The Lost: Aboard a Conservative Cruise Ship

It's so easy to highlight the ridiculous and delusional when one takes a cruise ship adventure with a boatload of Conservatives just days after the 2012 Election - one writer joined a National Review-sponsored cruise and the report is a metaphorical descent into a malestrom.

"Hassett pivoted to the liberal media. “I actually think that Goebbels was more critical of Hitler than the New York Times is of Obama,” said Hassett, tucking into a piece of strudel. “I was in the middle of the fight against the propaganda, and I have stories like you wouldn’t believe. These people are so evil. They’re basically Fascists. It’s unbelievable.” 

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"Rob Long, a conservative Hollywood TV writer behind a TNT show called ­Sullivan & Son, said the party has to accept that it’s been living in a fantasy world. “It’s like The Matrix,” he said. “You can continue to live in the dream world, or you can take the pill and we can unplug you and you can see that things are actually kind of bad.”

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"John Yoo, the former Bush Administration lawyer who helped formulate its theory on torture ... worried that the Republicans were too quick to blame each other, saying, “This is all out of Lord of the Flies and Karl Rove is Piggy and we’re supposed to all chase him around with spikes and throw him on a fire?”

The United States Are All Sour, Claim Those Fake Folks Who Want to Secede

A large amount of fakery, led by the Right-Wing blog "The Daily Caller:, and followers of the woefully ignorant, refuse to believe the facts, and now suddenly claim that thousands of people (mostly all Southerners, including Tennessee) seem to think the best protest against our recently re-elected president is to secede from the United States.

First, all these 'petitions' are bogus and have no meaning at all - other than as expressions of the deeply disturbed.

As Ed Kilgore writes:

" ... we’re discovering that at least one segment of the GOP’s conservative “base” has found something to do in reaction to the election results other than engaging in a “struggle for the soul of the party” or discussing what its congressional representatives should do about tax and spending deadlines: petition to secede from the Union!

"Given the southern inflection of the secession campaign, you’d have to figure nearly all these petitioners are aware (it is impossible to grow up in the South without being marinated in the memory of the Lost Cause and its consequences virtually from birth) that we had a civil war over this subject a while back, which the secessionists did not win. So it’s an unusually dumb gesture, aimed less at Barack Obama than at their fellow-citizens."

The KnoxNews Sentinel writes:

"Brandon Puttbrese, spokesman for the Tennessee Democratic Party, called the secession petition "radical nonsense" that is "a direct result of the tea party extremism and intolerance we have seen from elected Republicans in Tennessee."

"Sadly," Puttbrese said, "this kind of extremism only breeds more of the division and rancor that is prohibiting our leaders from making progress on putting Tennesseans back to work and protecting middle class families."

But Chris Devaney, chairman of the Tennessee Republican Party, noted that nearly 50 percent of Americans voted against Obama.

"We can argue whether the petition is proper," Devaney said, "but it is certainly a signal that it's time for the president to show some leadership and work to unite America rather than divide us."

The petition drive is just a way for angry voters to let off steam after a highly emotional and divisive campaign, said John Scheb, head of the political science department at the University of Tennessee.

Not only is secession unlikely, it's not even legally possible, Scheb said.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1869 that states cannot unilaterally secede from the union. "The position the court took was once in (the union), always in," Scheb said."

It's called the 14th Amendment, people.

And it's pretty much the same as the fable of the Fox who sought in vain to jump up and grab some grapes the Fox viewed as most tasty, only to miss them and fail and fail again:

This Fox has a longing for grapes:

He jumps, but the bunch still escapes.

So he goes away sour;

And, 'tis said, to this hour

Declares that he's no taste for grapes

Glenn Beck Says 'God Sucks' - Another Repblican Loses It

It is very simple in the weak and deluded mind of failed talk show host Glenn Beck to find blame for the reason President Obama was reelected:

" ... in the weeks leading up to Tuesday’s election, Beck had repeatedly said that God was orchestrating Republican nominee’s path to the presidency. Speaking to his radio listeners in September, he insisted that Romney’s poll numbers had fallen as a part of a plan from God to make it obvious to the American people that divine intervention was responsible when Republicans took the White House in November.

But once the vote was in, Beck had another explanation:


"Man, sometimes God really sucks,” the radio host lamented"

Yes, or the sad truth may just be that God thinks Glenn Beck is a few thousand french fries short of a Happy Meal.

Blogger and Ron Paul aid Eric Dondero add echoes the lunatic hate and ridiculous attitude regarding Democrats:

"Dondero, reasoning that the only recourse to Obama's victory is "outright revolt," laid out the terms of the "personal boycott" against Democrats which he plans to maintain for the rest of his life and that he hopes his followers will as well. What does the boycott entail? Cutting all ties with Democratic family members, friends, and lovers; refusing to work for a Democratic boss; spitting on the ground when a Democrat talks to you; and possibly shitting on your Democratic neighbor's lawn, among other things:

Puerto Rico Votes For Statehood

Puerto Rico has voted this week for statehood ... or have they?

The official vote indicates that a majority want the Congress to approve statehood:

"The two-part referendum asked whether the island wanted to change its 114-year relationship with the United States. Nearly 54 percent, or 922,374 people, sought to change it, while 46 percent, or 786,749 people, favored the status quo. Ninety-six percent of 1,643 precincts were reporting as of early Wednesday.

The second question asked voters to choose from three options, with statehood by far the favorite, garnering 61 percent. Sovereign free association, which would have allowed for more autonomy, received 33 percent, while independence got 5 percent."

Still, the PR governor who wanted statehood, Luis Fortuno, was ousted and replaced by Alejandro Garcia Padilla of the Popular Democratic Party, which wants Puerto Rico to remain a semi-autonomous U.S. commonwealth.

The issue will have to be decided by the U.S. Congress, but the outcome is fairly murky - and murkiness surrounds the vote in Puerto Rico too:

"Statehood won a victory without precedent but it's an artificial victory," said Angel Israel Rivera Ortiz, a political science professor at the University of Puerto Rico. "It reflects a divided and confused electorate that is not clear on where it's going."

Divided, confused, and lost ... sounds like it's already a U.S. state.

Very Diverse America Votes

As long predicted, the polls and Nate Silver and even me here, were spot on. President Obama was re-elected. The simple truth is that every candidate the Republicans put forth were no match for Obama. And, more important, the voters in America are far more diverse, involved and attentive than Republicans seem to understand.

"But when it comes to key demographics, the electorate actually likely skewed more Democratic/liberal than in 2008.

The electorate was less white (from 74 percent in 2008 to 72 percent this year), more Latino (9 percent to 10 percent), just as African-American (13 percent to 13 percent), more female (53 percent to 54 percent), more low-income (38 percent making less than $50,000 in 2008 to 41 percent Tuesday) and — perhaps most remarkably, younger (18 percent to 19 percent).

It all suggests that Obama’s laser-like focus on turning out each of his key constituencies — minorities, women and young people — paid dividends.

And in many cases, these groups backed him as much or more as in 2008. 

Women gave Obama 55 percent of the vote and low-income voters gave him 60 percent, about the same as four years ago.

Latinos gave Obama 67 percent of their vote four years ago, and 71 percent on Tuesday.

And Democrats supported Obama even more than they did four years ago, with his share of the Democratic vote rising from 89 percent to 92 percent."

The work Obama was first elected to perform - healing the massive economic collapse brought about during the 2000s - is a long, arduous task. It will take much of the next four years to correct, and if Congress continues to stall and block recovery and reform efforts, then look for Democrats to have the advantage in elections in 2014 and 2016. However, since most of the Congress elected yesterday are the same folks who blocked Obama's first efforts, it can also be said that voters don't want to give Obama a free hand to do anything he wants. Or maybe we just like the idea that a stalled Congress is one that moves very, very slowly.

Obama's 2nd Term On The Rise

Today's presidential vote might be rather close in the popular vote, but the electoral college totals are (and have been) favoring the re-election of President Obama. For much of the last year or more, the strategies of Democrats and Republicans have been tightly focused on those numbers, not the popular vote - because it is the electoral college which determines winners.

Since day one of the Obama presidency, there have been very loud voices opposing him and any agenda he put forth, and those voices have truly gotten louder in the last year. But the number of those voices? They've always been a small percentage of the public.

Those pesky percentages ...

My math is usually as weak as a newborn kitten, no matter when I employ it.

The numbers-crunching of state polls, as aggregated and measured by blogger/statistician Nate Silver, has, for quite some time, claimed that Obama will be the winner:

" ... in the United States, presidential elections are won state by state, not at the national level. And with remarkable unanimity, the leading aggregators have consistently concluded that polling in the swing states -- Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin -- has favored Obama. And that in the vast majority of the 100,000 simulated elections Silver runs each day, the president has come out on top.

Still, each of the aggregators -- FiveThirtyEight, TPM PollTracker, HuffPost Pollster, RealClearPolitics Average, and the Princeton Election Consortium -- has its own methods, and its own results. While each of the five went into Election Day predicting a second term of the president, their numbers vary a bit."

Meanwhile, Conservative and the GOP all are claiming that polls today are all wrong in state after state, and that Romney has a secret landslide win coming. The Right Wing activist/writer Jonah Goldberg presents today the claim that statistics are utterly worthless:

"The truth is that any statistician can build a model. They do it all the time. They make assumptions about the electorate, assign weights to polls and economic indicators, etc., and then they wait for the sausage to come out. No doubt some models are better than others, and some models are simply better for a while and then regress to the mean. But ultimately, the numbers are dependent on the values you place on them. As the computer programmers like to say, garbage in, garbage out."

As I said, I haven't seen the number of voices opposing the president (or supporting Romney) grow - they have simply gotten louder. It may be a biiiiig gamble, but I think Obama wins this re-election bid. The army of Republican advisers and lobbyists say Romney has the win already in the bag.

Time will tell.

Romney Family Owns Voting Machines

Even as I enjoy all the spooky and frightening aspects of the Halloween holiday, the notion that a presidential candidate and family own voting machines is truly a chilling thought. Via a corporation headed by Mitt Romney's son Tagg, the company has successfully purchased the voting machines being used this November in Ohio, Texas, Oklahoma and Washington.

"Through a closely held equity fund called Solamere, Mitt Romney and his wife, son and brother are major investors in an investment firm called H.I.G. Capital. H.I.G. in turn holds a majority share and three out of five board members in Hart Intercivic, a company that owns the notoriously faulty electronic voting machines that will count the ballots in swing state Ohio November 7. Hart machines will also be used elsewhere in the United States.

In other words, a candidate for the presidency of the United States, and his brother, wife and son, have a straight-line financial interest in the voting machines that could decide this fall's election. These machines cannot be monitored by the public. But they will help decide who "owns" the White House."

Just as I was reading and learning about this disturbing reality, over at KnoxViews, writer djuggler poses a question worth answering:

"Why is the purchase of the Ohio voting machines by Tagg Romney 1) legal and 2) not all over the news?"

If anyone remotely related to President Obama's family owned voting machines, FOX "News" would be relentlessly howling and screeching. And why aren't major media outlets covering the fact that Romney's family does own voting machines? FOX talkers gleefully accused the Obama administration of "cooking the numbers" so that unemployment rate numbers showed a drop - so surely they'd gleefully report that a presidential candidate's family owns voting machines, right? Unless, of course, the candidate is Mitt Romney.

It's The Congress, Stupid

Nearly hysterical hyper-spin is swamping cable 'news' and radio talk and the online world too with just weeks to go before election day in the Presidential race. Parsing every wrinkle and wink on the Left and the Right is a powerful vehicle to draw viewers and listeners who've been attuned to political shifts. Every syllable spoken gets special attention - but does any of this hold any real value?

The rocking and reeling is nicely captured by writer Ed Kilgore at The Washington Monthly:

"I’m about to throw up my hands and stop boring readers with too many objections to the extraordinary level of belief among conservatives this year that spinning Romney as ahead is itself a vastly important political asset. At the elite, chattering-class level, conservatives are, after all, in the habit of thinking of themselves as “winners” in life, and of Democrats as a vast coalition of “losers.” This is why so many of them are bullies by nature, and can’t really accept defeat in any legitimately framed competition. They are The Elect, and Elections should reflect that fact, right? 

"So it will be difficult some days to cut through the din of perpetually renewed lusty conservative cries that the Black Devil-Man in Washington is on the run, and to avoid the temptation to spin right back just to annoy the wingnuts. But I am going to try, and best I can tell, the presidential race is what it always was—a close contest that could go either way—but with the fundamentals now favoring Obama to the point where it will take more than endless and interminable and often silly hype (I’m going to scream if I hear one more reference to “energy levels”) over one debate to change the outcome."

Much of cable and radio and online presentations depend on one thing: Simplification. So, rather than dig into the harsh reality that Congress is grimly locked up on most every bill they've faced in the last few years, driven by the hardline push from the Right to stall, block and prevent any legislation proposed by the President. Rather than challenge these tactics, media and spinners simplify to one claim: the President is to blame.

But the truth is Congress handles the bills and legislation and the political actions or inactions of the nation. And when investigated, the numbers show that Congressional approval has been at historic lows for the last few years. Plus, all 453 Congressional seats have undergone redistricting since the 2010 census, certain to affect how votes fall out. The Gallup organization notes:

"... all U.S. House seats and roughly one-third of U.S. Senate seats will be decided in the elections. Though overshadowed by the presidential race, the results of the congressional elections will have a major effect on the way the country is governed over the next two years ...

"Given Congress' near-record-low job approval ratings [10 to 13 percent], voters may continue to take out their frustrations on members of the institution, which has resulted in considerable turnover in congressional membership or party composition in each of the last three election years."

That battle is the REAL political battle today.

Romney: Vote For Me Or You're A Freeloader

Some (possibly too honest) commentary on American voters (especially those who support President Obama) from Mitt Romney  has been storming the internet. Was Romney just trying to whip up multi-million dollar donors, or was he offering a look at how he views much of the nation?

"There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax…

[M]y job is is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."

Writer David Brooks offers his take on Romney's views:

"This [Romney] comment suggests a few things. First, it suggests that he really doesn’t know much about the country he inhabits. Who are these freeloaders? Is it the Iraq war veteran who goes to the V.A.? Is it the student getting a loan to go to college? Is it the retiree on Social Security or Medicare?

"It suggests that Romney doesn’t know much about the culture of America. Yes, the entitlement state has expanded, but America remains one of the hardest-working nations on earth. Americans work longer hours than just about anyone else. Americans believe in work more than almost any other people. Ninety-two percent say that hard work is the key to success, according to a 2009 Pew Research Survey….

"The people who receive the disproportionate share of government spending are not big-government lovers. They are Republicans. They are senior citizens. They are white men with high school degrees. As Bill Galston of the Brookings Institution has noted, the people who have benefited from the entitlements explosion are middle-class workers, more so than the dependent poor."

Twittering and Pinteresting Political Power

Tracking and counting political tweets and Facebook 'likes' are now a part of American politics - perhaps in much the same way that a teenager might observe and evaluate their popularity.

Yes, there is now a daily Twitter Political Index.

And there's high-profile use this year of political parties on Tumblr, Pinterest and Instagram.

Campaign strategists eyed the tweet-count for the Republican convention (Paul Ryan peaked at 6,000 tweets per minute, Romney had 14,300) and easily put their texting prowess to work - President Obama had 52,000 tweets per minute during his speech.

The singer Madonna, however, racked up 10,000 tweets per second during her Super Bowl halftime performance. (stat counts via here and here) But does any of this translate to actual votes?

The Pew Research folks compiled a study earlier this year on how Democrats, Republicans and Independent voters rated "social media" as a political tool. Some of the results:

"Some but not most users of social networking sites (SNS) say the sites are important for a variety of political activities:

• 36% of SNS users say the sites are “very important” or “somewhat important” to them in keeping up with political news.
• 26% of SNS users say the sites are “very important” or “somewhat important” to them in recruiting people to get involved in political issues that matter to them.
• 25% of SNS users say the sites are “very important” or “somewhat important” to them for debating or discussing political issues with others.
• 25% of SNS users say the sites are “very important” or “somewhat important” to them in finding other people who share their views about important political issues.

In each activity, Democrats who use social networking sites are more likely than Republicans or independents to say the sites are important."

Click to enlarge

Being talked about seems to be the goal, with the hope then that talk translate into votes. As an organizing tool, it would seem to be quite valuable and it also seems that Democrats use it best. If it leads to votes, however, is still the real question.

Or is all the twittering, pinteresting, facebooking merely a modern version of capturing hearts and minds?

There Is No Voter Fraud In Tennessee (Or Any Other State)

When the ridiculous notion that new, photographic Voter IDs were needed in every state of our nation, the most cursory examinations of voting records clearly indicated such laws and IDs were totally unnecessary, that no large scale fraud existed.

Now - as legislatures across the nation have made the decision to require these IDs - we get a formal, comprehensive study which plainly reveals what we already knew ... there just isn't any fraud to combat at all:

"News21, a part of the Carnegie-Knight Initiative on the Future of Journalism Education focused on investigative reporting, analyzed 2,608 alleged election-fraud cases, going back to 2000, mined from thousands of public records requests, in all 50 states. (You can peruse the resulting database here.) In all, they found just 10 cases of voter impersonation, or, "one out of about every 15 million prospective voters" during that time."

"In Tennessee, the study turned up 14 total cases of reported fraud since 2000, none of which were cases of voter impersonation. The city of Memphis filed a lawsuit last week, challenging the state's voter ID law on constitutional grounds."

Imagine that one person, let's say his name was Bob, and back in 2002, Bob ate a chicken salad sandwich that was rotten and it killed him, and every state in the nation voted to outlaw chicken salad sandwiches, even though no one can find anyone named Bob who died after eating a rotten chicken salad sandwich - that's pretty much what the bogus Voter ID law is built on - mindless fear.

In Pennsylvania, just as a case against the implementation of the law, the state has agreed the law is utterly without merit or necessity and is likely illegal:

"... state officials conceded that they had no evidence of prior in-person voter fraud, or even any reason to believe that such crimes would occur with more frequency if a voter ID law wasn't in effect.

"There have been no investigations or prosecutions of in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania; and the parties do not have direct personal knowledge of any such investigations or prosecutions in other states,” the statement reads."

 The goal of the law, sadly, has been achieved - it will stop many from voting and will confuse the rest of us. It is not about fraud - it is a rollback to the days of when only white, adult males with property are allowed to vote. And that is not American at all. Shame on every legislator who approved these laws.

Mark Clayton: Triple Tennessee Facepalm

Our humble state of TN made national political news - once again - for achieving a new level of Dangerously Stupid Acts. The cause this time was the election victory last week for a full-blown toon named Mark Clayton as a Democrat U.S. Senate candidate.

Seems the voters just plunked down their votes for Clayton because his name was first on the ballot - and when you add in the idiocy with which the state Dem party operates, as discussed by Southern Beale on her blog - well, it becomes clear that it was just about inevitable that Dangerously Stupid would win the day.

For many months, I was fairly certain that actress and activist Park Overall was going to win that primary - she campaigned with much energy and speaks so plainly, it seemed a no-brainer that she would make a very fierce competitor for the incumbent millionaire Senator Bob Corker. Never underestimate the power of ignorant voters is the lesson we are left with I suppose.

Add in the fact that it was not until after the election of Clayton that the state Dem party disavowed Clayton. I know of many smart Democrats in Tennessee and read some fine writing from many of them online. But the state party is as deaf as a post apparently. You folks might want to start crafting some standards and hiring some people who are competent.

It's bad enough folks would vote for someone they knew zip about. And it's mighty clear that for the last few years the state Dem party has zero ability to operate with any significance. (And for the record I have never been a member of any political party.) The official state Dem response to Clayton's win simply "urges Democrats to write-in a candidate of their choice in November.”

Like that's a good idea. They need to throw 100% of their effort into backing Park Overall, who would at the very least make mincemeat of Corker during a debate. 

But here's my real concern -  our state has loads of Conservative voters and party leaders, I get that. But I also know there are many, many of us non-Conservative, non-Republicans who live and work in our humble state and we get zero representation in government, from the city level to the state level and the federal level. Like many of us in this minority group, I still write and call my elected representatives to express my views on many topics - and at best, all we get back is a "thank you for writing" and "your views are important" replies. And that's a lie.

These folks will not ever stand up for us, will not ever even consider the merits of the issues we raise, and that dismissal is final and permanent. And electing a full-blown toon like Clayton will just make it worse.

Tennessee Republicans Seek Theocracy

Tennessee Republicans make it clear in the current presidential primary race with their support for Sen. Rick Santorum - they want Tennessee to be a theocracy. Not that there were many doubts on that score.

The most recent MTSU poll results show the TNGOP supports Santorum by large margin - 40% for Santorum, 19% for Romney. Sen. Santorum is speaking at this moment at a private bible college, Crown College of The Bible. And he's been most plain over the course of his career and this current campaign stating that religion is the best and only guide for government.

So at least they have made clear their only their religious beliefs should determine governmental policy. If you hold a different view, not only are you wrong, you are damned.

Welcome to the new religious government of Tennessee.

Santorum also says if you want to go to college (like he did, for 3 degrees, like his children did) you are a snob. Odd then that today he's at a college. I must assume he means that if you get a college degree outside of a private Christian college, you are a source of evil and snobbery.