanding them?

But even more interesting is the notion that the president is “destroying our national security.” Now, I can understand why Obama’s liberal detractors criticize the administration’s policies when it comes to the national security state, prosecution of wars, detainees, etc. But from McCain’s perspective, what is it, exactly, that the senator finds worthy of whining?

Concerns surrounding civil liberties notwithstanding, the president and his team can take credit for killing Osama bin Laden, decimating al Qaeda, helping bring down the Gadhafi regime in Libya (a guy McCain literally used to bow to), and preventing many terrorist plots.

Maybe McCain would take issue with some of the developments, maybe not. But either way, in what universe is the president “destroying our national security”?

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This makes me think of some of the Olympian's commenters!

2012-01-04T00:46:00.000-08:00

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Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T00:00:00.000-08:00

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May we all have had a safe New Year's Eve and have a safe New Year's Day and year to come!

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We KNEW it! Liberals are more intelligent than conservatives!

2011-12-28T20:22:00.000-08:00

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Why Liberals Are More Intelligent Than Conservatives

By Satoshi Kanazawa

Created Mar 21 2010

Harriet Hayes: I don’t even know what the sides are in the culture wars.
Matt Albie: Well, your side hates my side because you think we think you are stupid, and my side hates your side because we think you are stupid.
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Nevada Day, Part I

It is difficult to define a whole school of political ideology precisely, but one may reasonably define liberalism (as opposed to conservatism) in the contemporary United States as the genuine concern for the welfare of genetically unrelated others and the willingness to contribute larger proportions of private resources for the welfare of such others. In the modern political and economic context, this willingness usually translates into paying higher proportions of individual incomes in taxes toward the government and its social welfare programs. Liberals usually support such social welfare programs and higher taxes to finance them, and conservatives usually oppose them.

Defined as such, liberalism is evolutionarily novel. Humans (like other species) are evolutionarily designed to be altruistic toward their genetic kin, their friends and allies, and members of their deme (a group of intermarrying individuals) or ethnic group. They are not designed to be altruistic toward an indefinite number of complete strangers whom they are not likely ever to meet or interact with. This is largely because our ancestors lived in a small band of 50-150 genetically related individuals, and large cities and nations with thousands and millions of people are themselves evolutionarily novel.

The examination of the 10-volume compendium The Encyclopedia of World Cultures, which describes all human cultures known to anthropology (more than 1,500) in great detail, as well as extensive primary ethnographies of traditional societies, reveals that liberalism as defined above is absent in these traditional cultures. While sharing of resources, especially food, is quite common and often mandatory among hunter-gatherer tribes, and while trade with neighboring tribes often takes place, there is no evidence that people in contemporary hunter-gatherer bands freely share resources with members of other tribes.

Because all members of a hunter-gatherer tribe are genetic kin or at the very least friends and allies for life, sharing resources among them does not qualify as an expression of liberalism as defined above. Given its absence in the contemporary hunter-gatherer tribes, which are often used as modern-day analogs of our ancestral life, it may be reasonable to infer that sharing of resources with total strangers that one has never met or is not likely ever to meet – that is, liberalism – was not part of our ancestral life. Liberalism may therefore be evolutionarily novel, and the Hypothesis would predict that more intelligent individuals are more likely than less intelligent individuals to espouse liberalism as a value.

Analyses of large representative samples, from both the United States and the United Kingdom, confirm this prediction. In both countries, more intelligent children are more likely to grow up to be liberals than less intelligent children. For example, among the American sample, those who identify themselves as “very liberal” in early adulthood have a mean childhood IQ of 106.4, whereas those who identify themselves as “very conservative” in early adulthood have a mean childhood IQ of 94.8.

Even though past studies show that women are more liberal than men, and blacks are more liberal than whites, the effect of childhood intelligence on adult political ideology is twice as large as the effect of either sex or race. So it appears that, as the Hypothesis predicts, more intelligent individuals are more likely to espouse the value of liberalism than less intelligent individuals, possibly because liberalism is evolutionarily novel and conservatism is evolutionarily familiar.

The primary means that citizens of capitalist democracies contribute their private resources for the welfare of the genetically unrelated others is paying taxes to the government for its social welfare programs. The fact that conservatives have been shown to give more money to charities than liberals is not inconsistent with the prediction from the Hypothesis; in fact, it supports the prediction. Individuals can normally choose and select the beneficiaries of their charity donations. For example, they can choose to give money to the victims of the earthquake in Haiti, because they want to help them, but not to give money to the victims of the earthquake in Chile, because they don’t want to help them. In contrast, citizens do not have any control over whom the money they pay in taxes benefit. They cannot individually choose to pay taxes to fund Medicare, because they want to help elderly white people, but not AFDC, because they don’t want to help poor black single mothers. This may precisely be why conservatives choose to give more money to individual charities of their choice while opposing higher taxes.

Incidentally, this finding substantiates one of the persistent complaints among conservatives. Conservatives often complain that liberals control the media or the show business or the academia or some other social institutions. The Hypothesis explains why conservatives are correct in their complaints. Liberals do control the media, or the show business, or the academia, among other institutions, because, apart from a few areas in life (such as business) where countervailing circumstances may prevail, liberals control all institutions. They control the institutions because liberals are on average more intelligent than conservatives and thus they are more likely to attain the highest status in any area of (evolutionarily novel) modern life.

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We do the best we can

2011-12-27T17:33:00.000-08:00

occupyabath

Are you going to go tattle on me at your pathetic little commie blog again?http://thurstonblog.blogspot.c./..Maybe if you put on some pants and get out of your mother's basement, you can go earn a paycheck instead of crying about the 1 percenters all day.

in reply to Merciful_Fate

Only one problem "occupyabath" - Merciful_Fate isn't registered as an author for ThurstonBlog

Crawl back in your "nucular" bomb shelter and prepare for the end of the world as you know it.

Today is National Whiners Day!

2011-12-26T16:33:00.000-08:00

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Almost too late for the local whiners, but face it, for them every day is Whiners Day!

Dec. 26: National Whiners Day: A day dedicated to whiners, especially those who return Christmas gifts. The celebration, held each year since 1986, culminates with the picking of the year's top whiners.
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Need a late gift for a commenter on the Olympian?

2011-12-26T14:58:00.000-08:00

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Found-- grammar posters, the perfect gifts for most of the commenters on the Olympian's articles:

Ten Words You Need To Stop Misspelling
The Three Most Common Uses of Irony
How To Use An Apostrophe
How to use a semicolon
When to use i.e. in a sentence
What it means when you say literally
Flesh vs Flush

Thanks to "The Oatmeal"!
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Happy Holiday to you and yours

2011-12-25T17:46:00.001-08:00

From your Friendly ThurstonBlogger

Lies and truth

2011-12-24T01:36:00.000-08:00

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To the Republican, right-wing commenters on articles in the Olympian:
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"I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my Republican friends... that if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them." -- Adlai E. Stevenson

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Big-bellied Sensenbrenner criticizes Michelle Obama

2011-12-22T19:37:00.000-08:00

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The Republicans can't ding the President on substantive issues, so they go after Mrs. Obama for her shape!
Here's an image of Sensenbrenner with his big belly hanging over his belt!
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Congressman apologizes for criticizing Michelle Obama’s ‘large posterior’
By Holly Bailey | The Ticket – 2011 - 12 - 22

A Republican congressman from Wisconsin has offered a personal apology to First Lady Michelle Obama after he was overheard at an airport lounge criticizing her "large posterior."

Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner was overheard loudly complaining on the phone in the Delta Lounge at Reagan National Airport outside Washington about Obama's healthy food initiative.

According to Fishbowl DC, which first reported the lawmaker's remarks, Sensenbrenner was recounting a recent conversation he'd had at church event in Wisconsin.

Obama, Sensenbrenner said loudly, "lectures us on eating right while she has a large posterior herself."

According to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's Daniel Bice, Sensenbrenner made a similar remark at the Wisconsin church he was referencing in his phone call, telling attendees there that Obama has a "big butt."

The Wisconsin lawmaker—who, it must noted, is a bit rotund--sent a personal note to Obama apologizing for his remarks, his spokeswoman Amanda Infield tells Yahoo News. She declined to go into detail about what the note said.

In a statement to reporters, the lawmaker reiterated his apology. "I regret my inappropriate comment, and I have sent a personal note to the First Lady apologizing," he said.

A spokesman for Obama did not respond to a request for comment.

It's not the first time Republicans have mentioned Obama's looks in criticizing her campaign to end childhood obesity. Earlier this year, Rush Limbaugh trashed the initiative, suggesting Obama doesn't physically appear to practice what she preaches.

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Boosting tourism in Texas

2011-12-20T19:02:00.000-08:00

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Rick Perry promises to send bureaucrats to a "God-awful place." Nice to
see that he still takes an interest in boosting tourism in Texas. -- Dennis DiClaudio
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Major Olympian fail

2011-12-17T16:12:00.000-08:00

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Friday shortly after noon a woman was attacked on the Olympia Woodland Trail, but so far the Olympian hasn't posted a peep about it (unless they have buried it someplace that isn't evident). At the least they could have posted something in conjunction with the report on the dead body found the day before and not far away from the place where the woman was attacked.

KIRO and KOMO both broadcast stories about the assault:
http://www.kirotv.com/news/news/woman-attacked-olympia-woodland-trail/nF4ny/ KIRO reporter Richard Thompson said he had heard the report on his police radio and beat some of the cops to the scene. (Why doesn't the Olympian use a police radio??)
http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Woman-attacked-in-Oy-135773493.html

Supposedly the Olympian (and The News Tribune) work in conjunction with KIRO but it doesn't appear that they did this time.
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UPDATE:
The Olympian finally posted a "News Update" at 8:06 pm tonight about this attack!
http://www.theolympian.com/2011/12/17/1917481/woman-reports-assault-on-olympia.html
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Anti-choice Baumgartner's desperate attack on Cantwell for not being married!

2011-12-17T14:11:00.000-08:00

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Maria Cantwell's Marital Status Used By GOP Opponent In Political Attack
By Amanda Terkel, First Posted: 12/16/11 03:27 PM ET Updated: 12/16/11 06:00 PM ET

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Maria Cantwell's (D-Wash.) position on Plan B emergency contraception is being called into question by her Republican opponent, due in part to the fact that she is an unmarried woman without children and has, according to him, "frequently voted to undermine the role of parents in child-rearing."

State Sen. Michael Baumgartner (R), who is running against Cantwell, sent out a campaign email Thursday with the headline, "Baumgartner Criticizes Cantwell Embrace of Morning After Pill for Young Girls."

"Cantwell is so extreme that she doesn't see anything wrong with 11 year-old girls getting Plan B without a prescription," Baumgartner said. "She is more liberal than Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and more liberal than President Obama. That is pretty extreme -- a lot farther to the Left than most Washingtonians are comfortable with."

Baumgartner was referring to Sebelius' recent decision to overrule the Food and Drug Administration's recommendation that the emergency contraception pill Plan B One-Step be made available to women of all ages over the counter, without a prescription. Currently, Plan B is available over the counter to women 17 and older, while those younger than 17 need a prescription.

Cantwell and 13 other Democratic senators recently wrote a letter to Sebelius expressing their "disappointment" with the Plan B outcome and asking for the scientific basis behind her decision.

Obama said that while the decision was Sebelius', he supported her, adding that as a father, he was concerned about the effect that Plan B could have on girls younger than age 13.

In the email, which appears to be part of a series called "CAN'TWELL WATCH," the Baumgartner campaign seemed to suggest that Cantwell had chosen what he views as the wrong stance on the issue because she has no children of her own.

"Baumgartner noted that Cantwell, who is unmarried, has frequently voted to undermine the role of parents in child-rearing," read the very bottom of the email.

When asked by The Huffington Post whether being unmarried meant Cantwell was unqualified to have an opinion on Plan B, Baumgartner emailed, "No, she's certainly qualified to talk about this issue and I didn't mean to imply otherwise. I just agree with the President and HHS Secretary on this one."

"Maria Cantwell believes that the Plan B decision should be based on the best available science," said Cantwell campaign strategist Rose Kapolczynski. "Washington voters support protecting women's health. You don't need to be married to know that Baumgartner's extreme anti-choice position is out of touch."

A recent Survey USA poll put Cantwell 12 points ahead of Baumgartner, which he touted as showing that "Cantwell is in trouble."

Jennifer Duffy, senior editor at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, told PubliCola that a 12-point spread wasn't "bad" for Baumgartner since most state residents don't know him yet, but it was far from a reason for him to be optimistic.

"The bottom line is that Baumgartner has a lot of work to do to prove he can run a credible statewide race and give Cantwell a competitive contest," said Duffy. "And, Washington is just a tough state for Republicans in any circumstance, but especially in a presidential year. Whether Cantwell is up 12 points, or 22 points, she retains the advantage here."

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Bipartisan hypocrisy

2011-12-15T17:20:00.000-08:00

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Hypocrisy Proves Bipartisan in Payroll Tax Debate: Caroline Baum
By Caroline Baum Dec 15, 2011 4:00 PM PT

[snipped]

Hypocritical Oath

Republicans are reluctant to admit that the payroll tax cut is the wrong kind of cut. They favor reductions in marginal and capital gains tax rates to encourage work, saving and investment. In their world, tax cuts are an incentive to increase the supply of labor -- one’s willingness to work -- not the demand for goods and services.

In order to deflect attention from their philosophical aversion to tax cuts that merely “put money in the pocket of people who will spend it,” as Obama is wont to say, Republicans are touting the Keystone pipeline as a “job creator” in an attempt to make the president look indifferent to long-term unemployment with his veto threat.

And that’s not all. Earlier this month, Senate Republicans rejected measures that would have paid for the payroll tax cut by imposing a surtax on millionaires. Obama turned that to his advantage, charging tax-cut-loving Republicans with refusing to help the middle class while protecting the wealthy.

Round and round it goes. The two parties are so intent on scoring political points and playing gotcha, they can’t even see to what extent their current behavior is countercultural (at least counter to their particular culture).

So the next time you hear someone complain about the lack of bipartisanship in Washington, tell him, nonsense. Hypocrisy is as bipartisan as it gets.
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Poor persecuted glenn

2011-12-13T23:14:00.000-08:00

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gotcha123
Left wing newspaper.
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glenn
I just wrote a note to Tammi McGee complaining about comments being censored and she removed mine. This is really getting out of control.
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Jon_YAYA
If it's too much for your delicate sensibilities to bear you can always leave.
in reply to glenn
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Wyo
Careful, going against the liberal mantra will get you banned from commenting.
in reply to glenn
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Tammy McGee, Moderator for TheOlympian.com
You keep getting your comments removed because you keep insulting people, and throwing names at people. Make a comment, and keep your insults to yourself, and your comments will remain.
in reply to glenn
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Larry_phill
Ok, so why aren't you consistent? Without mentioning any names there was one person who was insulting people on a daily basis a couple of months ago. That person's comments were never removed, yet some of us still have entire screen names banned to this day. The SAGE thing to do is to be fair across the board.
in reply to Tammy McGee
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Tammy McGee, Moderator for TheOlympian.com
I try to be as consistent as possible, but also (when time allows) I try to read comments in context instead of just arbitrarily deleting. There is only one person who moderates comments on a regular basis, and that is me. I can't be in every story, every minute of every day. Comments that should be deleted do sometimes get missed. Other times, I have deleted comments that shouldn't have been deleted, and tried to get them reinstated when I've been wrong. There are several people on these threads who are very verbally abusive, and I try to give them plenty of rope before I ban them, or start deleting comments, but I do that for everyone. Sometimes I'm inconsistent? Well, the human factor says that's going to happen. All I can do is my best. If you have a problem with something I've deleted or didn't delete, email me, I'll take a better look at the issue.
in reply to Larry_phill
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gotcha123
I see plenty of comments on this site from the left side of the fence that are insulting to people and they are not removed.
in reply to Tammy McGee
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gotcha123
I would like to know why my and other conserative views have been removed from this article. Are you people really that Liberal?????????
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Wild_Child
As in every single Conservative comment has been removed, what does this tell us?
in reply to gotcha123
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Intertubes
That conservative commenters here tend to be a tad abusive and inflamatory.
in reply to Wild_Child
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Wyo
I'd say the same thing about the liberals. The difference is that the conservatives don't want to censor comments they don't agree with and the liberals can't hit the abuse button fast enough.
in reply to Intertubes
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Intertubes
You would and with perhaps one exception, you'd be wrong. A few regular conservative commenters are unable to state an opinion without including a insulting or inflamatory comment. When will they learn?
in reply to Wyo
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Read more: http://www.theolympian.com/2011/12/13/1911671/report-1-million-in-wa-without.html#disqus_thread#ixzz1gUGbAh54
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Religion is not entitled to a free ride

2011-12-13T16:56:00.000-08:00

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To accompany Kardnos' previous post:
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"Religion is not entitled to a free ride in the marketplace of ideas. It is not intolerant or disrespectful for atheists to point out its flaws, and to ask whether there's any good evidence to support it -- any more than it would be with any other idea." - Greta Christina Atheist meme of the day: religion is not entitled to a free ride
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From Faux News....

2011-12-13T08:14:00.000-08:00

Tim Tebow’s success as the quarterback of the Denver Broncos has done little to silence his critics who believe that his faith in Jesus Christ has no business on the football field. It doesn’t matter how many touchdown passes he throws or how many games he wins because Tebow will always be a lightning rod for anti-Christian bigots.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/12/12/why-are-anti-christian-bigots-so-eager-to-prey-on-tim-tebow/#ixzz1gQpVksqM

I guess stopping to pray in front of 50,000 people doesn't come under the category of "be not like the hypocrites, praying in public to be seen by men".

If the Bible is truth, Tim is getting his reward as stipulated.

Attn. Olympian

2011-12-12T22:34:00.000-08:00

Olympian, here is a new version of the comment posting instructions that you might consider using. I personally like "general assiness"-- covers a whole lot of comments by various miscreants, don't you think?
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NOTE: Name-calling, personal attacks, spamming, excessive self-promotion, condescending pomposity, general assiness, racism, sexism, any-other-ism, homophobia, acrophobia, and destructive (versus constructive) criticism will get you BANNED from the party. If you have a problem with a comment, DO NOT REPLY TO IT. -- Courtesy of "SpoilerTV"
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The "Unlightenment"

2011-12-10T17:24:00.000-08:00

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Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones. - Bertrand Russell
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Charlie Brooker's screen burn
Charlie Brooker
Saturday 11 August 2007
The Guardian

In the 18th century, a revolution in thought, known as the Enlightenment, dragged us away from the superstition and brutality of the Middle Ages toward a modern age of science, reason and democracy. It changed everything. If it wasn't for the Enlightenment, you wouldn't be reading this right now. You'd be standing in a smock throwing turnips at a witch. Yes, the Enlightenment was one of the most significant developments since the wheel. Which is why we're trying to bollocks it all up.

Welcome to a dangerous new era - the Unlightenment - in which centuries of rational thought are overturned by idiots. Superstitious idiots. They're everywhere - reading horoscopes, buying homeopathic remedies, consulting psychics, babbling about "chakras" and "healing energies", praying to imaginary gods, and rejecting science in favour of soft-headed bunkum. But instead of slapping these people round the face till they behave like adults, we encourage them. We've got to respect their beliefs, apparently.

Well I don't. "Spirituality" is what cretins have in place of imagination. If you've ever described yourself as "quite spiritual", do civilisation a favour and punch yourself in the throat until you're incapable of speaking aloud ever again. Why should your outmoded codswallop be treated with anything other than the contemptuous mockery it deserves?

Maybe you've put your faith in spiritual claptrap because our random, narrative-free universe terrifies you. But that's no solution. If you want comforting, suck your thumb. Buy a pillow. Don't make up a load of floaty blah about energy or destiny. This is the real world, stupid. We should be solving problems, not sticking our fingers in our ears and singing about fairies. Everywhere you look, screaming gittery is taking root, with serious consequences. The NHS recently spent £10m refurbishing the London Homeopathic Hospital. The equivalent of 500 nurses' wages, blown on a handful of magic beans. That was your tax money. It was meant for saving lives.

Inevitably, the world of science and logic is slowly fighting back. Hence the recent slew of anti-God books, one of which, The God Delusion, was written by Richard Dawkins, writer-presenter of The Enemies Of Reason (Mon, 8pm, C4). Dawkins has softened his style somewhat since his previous series, The Root of All Evil, in which he toured the globe interviewing religious extremists. Trouble was, their views made him so uppity, he occasionally came off worst. They remained eerily calm, while he huffed furiously. And because he looks and sounds precisely like Professor Yaffle from Bagpuss, the end effect was often unintentional hilarity.

In The Enemies of Reason he's still angry - how couldn't he be? - but this time round Dawkins controls his temper, focusing it like a laser beam, taking on spirituality and superstition in all its forms. The overall tone is less hectoring, more persuasive, and occasionally outright playful. It's more likely to win people over.

The end result is possibly the most important broadcast of the year so far; important because it presents a passionate argument we really all ought to be having right now, if we want to prevent a great slide backwards into mud-eating barbarism. And if you think that's hyperbole, I suggest you pick up a newspaper and see how many of the world's problems are currently being caused or exacerbated by the rejection of rational thought. From fundamentalist death cults to arrogant invasions: a startling lack of logic unites them all.

Cold, clear, rational thought is the most important thing we have; the one thing that can save us. If I was made Emperor of All Media, I'd broadcast something akin to The Enemies Of Reason on every channel, every day, for 10 years. This is an urgent message that must be heard if we want to survive, as a species. Oh. And I'd also broadcast a load of Tex Avery cartoons, just to show off my lighter side. Man, I loves dat Droopy.
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Think the air is dry here?

2011-12-09T15:56:00.000-08:00

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GOP warned that party surrogates should refrain from personal attacks against President Barack Obama

2011-12-06T15:42:00.000-08:00

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On private call, Republicans say attacking Obama personally is too dangerous: Yahoo News exclusive
By Rachel Rose Hartman | The Ticket – December 6, 2011

Republicans on a private Republican National Committee conference call with allies warned Tuesday that party surrogates should refrain from personal attacks against President Barack Obama, because such a strategy is too hazardous for the GOP.

"We're hesitant to jump on board with heavy attacks" personally against President Obama, Nicholas Thompson, the vice president of polling firm the Tarrance Group, said on the call. "There's a lot of people who feel sorry for him."

Recent polling data indicates that while the president suffers from significantly low job approval ratings, voters still give "high approval" to Obama personally, Thompson said.

Voters "don't think he's an evil man who's out to change the United States" for the worse--even though many of the same survey respondents agree that his policies have harmed the country, Thompson said. The upshot, Thompson stressed, is that Republicans should "exercise some caution" when talking about the president personally.

On the call--which Yahoo News was invited to attend because of a mistake by someone on the staff of the Republican National Committee--Ari Fleischer, the former press secretary for George W. Bush, encouraged Republicans to turn around Democratic attacks lobbed at the GOP presidential candidates (Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, for starters) for "flip-flopping."

"I don't like playing defense," Fleischer said. He suggested the listeners to Tuesday's call label the president as a flip-flopper on the following issues: opposing tax increases for those making under $250,000, opposing the Bush tax cuts, opposing raising the debt limit, and opposing a health care mandate.

"When it comes to flip flopping, Barack Obama is the king of flip flopping," Fleischer said. "You can offer that to anybody," he suggested.
Thompson noted that Obama may be boxed in by similarly strong personal approval numbers for Republican lawmakers as he ponders attacking the GOP House majority during the 2012 campaign.

"Obama running against Congress is not going to work," Thompson said.
In a poll conducted in early November by the Tarrance Group and the Democratic group Lake Research for Politico and George Washington University, voters gave their personal member of Congress a 46 percent approval rating--even higher than the 44 percent personal approval numbers for Obama in the survey, Thompson said. (The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percent.)

Fifty-eight percent of the voters surveyed disapproved of how Obama is handling relations with Congress, according to Tarrance's November poll.
"It's a tough road for him when you look at those numbers," Thompson said of the president.

Thompson said that his group's research suggests that voters are giving Obama higher approval on foreign policy than on the issue of jobs and the economy.

Voters aren't simply looking at the president as the symbol for a "broken Washington," Thompson said.

Update 3:40 p.m.: Republican National Committee communications director Sean Spicer followed up with Yahoo News to say the story "misses the point" and that Tuesday's call wasn't about ways to avoid attacking the president, it was about sharing the best strategies for attacks. "It makes more sense to focus on his failed policies than on personal attacks," Spicer told Yahoo News of their data regarding the president.

Ari Fleischer also emailed Yahoo News to share his complete list of Obama flip-flops, which, in addition to the points above, includes: promising to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term; vowing to lower unemployment below 8 percent following the stimulus; falling short on shovel-ready jobs; contradicting himself on constitutional rights-- condemning Bush but then supporting "warrantless wiretaps, indefinite detentions, secret renditions and kept [Guantanamo] open; giving lobbyists waivers to work at the White House after saying they wouldn't work there; and refusing public financing in 2008 after vowing to accept it.
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Cain's financial interests – past, present, and future – just became more potentially lucrative

2011-12-03T20:37:00.000-08:00

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How Herman Cain benefits from dropping out: Money and political power

Herman Cain may no longer be a presidential candidate, but he doesn't need to sulk. His promise to endorse one of the other candidates means political power, and his books and other endeavors will bring him more money.

By Brad Knickerbocker, Staff writer / December 3, 2011

Saturday no doubt was unsettling and upsetting for Herman Cain. Dropping out of a presidential run under an ethical cloud can’t be fun.

But Cain’s “suspending” his campaign is likely to give him two very valuable things: More money and (at least temporary) political power.

The political power comes with his announcement that he’ll be endorsing one of the other Republican candidates “in the near future.”

It’s not just his enthusiastic followers that’ll be paying attention to the one he throws his arm around. There are those major campaign contributors, some of whom Cain huddled with just before making his big announcement Saturday. Presumably, their money will now go elsewhere among the GOP hopefuls.

The others in the race were tweet-quick to say nice things about Cain just minutes later.

“Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan got our country talking about the critical issue of tax reform, and he elevated the dialogue of the primary,” Newt Gingrich tweeted. “I am proud to know Herman Cain, and consider him a friend and I know he will continue to be a powerful voice for years to come.”

(Much of the smart money is on Gingrich getting Cain’s endorsement. They really are friends – both from Georgia – and it’s always good to get on the bandwagon of someone on the political ascent, which is Gingrich’s current status among political insiders and pundits.)

“Herman Cain offered a unique and valuable voice to the debate over how to reform our country’s uncompetitive Tax Code and turn around the economy,” Jon Huntsman said in a press release. “I understand his decision and wish him and his family the best.”

Rep. Michele Bachmann tweeted: “Herman Cain provided an important voice. His ideas & energy generated tremendous enthusiasm for the conservative movement. I wish Herman, his wife Gloria, and his family all the best.”

Rick Perry flat out asked for Cain’s political blessing.

“I would urge any Cain fans looking for a true outsider with a solid conservative record and a clear vision for America to give Perry a look,” Will Franklin, the Texas governor’s media coordinator, tweeted.

As for the money, Cain’s campaign still has about $600,000 in the till, and having “suspended” (not officially ended) his campaign, he still can raise and spend money, even though suspension is just a euphemism for “I’m outta here.”

But that also means his other financial interests – past, present, and future – just became more potentially lucrative.

He can charge more as a “motivational speaker,” his book sales are likely to get a boost, and he may get his own gig on Fox News. Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, and Gingrich all did. On the liberal side, disgraced former New York governor Elliot Spitzer landed on his feet in a new profession with his own show on CNN. And remember the Monica Lewinsky scandal? Bill Clinton has written several successful books, including most recently “Back to Work.”

"You take away this [presidential] run and this guy wasn't even on the radar," Rob Frankel, author of "Revenge of Brand X," told CBS’s Political Hotsheet. "Everyone in this country now knows who this guy is, which helps a lot for book sales."

Back to that Cain endorsement.

Gingrich really is in the top spot, according to a new survey by the Public Policy Polling (PPP) organization – especially compared to Mitt Romney.

“On average across six polls we've asked a second choice question on this month 37 percent of Cain voters pick Gingrich to only 13 percent for Romney,” PPP reported this week. “If Herman Cain really ends up dropping out of the race Gingrich's surge should continue in the next few weeks, unless/until something starts happening to erode his popularity. Why? Because Cain's supporters absolutely love Gingrich. And they absolutely hate Mitt Romney.”

If Cain really is “one of you,” as he told several hundred supporter in Atlanta Saturday, then that bodes well for Newt Gingrich.
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Gotcha, "Zero"

2011-12-01T17:41:00.000-08:00

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An Olympian reader takes the paper to task:
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Anonymll

Olympian, what is your problem? Can't stand any corrective criticism? I posted a critical comment at 12:50 pm, and you censored it. You must obviously know that you are in the wrong; otherwise you would have allowed the comment to stand. I also note that you didn't correct the error!

Trying again:... state law at the time prohibited anyone convicted of a sex offense can never have their gun rights restored.Olympian, don't you have anyone on staff who can recognize the poor construction of that sentence? (Geez, and you want your newspaper to be used in the NIE program?)

Read more: http://www.theolympian.com/2011/12/01/1897747/wash-court-rehabbed-sex-offender.html#ixzz1fKxT3iuN
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Yeah, why ARE these senators [and representatives] in office?

2011-11-30T21:25:00.000-08:00

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This is a LTE printed in the Standard-Examiner of Utah. Ms. Eldridge has hit the nail on the head!
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Pols should represent us, not Grover Norquist

By Mary B. Eldridge
Standard-Examiner Contributed
Wed, 11/30/2011 - 2:49pm

I would like to know why these senators are in office. When elected, they swear an oath to the Constitution and the United States of America. Yet, they have also made an oath to Grover Norquist, who is not a member of Congress. He is a private individual and his oath means more to them than the oath they made when they became senators.

I've heard Mitch McConnell say his only object is to make sure Pres. Obama does not serve a second term. That is against the Constitution. If he doesn't like Pres. Obama, that is his business, but he still swore an oath to support the United States of America and Pres. Obama was elected by a huge majority. His oath, and that of all the other Republicans, supersedes his dislike of Pres. Obama. If he's not prepared to live up to his oath, then he should resign. And, if other congressmen prefer to let the government go into the toilet than work with the president, then they need to resign. And, if they won't, then they should be impeached.

This government is at a standstill while the Republicans in the House make a mockery of their jobs of writing or rewriting bills. Congress says they will not raise taxes on the rich, but according to Sen. Hatch, they will still raise taxes on the middle class and the poor. They want to do away with Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Of course, they will not do away with their health insurance, retirement or their salaries, which are in the area of $300,000 while they sit on their hands and say they signed an oath with Grover Norquist.

There are some who want to limit the terms of the Supreme Court. I am in favor of that! The court gave an opinion that corporations and private businesses can donate money to candidates without revealing where it is coming from. And, to hear Mitt Romney say that corporations are people does not impress me.

When is Congress going to return to being for the people of the United States?
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The vile Ms Coulter

2011-11-30T15:53:00.000-08:00

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Ann Coulter was "bleeped" or "silenced", depending on which report you read, during a recent appearance on "The Morning Joe" show on MSNBC. She made profane, disparaging remarks about John McCain and Ted Kennedy which didn't go over well with Joe Scarborough and the MSNBC staff and got herself censored. (IMO, she should always be censored!)

At any rate, browsing through the articles on Ms. Coulter's recent bit of BS, I ran onto this one: Coulter: Not worth the price of admission I was struck by the accuracy of one of the comments made to this article:

FauxReal 11/29/2011 2:12 PM PST
What do people expect when they book Ann Coulter? She became famous because she's a vile human being who has no problem saying vile things It's her stock in trade..

However, her ability to shock isn't the same as it was years ago because now any number of Republicans and Republican pundits are as vile as she is. Now what shocks is a rational, thinking, Republican because they are far and few between.

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The NewsOlymTribune

2011-11-29T16:08:00.000-08:00

The "merger" keeps on coming.

During the holiday weekend, there were Olympian stories and comments in the News Tribune.

I wonder when the facade will come off.

The Olympian sure has some "great" readers/commenters!

2011-11-28T18:44:00.000-08:00

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crankycurmudgeon

Is that necessary Occupyabath?? Can't you come up with a better response than "You're a poopoo-head?"

" occupyabath

Whatever, fecal head.

in reply to Merciful_Fate

Merciful_Fate

what a come back. When all else fails, call someone a name. That makes it better.

in reply to occupyabath

occupyabath

ok numb nuts

in reply to Merciful_Fate

Read more: http://www.theolympian.com/2011/11/28/1893933/about-1000-rally-for-services.html#disqus_thread#ixzz1f3fnDMSl
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They CAN do it!

2011-11-28T17:38:00.000-08:00

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Wow, the Olympian's commenters CAN make it through an entire Leonard Pitts' article without accusing him of racism (unless of course they did it in one of the comments that were deleted)! Cameras in hand, citizens are holding police officers accountable
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Can the GOP find a candidate named "Unnamed"?

2011-11-24T19:53:00.000-08:00

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Cheryl Tucker says: Against an "unnamed" Republican, the poll finds, Obama is tied. Once the opponent is named, however, Obama is ahead. So the GOP needs to find a candidate named "Unnamed."

Read more: http://www.thenewstribune.com/opinion/#ixzz1egZlTe00
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How disgraceful!

2011-11-21T20:10:00.000-08:00

Whether or not you like President Obama, it was a disgrace that Mrs. Obama and Mrs. Biden were booed at the Nascar race on Sunday. For crying out loud, they were there to support military veterans, a constituency also actively supported by racing fans!
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No excuse for booing Michelle Obama at NASCAR race
By Jay Busbee

NASCAR fans skew conservative. You know that, I know that, politicians know that. An overwhelmingly white fan base, rooted in Southern conservative values (we still have a pre-race prayer, for heaven's sake) ... it's no surprise that NASCAR generally tilts right.

Which would be just fine, if that tilt didn't slide into toxicity. But on Sunday afternoon at Homestead-Miami Speedway, it did.

Moments before one of the greatest races in sports history, certain NASCAR race attendees — I'm not dignifying these cowards with the term "fans" — showed why this sport will always have trouble getting respect from the mainstream of America: they booed the First Lady of the United States.

Inexcusable. Unforgivable. Don't give me the "free speech" argument. Don't give me the "Obama sucks" argument. Don't try anything you can possibly do to rationalize this away. Why? For a very simple reason, one that supersedes both politics and sport:

You don't boo women.

You don't. Especially not in NASCAR, which reveres Mother's Day so much it won't even schedule races on that day. It's stunning that we've slid this far as a culture that something as simple and profound as respect for wives and mothers is now this cheap.

This is not about politics. This is not about "free speech." This is about being enough of a man (if you're a man) and enough of an American, whoever you are, to recognize that we should hold ourselves to some higher standards in our public life. (And this also isn't about stay-in-the-kitchen sexism. If we can agree to hold open a door for a woman, can't we agree it's acceptable not to boo her?)

If it was President Obama up there? Sure, boo your head off. Same thing if it was former President George W. Bush. The president takes the job, he should deal with the fallout and the negative opinion. But to boo the man's wife? Especially when she's engaged in that most conservative of pursuits, supporting military veterans and their families?

Come on. You just harmed the image of NASCAR worse than anything that Obama ever could have done.

Look, I get the reasoning, twisted though it may be. Michelle Obama is married to the president, and many in NASCAR nation have profound philosophical differences with the president, to put it politely. Whether NASCAR fans who break from Obama have legitimate political arguments with the way the president runs our country, or whether they're just ticked that things ain't as good as they were back when (and nobody ever says that in NASCAR, do they?), they can and should be allowed to express their grievances with him in public. But to do it by attacking his wife?

So, so far beyond stupid. (Let's not even get into the racial aspect of this, which opens up a whole different line of discussion. It's there, but let's stay focused on gender.)

So, for those of you who think that you made some kind of difference by booing the First Lady, you're exactly right ... but not in the way you think. You boo a man, he might think twice about what he's doing. You boo a man's wife, he won't ever think twice about you again. Nice work.
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Michelle Obama booed at NASCAR race. Was that to be expected?
Michelle Obama booed at NASCAR? That can't be too surprising, right? Maybe not, considering only 30 percent of NASCAR fans identify as Republicans.
By Peter Grier, Staff writer / November 21, 2011

Michelle Obama and Jill Biden got booed at a NASCAR race in Florida on Sunday, in case you haven’t heard. Now, questions of civility and first ladies aside, our question is this: What did they expect? Isn’t auto racing, you know, a Republican-leaning activity, especially in the South? Why were they there?

Because in political terms NASCAR is a target-rich environment, that’s why. And overall NASCAR fans are not as GOP-oriented as you might think.

First off, let’s back up and acknowledge that Ms. Obama and Ms. Biden were at Homestead-Miami Speedway in the name of a charity, Joining Forces, which promotes the hiring of veterans. Perhaps they hoped the association with the military would bring them a warm reception. They weren’t there passing out “Reelect Barack” stickers, after all.

But to some Republicans, the first lady is a symbol of an administration overreaching. They bristle at her emphasis on eating right and exercising as just another example of government sticking its nose into activities it has no business getting involved in.

Thus Rush Limbaugh took the unprecedented step of praising the reception given the first and second ladies.

“NASCAR people ... know that in their hearts, the Obamas don’t like them. We’ve taken notice of this,” said the radio entertainer on his show.

Well, we can’t speak to the composition of that particular Florida crowd. But perhaps Mr. Limbaugh would be surprised to learn that NASCAR fans as a whole aren’t Republican, after all.

Yes, 30 percent of NASCAR adherents identify themselves as leaning to the GOP, according to a lengthy survey of the subject released this summer. But 29 percent say they’re Democrats.

This finding is consistent with some previous surveys of which other conservative commentators are aware. In 2008, the conservative writer and activist S.E. Cupp in an article on NASCAR’s own website noted that the sport’s “fans vote 35 percent Republican and 28 percent Democratic – a separation of only 7 percentage points, hardly a convincing argument for NASCAR’s political leanings."

Other attributes of NASCAR audiences are heavily studied because, well, they’re an attractive merchandising opportunity. Surprise, surprise – they’re not redneck beer-swillers who thrill to “Dukes of Hazzard” reruns.

Or at least, not that many of them are. NASCAR’s own data show its fans to be 60 percent male and 40 percent female. Twenty percent are minorities. Their income levels and age are pretty similar to the income levels and age of the US population as a whole.

In fact, NASCAR’s fan base is a fairly good representation of the nation as a whole, in terms of demographic characteristics.

Yes, Sunday’s race was in the South. But if you look at the overall picture, Ms. Obama and Ms. Biden might have expected a better reception. At the least, contrary to Limbaugh’s assertion, they got booed by individuals who didn’t like them – not an entire fandom.
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Newt: current child labor laws are "truly stupid"

2011-11-19T19:58:00.000-08:00

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From Gingrich, an Unconventional View of Education
By TRIP GABRIEL, November 19, 2011, 1:37 PM. 4:57 p.m. | Updated

Newt Gingrich has some unconventional ideas about education reform. He wants every state to open a work-study college where students work 20 hours a week during the school year and full-time in the summer and then graduate debt-free.

In poverty stricken K-12 districts, Mr. Gingrich said that schools should enlist students as young as 9 to14 to mop hallways and bathrooms, and pay them a wage. Currently child-labor laws and unions keep poor students from bootstrapping their way into middle class, Mr. Gingrich said.

“This is something that no liberal wants to deal with,” he told an audience at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard on Friday, according to Politico.

“You say to somebody, you shouldn’t go to work before you’re what, 14, 16 years of age, fine,” Mr. Gingrich said. “You’re totally poor. You’re in a school that is failing with a teacher that is failing. I’ve tried for years to have a very simple model. Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work, they would have cash, they would have pride in the schools, they’d begin the process of rising.”

Mr. Gingrich, who back in 1994 proposed bringing back orphanages for children on welfare, was quickly labeled “Dickensian” by people commenting on Twitter.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, called Mr. Gingrich’s proposal “absurd.”

“Who in their right mind would lay off janitors and replace them with disadvantaged children — who should be in school, and not cleaning schools,” Ms. Weingarten said. “And who would start backtracking on laws designed to halt the exploitation of children?”

At Harvard Mr. Gingrich promised, “You’re going to see from me extraordinarily radical proposals to fundamentally change the culture of poverty in America and give people a chance to rise very rapidly.”
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Gingrich: Laws preventing child labor are 'truly stupid'
[snipped]
"... the former House Speaker said his system would be an improvement on current child labor laws, which he called "truly stupid.""
[snipped]
"... These schools should get rid of unionized janitors, have one master janitor, pay local students to take care of the school. ..."
[snipped]
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Whacko Not Anonymous

2011-11-18T10:38:00.001-08:00

JustinKover 1 comment collapsed Collapse Expand

There is a poster on this thread who has made death threats, written hate-rape fantasies, worked in theater, and is involved in local politics. He is one of my critics.

Aw, Tammy has a groupie!

2011-11-16T14:17:00.000-08:00

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Of course She-Who has to chime in, too. [snicker]
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Tammy McGee , Moderator for TheOlympian.com

This story is still breaking.

in reply to Evan

Deb McReynolds

Tammy!!! XOXO! Miss you!

in reply to Tammy McGee

Larry_Phill

Eyeroll

in reply to Deb McReynolds

TEAPartyZombie

That!! explains!! a!! lot!!

in reply to Deb McReynolds

Read more: http://www.theolympian.com/2011/11/16/1879267/thurston-county-sheriffs-deputy.html#disqus_thread#ixzz1duQqjxEP
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I can see them now

2011-11-15T11:07:00.001-08:00

The humuhumunukunukuāpuaʻa (pronounced [ˈhumuˈhumuˈnukuˈnukuˈwaːpuˈwɐʔə]) do go swimming by.

Cain: "all this stuff twirling around in my head"

2011-11-14T15:04:00.000-08:00

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Cain Flubs Libya Question
After several stumbles, GOP hopeful explains he has "all this stuff twirling around in my head."
By Josh Voorhees | Posted Monday, Nov. 14, 2011

The good news for Herman Cain, we suppose, is this may at least temporarily change the conversation from the sexual harassment allegations being made against him.

During a sit-down interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Monday, the embattled GOP candidate appeared more than a little confused when he was asked whether he agreed with President Obama’s approach to handling the uprising in Libya that ultimately toppled long-time dictator Muammar Qaddafi.

"OK, Libya," Cain began, before pausing for a ten-second eternity. He then asked the reporters for confirmation that Obama supported the rebels and called for Qaddafi’s ouster. "I just wanted to make sure we’re talking about the same thing before I say, 'Yes, I agreed' or 'No, I didn’t agree,'" Cain said.

He then suffered another false start. "I do not agree with the way he handled it for the following reason – no, that’s a different one," Cain said, before another lengthy pause. "I gotta go back and see. I got all this stuff twirling around in my head."

And then he launched into his answer:

"Here’s what I would have — I would have done a better job of determining who the opposition is, and I’m sure that our intelligence people have some of that information. Based upon who made up that opposition — ok — based upon who made up that opposition, might have caused me to make some different decisions about how we participated. Secondly, no, I did not agree with Qaddafi killing his citizens. Absolutely not. So something would have had to been — I would have supported many of the things they did in order to help stop that. It’s not a simple yes-no, because there are different pieces and I would have gone about assessing the situation differently, which might have caused us to end up in the same place. But where I think more could have been done was, what’s the nature of the opposition?"

Here's the video:

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Not this old saw again!

2011-11-13T01:26:00.000-08:00

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Cain says God persuaded him to run for president
By RAY HENRY, November 12, 2011

Republican Herman Cain said God convinced him to enter the race for president, comparing himself to Moses: "'You've got the wrong man, Lord. Are you sure?'"

The Georgia business executive played up his faith Saturday after battling sexual harassment allegations for two weeks, trying to shift the conversation to religion, an issue vital to conservative Republicans, especially in the South.

In a speech Saturday to a national meeting of young Republicans, Cain said the Lord persuaded him after much prayer.

"That's when I prayed and prayed and prayed. I'm a man of faith — I had to do a lot of praying for this one, more praying than I've ever done before in my life," Cain said. "And when I finally realized that it was God saying that this is what I needed to do, I was like Moses. 'You've got the wrong man, Lord. Are you sure?'"

Once he made the decision, Cain said, he did not look back.

Four women have now accused Cain of sexually harassing them when he led the National Restaurant Association more than a decade ago. Cain, who has denied wrongdoing, was silent about the allegations and did not take reporters' questions.

Cain isn't the first to say God prodded him toward a campaign. Texas Gov. Rick Perry's wife, Anita, has said she felt God was speaking to her about the race, adding that her husband needed to see a "burning bush," a Biblical reference to God's first appearance to Moses.

[snipped]
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Silly man just can't help himself, it appears

2011-11-11T14:45:00.000-08:00

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Herman Cain caught on camera joking about Anita Hill
By Holly Bailey, November 11, 2011

Herman Cain is defending himself from sexual harassment allegations, but that didn't stop him from joking about Anita Hill, the college professor who made similar allegations against Clarence Thomas during his Supreme Court nomination hearings 20 years ago.

A Fox News camera captured Cain laughing about Hill during a campaign stop in Kalamazoo, Mich., Thursday, when a supporter brought up the professor's name.

"You hear the latest news today? Anita Hill is going to come …" a man told Cain, the conclusion of his statement muffled by the crowd.

"Is she going to endorse me?" Cain joked, as he and the crowd laughed heartily.

You can watch the video here, courtesy Fox News.

Cain insisted Friday he wasn't trying to insult Hill.

"We walked into this room and ... one of my supporters said, 'Anita Hill was trying to contact you' and my response was, 'Is she going to endorse me?'" Cain told New York Post columnist Fred Dicker, per Politico. "He said it in a humorous way. I gave a humorous response."

Cain continues to fend off allegations that he sexually harassed four women when he was head of the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s.

Cain came under fire again Wednesday for making a condescending remark about House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, when he referred to her as "Princess Nancy" during a Republican presidential debate in Michigan. He later admitted he "probably shouldn't have" made the comment.
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Do we have the old glenn back?

2011-11-10T20:36:00.000-08:00

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glenn

I thought the article was about shopping carts that will "hook-up" with carts from other stores.

Anonymll

Actually, glenn, I double-checked to see if the writer's name was "Glenn".... this was worthy of the comments you used to post in the "good ol' days" before you turned nasty and mean.

in reply to glenn

glenn

You've got to admit that I gave "nasty and mean" a fair try.

in reply to Anonymll

tiredofhate

sometimes you do nasty and mean, I prefer the other side. You can be quite funny.

in reply to glenn

glenn

I'm simply anticipating cheaper booze and then watch me roll!

in reply to tiredofhate

Read more: http://www.theolympian.com/2011/11/10/1870803/loose-carts-arent-all-bad.html#ixzz1dMqni4Zi
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Cat lovers will understand

2011-11-10T16:46:00.000-08:00

(Turn on your computer's sound)

Another GOP debate-- another Perry implosion and another Cain non-start

2011-11-10T01:07:00.000-08:00

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Republican debate winners and losers: A disastrous night for Perry
By Brian Montopoli, November 10, 2011 12:25 AM

Wednesday night's CNBC presidential debate may well have given us the most memorable moment of any debate in quite a long time - Rick Perry's potentially-calamitous inability to name the third federal agency he is vowing to abolish. It was like watching a car crash live on television. The game-changing moment has ramifications for all the presidential contenders, but it wasn't the only takeaway from Wednesday night. Below, our take on who's up and whose down in the wake of the debate:

Winners:

Mitt Romney: The Republican presidential race has officially become Mitt Romney's to lose. Though the polls suggest Herman Cain is a more significant rival, political insiders knew Perry was a bigger threat - he, unlike Cain, has a serious campaign apparatus and the money to keep contesting race into March. And now, thanks to his possibly disastrous brain freeze Wednesday night, Perry may well be finished. That leaves Romney without a serious rival for the nomination - and will give him more leeway to shade his rhetoric toward the general election, not the GOP primary fight.

Newt Gingrich: Gingrich almost made it into the loser column thanks to his apparent inability not to seem nasty, and his claim that he was paid by Freddie Mac as a "historian" - not a lobbyist - was hard to swallow. But Gingrich also had some nice moments, and his smartest-guy-in-the-room shtick seems to be resonating with a growing slice of the GOP electorate. Plus, Gingrich sits at third in the polls, and in light of Perry's difficult night at the podium and Cain's sinking prospects, he may find himself taking over the anti-Romney slot almost by default.

Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum : About that anti-Romney slot: Social conservatives are desperate for a candidate to coalesce around to counter a frontrunner they don't trust, and Perry's mega-gaffe could prompt them to give a serious second look to Bachmann and Santorum. Both turned in solid performances, particularly Santorum, who created a forceful contrast with his rivals on the topic of government bailouts. If either of these candidates can convince social conservatives that they're the horse to bet on, they have a real shot at taking the Iowa caucuses in January.

Losers:

Rick Perry: What can one even say? Rick Perry provided a YouTube moment that will be talked about for years, and it may well be impossible to overcome. To fail to name the third government agencies that you yourself are vowing to eliminate - and to suffer that horrible awkward silence before admitting as much - is to announce to the electorate that you not ready for primetime. With one brain freeze, Perry seriously damaged his fundraising ability, prompted a coming flood of "is Rick Perry finished" stories and simply embarrassed himself in front of a national audience.
http://youtu.be/1G9p7Z0C6w8

Herman Cain: It's hard to imagine what Cain could have done to change the conversation about his candidacy, which has been engulfed by sexual harassment charges. But he didn't do it. Cain brought no new ideas Wednesday night that might have helped him change the conversation, instead once again focusing on his 9-9-9 plan, which he mentions so often that the audience now laughs in anticipation of his bringing it up. On the plus side for Cain, Rick Perry at least diverted some attention from his troubles, and the audience's reaction to a question posed to Cain about the scandal - it was roundly booed - shows he still has the support of many conservatives. But the harassment story isn't going away, and Cain doesn't seem to have a new trick up his sleeve to shift the focus, and it looks like 9-9-9 just isn't going to cut it any longer.

Jon Huntsman: Huntsman's only real shot at the nomination is a collapse by Romney, since their candidates are essentially predicated on the same argument to Republican voters: You may be skeptical thanks to my moderation, but I'm your best bet to win next November, so you better get over it. Yet Romney didn't seriously stumble, leaving Huntsman in the same place he was going into the debate: On the outside looking in during a presidential cycle in which his campaign simply doesn't seem to fit.

Draw:

Ron Paul: As always, Ron Paul was a strong voice for his libertarian beliefs. Too bad the Perry disaster means nobody's going to be paying much attention. A debate free of dramatic moments would have allowed for more discussion of the ideas bandied about in a debate focused on the economy and been a prime opportunity for Paul to make his case against the Federal Reserve and big government. It looked for the first hour or so that's exactly what was taking place. Then came the YouTube moment to end all YouTube moments, a screw-up so memorable that substance couldn't possibly compete.
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Wow, the "Bible Belt" got a bit skinnier!

2011-11-09T00:27:00.000-08:00

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Miss. defeats life-at-fertilization ballot prop
By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS, AP

Mississippi voters Tuesday defeated a ballot initiative that would have declared life begins at fertilization, a proposal that supporters sought in the Bible Belt state as a way to prompt a legal challenge to abortion rights nationwide.

The so-called "personhood" initiative was rejected by more than 55 percent of voters, falling far short of the threshold needed for it to be enacted. If it had passed, it was virtually assured of drawing legal challenges because it conflicts with the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that established a legal right to abortion. Supporters of the initiative wanted to provoke a lawsuit to challenge the landmark ruling.
[snipped]
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Did we need more proof ...

2011-11-08T21:48:00.000-08:00

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about the laziness of The Olympian's reporters? At least one commenter thought so! :-)

Anonymll

... I watched today’s proceeding over the TVW public-affairs network and didn’t have a chance to ask commissioners directly about the status of their efforts to draw congressional boundaries that would include the state’s new 10th district next year. ...

Guess we needed more proof that the Olympian's reporters don't put shoe leather to the ground to go out and seek material for their articles. At least you're being honest about it, Brad.

Read more: http://www.theolympian.com/2011/11/08/1868756/new-plan-hatched-to-reconcile.html#ixzz1dBS7ceBw
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Shouldn't he have thought about his wife in the beginning?

2011-11-07T21:30:00.000-08:00

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Herman Cain says controversy reports took a toll on wife, story is now over
By Rachel Rose Hartman, November 7, 2011

Herman Cain this weekend sought to end discussion about past allegations of sexual harassment, adding that the media frenzy surrounding the charges has taken a toll on his wife.

"My wife, obviously like most spouses, actually took it harder than I did," Cain said on Fox's "Geraldo At Large." Cain explained that his wife, Gloria, like many spouses of public figures, tends to "emotionally take it harder" than the target of the allegations.

"I'm in a boxing match every day . . . when you've got to turn on the TV and watch all of the exaggerations and innuendos about your husband that you know hasn't done anything wrong, it can have an emotional toll," Cain said. "But she's doing fine."

Gloria Cain had been set to make her debut campaign-related media appearance last week, but canceled that Fox News interview with Greta van Sustern amid reports of the scandal.

The presidential candidate this weekend conceded that his initial handling of the scandal "got off to a little bit of a bumpy start" last week, but said he wouldn't change anything.

"Even though I may not have responded on Monday morning as crisply and precise as I did later in the day, I'd do it all over again if I had to."

Cain said during his Fox interview that the story is now over. He made the same point, quite sharply, to a crowd of reporters gathered Saturday for his Lincoln-Douglas-style debate with Newt Gingrich.

"Don't even go there," Cain told one reporter gathered for a press availability, cutting off a question about one accuser who came forward Friday via her attorney. Cain then turned to his chief of staff and asked to have the Journalist Code of Ethics sent to the reporter.

"We are getting back on message, end of story! Back on message! Read all of the other accounts. Read all of the other accounts where everything has been answered--end of story. We're getting back on message."
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Hello to our two present viewers

2011-11-04T22:46:00.001-07:00

You just never know when someone is watching......

All that new traffic.....

2011-11-04T22:40:00.000-07:00

Thanks to "dejen2" for the illegal posting of my personal website in the News Tribune (they didn't appreciate it nearly as much as I did). Since the mods got my phone number off the site and we straightened out that I wasn't using their website and readership for self-promotion, my guess is that someone still can feel the TribMod's size 12 sticking up their ass, with gusto. (before someone does something stupid, my phone tracks every call)

I got the city of origin and the IP addresses for all the visitors....and a couple of leads for performances. A red letter day, if I do say so myself. If there is any question that the Trib has....well....Old Kardy can just hand over the IPs and leave no doubt in the minds of the moderators.

I now have followers in Eatonville, Roy, Auburn, Bellevue, Puyallup and of course...OLYMPIA. Those are the IPs with multiple page visits - folks that really want to be "in the know". None of them were inquiries for gigs (to say the least), but they left their footprint behind. One was really tricky and came through a Puerto Rican connection.....but I captured the IP. I'll bet those IPs would be hell in the hands of the wrong spammer.

Maybe....if people want to keep fucking around, I'll publish the IPs on ThurstonBlog, since the traffic has increased substantially here, also. Enquiring Minds Want To Know.

Muahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha (a few days late for a Halloween laugh)

Meanwhile, if you want a few laughs, go watch the clowns, particularly "LarryFine" play guessing games on the Trib while my half dozen clandestine helpers keep posting on my behalf....actually on their own behalf, but I will admit to covert direction on language and content. Kardnos hasn't posted in the TNT for over a week.

Many of the ThurstonBloggers might remember my old "xxxxxxxxxx" trick I played on The Olympian assholes. This is making that action look like a walk in the park. Luckily I'm at the age where I have enough retired friends and we have time on our hands......LOL

As Barack Obama would say, don't bring a knife to a gun fight....or something like that.....

Thanks to the "outter"

2011-11-04T10:37:00.000-07:00

My website was posted in the Tacoma News Tribune, by someone trying to out me.

The hits skyrocketted!!!!

Right before the holiday party season.......LOL

Be careful what you wish for......LMAO

Meanwhile, I'd love to know who "IndependVoter" is. Possibly someone that thinks like a ThurstonBlogger.

It used to be called "Journalism"....

2011-11-04T09:31:00.000-07:00

Updated: Friday, 04 Nov 2011, 9:43 AM EDT
Published : Friday, 04 Nov 2011, 9:32 AM EDT

MYFOXNY.COM STAFF REPORT

MYFOXNY.COM - An Occupy Wall Street protestor was arrested early Friday after a violent rampage at a McDonald's that refused to offer him free food.
The NYPD says it happened at about 2:45 a.m. at a McDonald's near the make-shift tent city in Zuccotti Park.
The man, who had not been identified, went into the world's largest restaurant chain and demanded free food, apparently craving a burger over the gourmet food being served in the park.
The people behind the counter, who are working instead of protesting, were not about to offer the man free food.
The protester then turned violent, even breaking a machine inside of the store before police arrived and arrested the 27-year-old.
There have been growing concerns about security and lawlessness among the protesters. Earlier this week, a cook at the camp was arrested on sex charges.
And video surfaced Friday morning showing two of the protesters having a fist fight inside of the park.
Mayor Bloomberg noted Thursday that instead of going to the police, the group is simply kicking law-breakers out of the park and allowing them to go free into the city.

Read more: http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/ows-protester-arrested-at-mcdonalds-20111104-lgf#ixzz1ckqTkM5K

That which I've highlighted in red, would never pass a copy editor in real journalism venues. A combination of sensationalism and editorializing makes the FOX contribution a classic mouthpiece for anti-OWS concerns. The most interesting part was that the "protestor" hadn't been indentified......LMAO

Pass this along to your Conservative friends that say FOX is "fair and balanced".

Neener, Neener, Neener, Neener, Bachmann!

2011-11-04T07:38:00.000-07:00

The nation’s most despised bank

2011-11-03T16:54:00.000-07:00

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10 Reasons To Hate Bank of America
By Nomi Prins | November 2nd, 2011

There is no shortage of hatred for the biggest banks. Indeed, the Occupy Wall Street movement is leading a national revolution against these Byzantine, powerful Goliaths for the economic devastation they have caused. This makes it difficult to choose the worst of the bunch. That said, a strong case can be made that Bank of America deserves the title of the nation’s most despised bank.

Here are ten reasons to take your money out of Bank of America – and park it at a credit union or community bank near you. (And yes, that may be near impossible if you have a mortgage with them, as refinancing away from any big bank nowadays is a nightmare.)

1. B of A rejects the right of customers to protest. [snipped]

2. To recoup ongoing losses from its stupendously dumb acquisitions of Countrywide Financial and Merrill Lynch, B of A pillages its customers. [snipped]

3. B of A’s other fees are just as bad. [snipped]

4. Bank of America takes gross advantage of the military. [snipped]

5. Bank of America is officially rated the biggest, scariest bank. [snipped]

6. B of A’s derivatives position keeps rising. [snipped]

7. Bank of America got the most AIG money of the big depositor banks. [snipped]

8. Bank of America leads the big bank fraud lawsuit settlement tally. [snipped]

9. Even after lawsuits, B of A would still rather please investors than customers. [snipped]

10. Bank of America, despite having been buoyed up by the government, did not pay taxes, and, given its glorious ineptness, will be laying off 30,000 workers. [snipped]

Finally, consider the two reasons that any of this list is possible. One is the Glass-Steagall Act repeal, which enables banks to comingle straight costumer business with reckless securities creation and trading. The second reason is coddling by a Fed that finances and approves every bad move. B of A is the poster child for a Glass-Steagall repeal gone wrong. Lewis pulled in a slew of other banks under the B of A umbrella, making it – at one time – the country’s largest bank, including the infamous Countrywide Financial and Merrill Lynch. Now it has $2.26 trillion in total assets and $1.8 trillion assets in insured subsidiaries, $1.2 trillion of customer deposits ($1.066 trillion in the United States) and about $804 billion in FDIC-insured deposits – all part of the giant, risk-laden mess that is B of A.

Without being broken up via a new, strong Glass-Steagall Act, when banks need to find ways to make money, they resort to extorting it from their sitting ducks, er – customers. Meanwhile, that’s where credit unions, which are not-for-profits owned by their members and not by outside shareholders, come in. They generally don’t engage in crazy derivatives trades, or charge unnecessary fees for holding your money or for letting you pay bills with it, or for online banking. In terms of personal attention, among other economic reasons, the credit and smaller community banks are a much better bet.
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Should be tried in another state

2011-11-03T11:11:00.001-07:00

http://xfinity.comcast.net/articles/news-general/20111102/US.Videotaped.Beating.Texas/?cid=hero_media

Nice Judge

Feelin' good from my head to my shoes.....

2011-11-03T10:56:00.000-07:00

IndependVoter:
I guess there is no racism if you “embrace” the person(s)
“Our blacks”

Read more: http://blog.thenewstribune.com/letters/2011/11/02/scandalous/#ixzz1cfMciNhs

Look who's got a "new attitude"

Ann Coulter sticks foot in mouth again

2011-11-02T14:33:00.000-07:00

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Ann Coulter on Herman Cain: “Our blacks are so much better than their blacks”
Posted By: Joe Garofoli, Nov 01 at 4:44 pm.

Not surprising that the Fox News conservative cheer squad is rallying to Herman Cain’s defense over allegations of sexual harrasment from his past. (Cain’s wife Gloria Cain may field softballs from Greta Van Sustern on Friday. Greta’s husband attended Herman’s event the other day as a “friend.”)

The dominant talking point: The allegations, first reported by Politico, are a liberal/Democrat/liberal mainstream media “high-tech lynching” aimed at Cain because he is — gasp! — a black conservative. (No, that doesn’t account for the six months that the press largely blew off covering Cain because they didn’t think he could win, but whatever. Don’t mess with the narrative.)

“>Then Ann Coulter, who we hasten to add has a new book out to promote, picked up a glass of kerosene, which we believe she keeps in her hip pocket at all times, and flung.

As Talking Points Memo recounts: “She continued that liberals are ‘too dense’ to see the ‘many wonderful qualities’ about Herman Cain, because ‘all they see is a conservative black man.”

“That’s why our blacks are so much better than their blacks,” Coulter said. “To become a black Republican you don’t just roll into it. You’re not going with the flow. You have fought against probably your family members, probably your neighbors, you have thought everything out and that’s why we have very impressive blacks in our party.”

“Our blacks?” ….oops, sorry. Thought the calendar just rolled back to 1861.

Check out the video. Go to the 5-minute mark…(and, sigh, risk missing a couple of plugs for Coulter’s book):

Perhaps Coulter would like to debate a fellow Republican on this. How about former Republican Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice — herself on book tour. She was asked about Cain in an interview to be broadcast Wednesday on CBS’ “Early Show.” Her advice: Don’t play the race card. Here’s a snippet from her chat with Norah O’Donnell:

Norah O’Donnell: “Herman Cain predicted that he would be the victim of a high tech lynching. What do you think of that when you hear that?”

Condoleezza Rice: “I– I don’t care much for incendiary language. And, I actually am someone who doesn’t believe in playing the race card on either side. I’ve seen it played, by the way, on the other side quite a lot too and it’s not good for the country. We ought to be able to look at people and say, ‘All right, maybe this is a disagreement about policy.’ Everybody goes through their– their time in the barrel, if you will, if you choose to put yourself forward. And so, I’m not much for the race card.”

O’Donnell: “So you think it was wrong for him to use those words?”

Rice: “Well, I’ve seen it done on– on both sides and I just think we ought to all step back and let– let Herman Cain answer the questions and let him answer them with– with full disclosure of everything and let the American people judge, but I don’t like the race card. I don’t like the race card when people say that people are criticizing President Obama because he’s black. I don’t like that very much either. He’s being criticized because he’s president.”

O’Donnell: “And that’s just part of it?”

Rice: “It just goes with the territory.”
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Wanting it to be true so much that nobody bothered to fact check!

2011-11-01T20:29:00.000-07:00

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The joke’s on Rick Perry in Occupy Wall Street gaffe
WENCY LEUNG
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
Published Tuesday, Nov. 01, 2011 7:51PM EDT
Last updated Tuesday, Nov. 01, 2011 7:55PM EDT

An attempt by Rick Perry to poke fun of Occupy Wall Street protesters has backfired, generating further ridicule against the Republican presidential candidate and his floundering campaign.

While speaking in New Hampshire on Friday, the Texas Governor took a swipe at the Occupy movement by citing an outlandish quote he received from his son from an Occupy Toronto protester named “Jeremy.” Mr. Perry chuckled after he paraphrased what “Jeremy” said:

“He said, ‘Those bankers that we came to insult, they’d already been at work for two hours when we got here at 9 o’clock. And when we get ready to leave, um, you know, they’re still in there working.’ He said, ‘I guess greed just makes you work hard.’ ”

The trouble is “Jeremy” isn’t real. He’s the creation of Globe and Mail contributor Mark Schatzker, who wrote a satirical piece on the Toronto protest, published on Oct. 22.

Mr. Perry’s gaffe is just one in a series of stumbles in his campaign for the GOP presidential nomination. In a separate speech in New Hampshire last week, he was seen as rambling and erratic, causing some observers, including The Atlantic magazine, to posit that his strange behaviour was a result of pain medication or alcohol. Earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal reported that early in his political career, Mr. Perry hosted friends, lawmakers and supporters at his family’s hunting camp, known by a racial slur painted on a rock at its entrance.

Attempting to regain its footing amidst a weak showing in the latest Iowa poll, Mr. Perry’s team launched a new ad this week, portraying him as “a doer, not a talker.”

The blogosphere has since pounced on Mr. Perry’s mix-up over The Globe and Mail satire piece, with news blogs, including Mediaite and The Wall Street Journal’s Washington Wire, pointing out the blunder.

In his piece, Mr. Schatzker had compiled the remarks of several fictitious Toronto protesters. For example, this statement was attributed to a 20-year-old “Tracy”: “Looking back, I can’t believe what we achieved in a few incredible days: government-funded health care, a well-regulated banking system, and a cap on corporate political donations. Our work is done.”

Mr. Perry was not alone in mistaking comedy for reality, however. Several other blogs, such as Power Line and The American Spectator, have cited Mr. Schatzker’s literally-too-good-to-be-true protesters as well.

Mr. Schatzker says he first discovered that bloggers critical of the Occupy movement were taking his characters’ words at face value about a week ago. But with Mr. Perry joining them, his spoof piece has taken on a life of its own.

“I’m giddy, agog, thrilled and delighted,” Mr. Schatzker says. “I’m also existentially conscious of the fact that my greatest achievement is now behind me.”

He adds that even if his article hadn’t been labelled as satire, the absurdity of his characters’ quotes should have tipped people off. A simple Google search would also have allowed them to easily fact check, he says.

“I suppose people wanted it to be true so much that they didn’t bother.”
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Here we go.......

2011-10-31T09:35:00.000-07:00

On Oct. 20, Politico first approached Gordon about whether Cain had been the subject of complaints of sexual harassment.

Gordon didn’t respond for several days but emailed Politico on Oct. 24 that any dispute about Cain’s conduct at the restaurant association “was settled amicably among all parties many years ago.”
“These are old and tired allegations that never stood up to the facts,” Gordon said in an email response to Politico. “This was settled amicably among all parties many years ago, and dredging this up now is merely part of a smear campaign meant to discredit a true patriot who is shaking up the political status quo.”

Gordon added: “Since critics haven’t had much luck in attacking Mr. Cain’s ideas, they are trying to attack him personally.”
On Sunday, Cain told Politico he had “had thousands of people working for me” at different businesses over the years and could not comment “until I see some facts or some concrete evidence.”

“He was then asked, ‘Have you ever been accused, sir, in your life of harassment by a woman?’ the Politico story reported. “He breathed audibly, glared at the reporter and stayed silent for several seconds. After the question was repeated three times, he responded by asking the reporter, ‘Have you ever been accused of sexual harassment?’"
Cain was head of the restaurant trade group after he left the job as CEO of Godfather’s Pizza. He frequently describes his running the pizza company but speaks less often about his tenure atop the association.

Read more on Newsmax.com: Politico: Two Women Accused Cain of 'Inappropriate Behavior,' Received Cash Payments
Important: Do You Support Pres. Obama's Re-Election? Vote Here Now!

When Newsmax starts quoting Politico, you know it's all over for Cain......question....why the "Obama question" on the tag????????

"Fear, hate, and bigotry are pervasive"

2011-10-28T20:26:00.000-07:00

UPDATED: see below
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This is a comment that should be saved lest an idiot mark it to be deleted.
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MrIncredible

The comments on this story are scary. Fear, hate, and bigotry are pervasive while rational discourse is flamed with scare tactics. As a trained lawyer, I examined the pleadings linked by Wild_Child in Florida and its patently absurd that anbody feels the need to be protected from Sharia law being imposed by our courts.

First, we are all free to contract. It's guaranteed under both the federal and state constitutions. Courts enforce contracts, so long as, for example, they were not induced by fraud or were not for an illegal act. Many of the contracts I've drafted include a "Governing Law" section where the parties to the contract can freely decide which law to apply in enforcing the contract. For instance, I can draft a sales contract and choose to use Delaware state law as the governing law even though the contract was drafted and executed in Washington.

The Florida case revolves around trustees to an islamic education center suing the islamic education center. It's a civil suit. In a civil suit, just like in contract, the parties can agree to apply whatever law they desire whether it be Florida Law, International Admiralty law, Sharia law, etc. What the court can't do is force the parties to apply Sharia law unless they both agree. So here, we have two parties to a lawsuit who both agree to apply Sharia law. What's the problem here? There is absolutely no risk, NONE that sharia law will be imposed on a party that does not wish it imposed.

Criminal courts do not allow the imposition of different set of laws, if you are in state court, Washington criminal law applies. If you are in federal court, both state law and federal law can apply, so long as the federal court has jurisdiction to hear the case. It's downright offensive as an American for anyone to rationally suggest that Sharia law could be applied in a criminal context. It can't. Aspects of sharia law could, I suppose, be passed as any other law is passed, but to suggest this is happening is absurd.

In summary, those suggesting that Sharia law may become a problem that we need to defend against as red blooded americans are using your prejudices to incite your emotions. There isn't the slightest possiblity of Sharia law affecting anybody but two parties in civil court who have both agreed that is the law they wish to apply. The same contract rights we all share to apply whatever set of laws we want to govern our own civil disputes.

These are the facts.

9 Likes

Wild_Child

And now for the real facts, Islam facts that is.
Feel free to let your fingers do the clicking.
http://www.muslimfact.com/

in reply to MrIncredible

2 Likes

MrIncredible

I don't stand corrected.

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UPDATE:

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kreggied

If I may interject, in the hope of pulling the discussion back to the article at hand, this is all a bit far from the point isn't it? What the author of the article writes seems simple enough.

The author simply indicates that Sharia law is not likely to come to America (I would take it one step further and say that it would be nearly impossible) and then procedes to explain a little about what Sharia law is, and isn't, in his experiene, he then goes on to acknowlege that excesses do happen and finally asks "Can we move on [to more important things] now?'

I'll admit that the subject of the imposition of Sharia law in America is a great bone to chew on as, like many political and religous subjects, there will always be disagreement on the matter. However, might it not be better to dig into what the article actually says?

If you think it is very likely that Sharia law will be imposed in America then help us understand why. If you disagree about the specific points the author makes about the religous purposes of Sharia law refute them specifically (sounds like a great conversation). And if you disagree that there are better things to talk about than how government needs to intervene now to prevent a Sharia take over (jobs perhaps?) then help us, help me, understand why.

But for gosh sakes at least try to address the content of the article.

3 Likes

Read more: http://www.theolympian.com/2011/10/28/1855247/sharia-law-not-the-threat-some.html#disqus_thread#ixzz1c8Opdq8W
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Poop Factory

2011-10-26T08:18:00.000-07:00

Herman Cain approves of smoking? Tsk, tsk, tsk

2011-10-26T00:54:00.000-07:00

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Bizarre Herman Cain ad features chief of staff smoking
By Brian Montopoli

There is an ad up on Herman Cain's official YouTube page that really needs to be seen to be believed.

The web spot features the Republican presidential candidate's chief of staff Mark Block, who is standing outside, offering fairly standard endorsements of the candidate. "I really believe that Herman Cain will put 'united' back in the United States of America, and if I didn't believe that, I wouldn't be here," he says, calling on Americans to get involved in the Cain campaign.

But a number of factors make the spot itself very strange: Block's halting delivery, the close-up nature of the shots, a pair of rapid pans away from Block's face before the cuts. (The quick pans are actually an editing technique used to replicate the circular fast-switching of lenses on old three-lens 16mm cameras.)

And that's all a precursor to the most memorable moment: A close up of Block inhaling a cigarette and then wordlessly exhaling a thin puff of smoke as a woman sings "I am America" in the background. The spot then cuts to a close up of an unsmiling Cain turning toward the camera, the candidate gradually breaking out into a laugh:

The spot was posted on October 19th, according to its YouTube page, but because it was unlisted on Cain's main YouTube page it seems to have gone undiscovered until now. There has been some speculation online that the spot is a hoax, but the Cain campaign late Monday night confirmed to CBS News that it is legitimate.

Campaign spokesman J.D. Gordon said that the video was "just Block being Block."

"I've received quite a bit of positive feedback. Most folks I heard from said it was hysterical," he said.

It remains unclear what the campaign planned to do with the video, whether it was intended to be an ad, or why it wasn't publicly available on Cain's page with his other videos.

Block himself also told CBS News the ad reflects "Block being Block."

"I smoke," he added. "It's a choice."

Intentionally or not, the ad brings to mind Cain's history opposing smoking bans as a lobbyist with the National Restaurant Association, which the New York Times recently reported out.

A report from CBS News' Kaylee Hartung at the left.

"Under Mr. Cain's leadership, the restaurant association opposed higher taxes on cigarettes and the use of federal money to prosecute cigarette makers for fraud," the Times reported. The story also noted that "Cain argued vociferously that the decision about whether to go smoke-free was the province of individual restaurant owners, not the government."
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Perry's a "birther"!

2011-10-24T14:15:00.000-07:00

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In wide-ranging interview with Parade, Perry talks birtherism, secession

Aman Batheja, OCTOBER 24, 2011

Parade, the well-read magazine inserted in hundreds of Sunday newspapers including the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, put Gov. Rick Perry on the cover of its latest issue and featured a lengthy interview with the presidential candidate.

Yet some of the most interesting parts of the interview were only available online and left out of the print publication.

The most newsworthy portion of the interview was likely Perry's response to whether President Barack Obama was born is eligible to be president.

Governor, do you believe that President Barack Obama was born in the United States?
I have no reason to think otherwise.

That’s not a definitive, “Yes, I believe he”—
Well, I don’t have a definitive answer, because he’s never seen my birth certificate.

But you’ve seen his.
I don’t know. Have I?

You don’t believe what’s been released?
I don’t know. I had dinner with Donald Trump the other night.

And?
That came up.

And he said?
He doesn’t think it’s real.

And you said?
I don’t have any idea. It doesn’t matter. He’s the President of the United States. He’s elected. It’s a distractive issue.

Also in the interview, Perry defended his comments on secession:

In 2010, you hinted at the possibility of Texas seceding, although you never said that word.
Actually, I didn’t. Let’s not misrepresent it.

Okay, let’s say you become president and the state of Massachusetts says the same thing, what would you say to them?
You’re going to have to be more specific. Let’s say somebody stands up at an event and says, “Secede.” My response would be that we have a great country. I see no reason that we would ever want to dissolve it, but I do understand why people get frustrated when government does not work the way our Founding Fathers meant for it to. I totally understand why people would shout that out. Do I think it’s a realistic thing? No.

Perry also refuted allegations that he made up a much-reported incident that he shot a coyote while jogging:

Governor, you made the news last year when you said you were out jogging in Austin with your daughter’s puppy, and you came across a coyote that was threatening your dog. Did you really shoot it like you said you did?
Yes, ma’am. One shot right in the shoulder.

You saw him drop, but did he die?
Yeah, right there.

So how come there’s been so much controversy over it? For example, some people have said it’s simply not possible to jog and carry a gun at the same time.
One guy from upstate New York said [it couldn’t have happened because] “coyotes would run away.” Come to Austin. I’ll show you coyotes that will come and get in your backyard and eat your little puppy.

All three of these fascinating exchanges are sure to draw more attention.

However, none of them made it into the portions of the interview that Parade included in their Sunday magazine.

To read the whole Parade interview, click Here.
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I can't wait for the "Religious Freedom" people to comment....

2011-10-23T16:58:00.000-07:00

SEATTLE -- A Hertz spokesman says the rental car company is disappointed 26 Muslim transport drivers at Sea-Tac Airport chose to be fired rather than agree to clock out for prayer breaks.
Spokesman Richard Broome says eight other drivers who had been suspended Sept. 30 were reinstated after they agreed to time their prayers.
Broome says clocking out is a reasonable requirement because some employees had failed to return to work promptly after prayers. The drivers move rental cars for cleaning and refueling.

Teamsters Local 117 has filed an unfair labor practices complaint with the National Labor Relations Board. The union also is filing religious discrimination charges with the EEOC.
The union represents nearly 80 Hertz drivers who earn between $9.15 and $9.95 an hour. About 70 percent are Muslims.

Do your members of Congress a favor-- unelect them!

2011-10-22T18:42:00.000-07:00

*********************************************
This is a marvelous piece, and we should send a copy to every member of Congress. Getting them to read it would be yet another story, though.
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For politicians, election defeat is a fate worse than death
BILL HALL, Published: 10/22/11

Why is it that members of the military repeatedly risk their lives for their country but most members of Congress won’t even risk losing an election?

Why is it that policemen go out there in the night along lonely highways and down dark alleys daring death, but members of the House and Senate tremble at the thought of defying moneyed lobbyists and ignorant voters on matters of principle?

Why is it that members of the fire department dare run through flames to save a child, but most members of Congress don’t dare tell a menacing lobbyist with a pot full of cash to put it where the sun don’t shine?
Most members of Congress would rather become puppets of pressure groups than die a mere political death at the polls.

What is it that they fear?

They fear leaving Congress – their love, their ego drug.

They don’t fear for their lives or least of all for their honor. They fear anonymity. They fear going home and retiring among their grandchildren.
Most of all, they fear us. And they should. We voters today are a nasty, largely ill-informed and totally selfish bunch. We behave like rabid badgers, snarling at members of Congress, threatening to bring them back down to earth. That means the worst we can do is to remove them from office, a fate worse than next to nothing.

In many cases, we would be doing them a favor. We would be rescuing them from the ignominious life of rolling over on their backs like submissive dogs as they encounter each alpha lobbyist with its fangs full of cash.

But all the tea partyers, union kingpins, rabid environmentalists, overpaid corporate big shots, pharmaceutical lobbyists and other welchers too cheap to pay their full national dues can’t really hurt members of Congress that much.

Voters today don’t consume much uncolored news. Many among us watch heavily slanted cable channels and read narrow-minded Internet drivel that feeds us “facts” invented by people who are as ignorant and pig-headed as we are.

A generation ago, there were only three national television channels and stacks of newspapers that provided a ton of news and only a little opinion. If the president was giving a speech, it was on all three channels. If you watched television at all on that night, that was what you got. It was much harder then to avoid straight news and wallow in propaganda.

Today, we are hopelessly susceptible to the fantasies we want to hear rather than what we need to hear. Thus terrified members of Congress don’t dare speak their honest convictions for fear they will lose the holy grail of victory at the next election.

But is an honorable defeat for too much truthfulness such an awful thing for an ethical person? It’s not like members of Congress don’t have the golden parachute of lucrative pensions and better health insurance than what they have ever provided for the rest of us.

Losing your life in the military is a tragedy. Losing a congressional seat is a disappointment. It’s the difference between coming home to your family slightly embarrassed and coming home in a box.

But you should be embarrassed most of all these recent years that you lost the people’s legislative branch to the moneyed forces of greed who now own it.

It’s not like the military. When we voters defeat you, at least we bring you back alive. We give you back your old friends and your sweet grandchildren to keep you warm until you die of old age and join our real heroes in the cold, cold ground.
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Bill Hall can be contacted at wilberth@cableone.net or at 1012 Prospect Ave., Lewiston, ID 83501
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