The Commentariat -- Nov. 3, 2012
The President's Weekly Address:
... The transcript is here.
Presidential Race
Mark Murray of NBC News: "... President Barack Obama maintains his lead in the key battleground state of Ohio and is locked in a close contest with ... Mitt Romney in Florida, according to new NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist polls. In Ohio, Obama holds a six-point advantage over Romney among likely voters, 51 percent to 45 percent, which is unchanged from last month's poll in the Buckeye State. And in Florida, the president gets support from 49 percent of likely voters, while his GOP challenger gets 47 percent. Those numbers are virtually identical to the ones from October, when it was Obama 48 percent, Romney 47 percent." ...
... Nate Silver: "There were 22 polls of swing states published Friday. Of these, Mr. Obama led in 19 polls, and two showed a tie. Mitt Romney led in just one of the surveys, a Mason-Dixon poll of Florida.... Although the fact that Mr. Obama held the lead in so many polls is partly coincidental -- there weren't any polls of North Carolina on Friday, for instance, which is Mr. Romney's strongest battleground state -- they nevertheless represent powerful evidence against the idea that the race is a 'tossup.'"
What Might Have Been. Mike Allen & Jim Vanderhei of Politico: "One of the most tantalizing subplots of the 2012 campaign has been the curious and sometimes controversial performances of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Now, campaign insiders tell Politico that Christie was Mitt Romney's first choice for the Republican ticket, lending an intriguing new context to the continuing drama around the Garden State governor. The strong internal push for Christie, and Romney's initial instinct to pick him as his running mate, reflects how conflicted the nominee remained about choosing a running mate until the very end of the process." CW: Kinda explains some of Christie's recent behavior, doesn't it?
The New York Review of Books has a special election edition. Read these four essays, starting with the one by Frank Rich. They're all terrific. Thanks to reader Doug C. for pointing me to the NYRB. ...
... Speaking of terrific writers, here's Rick Hertzberg of the New Yorker on God & presidential politics. Hertzberg, BTW, is an atheist. Or at least he was till the storm hit; maybe that kernel of conventional wisdom -- "There are no atheists in foxholes" (variously attributed, most often to Ernie Pyle) -- is at work on Hertzberg! ...
... Jonathan Chait of New York magazine, makes "the case against Romney: at heart he's a delusional one-percenter." A very good piece, too. ...
... Now read Chait on why Obama "is a great president. Yes, great."
Washington Post Editors: "Through all the flip-flops, there has been one consistency in the campaign of ... Mitt Romney: a contempt for the electorate. How else to explain his refusal to disclose essential information? Defying recent bipartisan tradition, he failed to release the names of his bundlers.... He never provided sufficient tax returns to show voters how he became rich. How, other than an assumption that voters are too dim to remember what Mr. Romney has said across the years and months, to account for his breathtaking ideological shifts? ... The same presumption of gullibility has infused his misleading commercials ... and his refusal to lay out an agenda.... And then there has been his chronic, baldly dishonest defense of mathematically impossible budget proposals." CW: too bad most people thing the Post is a liberal paper.
John Cassidy & Rick Hertzberg speak with Dorothy Wickenden about how Sandy might affect the presidential election:
... Cassidy has a good post on the implications of the October jobs numbers: "For the first time, Obama can now say that more Americans are working than when he took office. Doubtless, it's a point he'll be making over the next few days."
Charles Pierce takes up the same theme Paul Krugman illuminated in his Friday column: "As part of his 'closing argument,' Willard Romney, who has tried on every argument for making him our president that can be conceived by the mind of mortal man, seems to have settled on simple blackmail." Read to the end; Pierce doesn't waste words. ...
... More from Jonathan Chait, who explains why the blackmail argument is appealing to know-nothing voters -- they have no idea what the issues are, but the don't like the Bickersons of Capitol Hill. Chait also provides a little history lesson to show how Romney's promise would work out in the Real World of said Bickersons. (Think Bush III.) Oh, and catch Chait's point on Romney's clever use of the passive voice. ...
... Here's Romney making his blackmail threat. Watch that smirk creep across Romney's face as he pauses after making the threat. I think it might be the same expression a goulish murderer assumes when denying the crime -- as blood drips from his hands:
Steve Benen in the last of his long-running series, "Mitt's Mendacity": "I've published 40 installments in this series, which, before today, featured 884 falsehoods. (If you include today's edition, the new total is 917 falsehoods for the year.)"
"You don't scare hard-working Americans just to scare up some votes. That's not what being President is all about":
CW: I don't usually put much stock in what celebrities say, & Stephen Stills, in this Rolling Stone endorsement of President Obama doesn't say much that the editors at the New Yorker & the New York Times haven't said in their endorsements, but there is a certain something to the vernacular that makes Stills' piece compelling: "At the second debate, somebody asked how Bush and Romney differ. I'll give you the answer: Romney's taller, Mormon and a little smarter and meaner. That's about it. I couldn't believe how he acted at that debate. He's a churlish little prick. At least Bush was affable.... It's not right to be that rude to the President of the United States, let alone anybody else." Coincidentally, I was also just thinking this, too: "I never in my lifetime thought I would see a creepier politician than Richard Nixon, but in the last few days, it became clear that Willard Mitt Romney is really, really creepy." Thanks to contributor Ken W. for the link.
Charles Blow on why Romney appears to be losing.
Even Fox "News" Is Sick of Fox "News." Terry Krepel of Media Matters: "Fox News' argument that the Obama administration deliberately abandoned Americans in Libya to let them die in the Benghazi terrorist attack is apparently so odious that even Fox's own experts and commentators are rebelling against the narrative." Krepel cites examples & includes video. Thanks to Jeanne B. for the link.
Jon Ortved of the New York Times: "There's always Canada." With some caveats.
Other Stuff
NEW. Paul Krugman fingers Karl Rove as a con-man -- someone who is not just conning voters but also his clients: "We've been seeing him as a man dedicated to helping angry right-wing billionaires take over America. But maybe he's best thought of instead as an entrepreneur in the business of selling his services to angry right-wing billionaires, who believe that he can help them take over America."
NEW. Carol Leonnig & Tom Hamburger of the Washington Post: "The investigation into the arrest of a man on charges of dumping voter registration forms last month in Harrisonburg, Va., has widened, with state officials probing whether a company tied to top Republican leaders had engaged in voter registration fraud in the key battleground state, according to two persons close to the case."
Jayne Mayer of the New Yorker rebuts a rebuttal to her recent article on Hans von Spakovsky, a self-described legal scholar at the Heritage Foundation & "a prominent alarmist about election fraud in America." Bottom line: "...there is virtually no modern record of individual voters trying to steal elections by impersonating others at the polls."
<[>Michael Cooper of the New York Times: "The aftermath of Hurricane Sandy is threatening to create Election Day chaos in some storm-racked sections of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut -- and some effects may also be felt in other states, including Pennsylvania, where some polling sites still lacked power on Friday morning. Disrupted postal delivery will probably slow the return of absentee ballots. And with some polling sites likely to be moved, elections officials were bracing for a big influx of provisional paper ballots -- which could delay the vote count in places."Craig Child in a New York Times op-ed: "Hurricane Sandy showed us how sea-level rise actually works. It comes up in spikes that top historic highs and then fall back to normal.... We talk about life slowly returning to normal along the Eastern Seaboard, but ultimately, it never will. A new high-water mark has been set. In the aftermath, one fact stands out above all: seas are rising, and we are in the way."
Eric Lipton & Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times: "The first trickle of federal funds has started to go out after Hurricane Sandy -- $29 million to rebuild highways, $30 million to hire temporary workers to help with the cleanup. But lawmakers are just beginning to tally what is certain to be a multibillion-dollar bill for the federal government at a time of fiscal restraint."
Charles Pierce also has something to say about Senate Republicans' killing a report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service which concluded, "essentially, that almost 35 years of Republican economic policy was sheer lunatic moonshine.... Republicans in the Senate have the same problem with numbers and with math that they have with science in general -- namely, that numbers and -- math were invented by Democrats, probably in Nate Silver's Carpathian la-BOR-a-tory, in order to help Republicans look foolish." Pierce characterizes Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell thusly: "... [his] presence in a position of influence is an embarrassment to every democracy back to Pericles." (CW: I linked the underlying story, by New York Times writer Jonathan Weisman, in yesterday's Commentariat.
News Ledes
NBC News: "A jury on Friday ordered an American military contractor to pay $85 million after finding it guilty of negligence for illnesses suffered by a dozen Oregon soldiers who guarded an oilfield water plant during the Iraq War. After a three-week trial, the jury deliberated for just two days before reaching a decision against the contractor, Kellogg Brown and Root."
New York Times: "As long lines persisted at gas stations in the New York metropolitan area, federal authorities moved on Friday to restore supplies, instructing the Defense Department to send 24 million gallons of fuel to the region and lifting restrictions on deliveries by foreign-flagged ships." ...
... Update: "The lights flickered on in Manhattan neighborhoods that had been dark for days, and New York's subways rumbled and screeched through East River tunnels again. But in shorefront stretches of Staten Island and Queens that were all but demolished, and in broad sections of New Jersey and Long Island, gasoline was still almost impossible to come by, electricity was still lacking, temperatures were dropping and worried homeowners wondered when help would finally arrive."
New York Times: "Four dark days after Hurricane Sandy blew through the New York region, residents and businesses in the lower end of Manhattan began to get power back on Friday.... In other boroughs and in the suburbs, the prognosis for full restoration was grimmer. In many parts of the region, utility companies forecast that people might be without power until the middle of November."
AP: once more, Staten Islanders feel they live in the forgotten borough. The New York City borough hardest-hit by Hurricane Sandy, help was slow to arrive, partly because the Verrazano bridge was closed until Friday. CW: the bridge story sounds like an excuse to me: according to this report, on Tuesday the Port Authority re-opened the three bridges that connect Staten Island to New Jersey.
New York Times: "Just when they might have thought they were in the clear, people recovering from meningitis in an outbreak caused by a contaminated steroid drug have been struck by a second illness. The new problem, called an epidural abscess, is an infection near the spine at the site where the drug -- contaminated by a fungus -- was injected to treat back or neck pain. The abscesses are a localized infection, different from meningitis, which affects the membranes covering the brain and spinal cord. But in some cases, an untreated abscess can cause meningitis."
AP: "Some documents sealed in the 1970s as part of the court case against seven men involved in the Watergate burglary must be released, a federal judge ... says. U.S. District Chief Judge Royce Lamberth said in a two-page order Friday that some materials being sought by a Texas history professor should be released. He gave the National Archives and Records Administration a month to review and release the materials."
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Reader Comments (25)
This was posted in Nate Silver's comment section today. Any reactions?
Here is a sworn statement by an electronic security expert who believed the tabulating process was sent to an outside computer. this guy is actually a GOP insider who worked for big banks, and he basically says Bush stole Ohio in 2004.
http://www.velvetrevolution.us/images/Spoon Aff to Reply filed 91708.pdf
What I've been saying for 8 years.
Has any candidate as despised as Romney ever been elected president? I don't know, and I'm certainly not prepared to find out.
New Jersey sends in more money to the Federal government than any other state. Now it's time for them to get some back.
@Victoria D. New Jersey does not send in more money to the federal government than any other state. I'm guessing probably the highest contributor is California.
However, if you mean per capita contribution, again that isn't New Jersey. The state with the highest per capital federal tax in 2011 -- by far -- was Delaware. New Jersey was 4th.
What you may mean is not that "New Jersey sends in more money to the Federal government than any other state" but that the state get less of it back. That's true. I'm not sure what year these figures represent, but they tend to hold pretty much over time (though the stimulus did make a substantial difference in that every state got more in 2009-2010 than they did in other years). Whatever year this is, New Jersey got back only 61 cents for every federal tax dollar paid in. That was the least "return on federal investment" of any state.
I'll say it again. If you're going to make assertions of fact, please try to ascertain that they are accurate. I do not have time to research & correct other people's suppositions. I make my own mistakes all the time -- things I think I remember, but I've misremembered them. If I'm going to write them down, I usually look them up. I've gotten caught more than once when I didn't bother because I was "sure" I was right.
If you want to make an assertion, but you don't feel like looking it up, preface it with, "As I recall ..." or "It seems to me I read...." But if you state something as a fact, make sure it's a fact. Please. This is the third time in less than 24 hours a commenter has written something as fact that appears to be inaccurate. It's distracting me.
Thanks for your cooperation.
Marie
To imitate Cenk Uygur, OF COURSE the 2004 election in Ohio was stolen. And Jon Husted is still at the same tricks. Damn, it gets tiresome. The storm has given them an opportunity to really screw over Cuyahoga County.
Long lines of course. Even when we go to vote in our little township hall, the line snaking around the road machines, we are taking a resin lawn chair for me to sit in, given the current state of my arthritis. If we lived in the city, I would borrow a wheelchair. We can't trust the absentee vote here, as witness the latest wing-ding.
This is an addendum to my earlier post. Polling is more accurate, I have read but cannot prove, when potential voters are asked: "Who do you think is going to win the presidential election?" VS. "Who are you voting for?" I think that is because the first question takes into consideration the family and friendship system of the person--which may be anywhere from 2 to 50 (or more) VS. one. This seems so sound to me, that I cannot believe the pollsters have not figured it out.
Here is Charles Blow on the subject:
.."According to a Gallup poll released on Wednesday, Americans expect Obama to be re-elected by 54 percent to 34 percent. Among those believing that Obama will win were most independents and almost a fifth of Republicans.
I cast my lot with those folks unless there is a seismic shift in the next few days."
DUH and AMEN! Remember the Supremes!
I suspect (I don't know) that the assertion that New Jersey contributes more in (per capita?) federal taxes than any other state originated in a statement I believe I heard Obama's best new Republican friend, Chris Christie, make. If he did say what I thought I heard him say, he probably misspoke, because, as we all know, Republican never lie.
More to the point: federal aid should go to those who need it, regardless of how many dollars they contribute to the general weal. Arguing that any disaster site deserves relief because of or in proportion to the taxes they contribute places a monetary value on something else that cannot be measured in dollar and cents. Suckered by the prevalence of the quarterly report metaphor, we already do too much of that, time and again placing dollars signs (what's the value of a good education?) where they assuredly do not belong.
Furthermore, the disaster relief equation will always be out of balance. Even if Southern economies, for instance, did generate per capita tax revenue equal to that of bluer states to the north and west, their geography alone makes them many times more likely to experience hurricanes and tornadoes, and they will thus over time need more relief more often. That they do not contribute as much as they take does not argue any more for withholding aid from them than New Jersey and New York's much larger per capita contribution is an argument for receiving it.
At least, not in the country I would hope to live in. Maybe in Bainland, but not here. Not yet.
Worth reading. Joseph Stiglitz on the election and the economy, from Common Dreams:
...You've made the negative case for how the economy will suffer if Romney is elected. Is there a positive case to be made for Obama? You've been one of the people on the left most critical of Obama's efforts on the economy. Why should progressives vote for him now?
I think the main reason, quite honestly, to vote for him is that if he loses there could be a major step backward in every aspect. Not the least important of which is the importance of the SUPREME COURT, which would affect inequality of political power, as with the Citizens United case. The Court will also rule on basic human rights, gender rights, discrimination, things I think progressives should care a lot about.
But in terms of the economy, while I've been critical, there still has been progress in an awful lot of areas. Less progress than there should have been, less progress than was promised, but progress all the same.
Where do you see that progress?
Healthcare. Access to healthcare for everybody is an important step. It wasn't the kind of deep reform that one would have liked where you would have done something about the pharmaceutical industry and health insurance industry and so forth, but it did result in increased access and that was terribly important. In education, getting the banks out of student loans saved $80 billion over 10 years...."
This is a BIG DEAL! Remember the Supremes!
@Constant Weader: Have replied with requested info in Nov 2 comments. Trust to your satisfaction.
Wikipedia has a 2007 listing of net contributions per capita of state taxes paid less federal monies received.
Delaware contributed $12,285 per capita.
Minnesota contributed $7431 per capita.
New Jersey contributed $6644 per capita
We should cut Christie a little slack. He's so confused he thinks Obama is a republican. Only 19 states were net contributors in 2007.
4) "Truth and lies. Evidence continues to emerge that Romney is one of the most dishonest, duplicitous candidates to ever seek the presidency." So says Charles Blow and all of us, I presume.
A close second would have to be Nixon, even in his early days as VP was known as someone who played both sides against the middle; Goldwater cited him "As the most dishonest individual I ever met in my life."
The idea that voting for Romney would change the Republicans in Congress to finally throw off their demon demeanors, knuckle down and accomplish great things is an indication of just how truly despicable our system has become. Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein in their book, "It's even worse than It Seems," sum it up this way:
"However awkward it may be for the traditional press and nonpartisan analysts to acknowledge, one of the two major parties, the Republican Party, has become an insurgent outlier––ideologically extreme; contemptuous of the inherited social and economic regime; scornful of compromise; unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence, and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition. When one party moves this far from the center of American politics, it is extremely difficult to enact policies responsive to the country's most pressing challenges."
But as Krugman has said the problem is about the nation as a whole, that something has gone very wrong with America, not just the economy, but its ability to function as a democratic nation. Perhaps this horrific storm and its aftermath will open some doors to understanding of what kind of nation we really want and need.
In Rich's election essay, his most important point is the caution that the 2016 election will be the real polarized contest not 2012. I fear he is correct. I have been thinking about post-election and what Democrats /Progressives have to do. Certainly not settle into apathy. Putting national rules of law in place for voting in Presidential elections should be at the forefront. Next time, the Republican machine will be even better prepared. As long as states maintain control over the Presidential election, ground zero will be voter suppression. We have 4 years now to work on it.
Citizens United should be front and center on the agenda, Sherrod Brown's amendment. The IRS needs to be pressured to go after 501(c) 4 organizations. Those of us who indulge in the practice, need to pray for several more Obama appointments to the Supreme Court. Lastly, while I'm in a euphoric dream state - I'd like to see Carl Rove, Rick Scott and John Husted in a single cell with Bubba, whose has a penchant for doughy, bald, arrogant Republicans as personal Haus Fraus.
In a comment posted to yesterday's Commentariat, @Akhilleus noted that Texas Gov. Rick Perry had presided over 250 executions (in the roughly 12 years he's been governor). @cowachin replied that "Obama's drone strikes have killed twice that number every year for 4 years." Having read strikingly different numbers, I contested cowachin's assertion.
In a comment, also posted on yesterday's Commentariat, cowachin responsed:
"@Marie Burns: This is not the site from which I derived my 500 per annum number but it will do. Google "drone war casualties.
www antiwar.com/blog/2012/09/03/tbij-civilian-casualties-in-us-drone-war-august-2012-update.
"there are 291 out of 343 total attacks, 84.8%, under Obama
estimated deaths 2558 to 3319, average 2938
"Obama in charge 2009 to 2012, 4 years
"Then 2938 x 0.848 / 4 = 623 deaths attributable to Obama per year. I rounded down to 500 (twice 250) for simplicity. "The site I originally looked up had numbers roughly equivalent (ie annual numbers ranging from 534 up)"
To me, your statistics -- more on them in a moment -- hold up only if you make the argument that all war is immoral & that killing enemy combatants is immoral. Let's note that of those killed, the particular study you cited estimated that only 474-881 were "civilians" as opposed to enemy combatants. So even assuming the high number of 881 (x 85%), 187 civilians/per year died in drone attacks during the Obama administration. That's arithmetic, but -- as it turns out -- it ain't a fact.
First, the study you cite has been called into question by other observers, as Meg Braun, writing in Foreign Policy (and others) have noted. Braun writes, "the report rejects the findings of two other widely cited databases, The Long War Journal, which reports 138 civilian deaths and New America Foundation's Year of the Drone, which lists 152-191 civilian deaths and the deaths of 130-268 'unknowns.'" Braun goes on to cite numerous errors or faulty logic assumed by the reporters of these casualty figures. Moreover, she notes "a general decline in the percentage of civilian fatalities since the high in 2006, with a sharp decrease during the Obama administration."
As Akhilleus indicated in a response to your original comment, the issue of drone strikes is a complicated one that presents complex moral & ethical issues -- as well, of course, as strategic ones. But I would say that to imply that drone strikes compare to executing people who are already incarcerated & no longer pose a public danger is simplistic & facile. It completely ignores those underlying ethical issues to which Akhilleus eluded. Whether it's people on the right calling Obama a wimp or those on the left calling him a mass murderer, the charges are overwrought & -- to put it mildly -- lack nuance.
And in case anyone would now like to start screaming Innertoobz style that I favor the murder of children & other innocent bystanders, let me just say that I don't.
Marie
A few things. All wars are immoral but only from the people who started them, not from the people who have to defend themselves.
Chris Christie never lies. He is a classic case of NPD, everything he says is by definition the truth. In other words in order to lie you have to know the truth.
The only nice thing about Sandy is that it started a tiny discussion about climate change. I am sure that politically it will change nothing. We will have to wait for the disasters in 2014, 2016, 2018 ...... before anyone gets real.
Lastly, my favorite Sandy local news story. A couple had serious damage to their house, but it was not their only problem. Seems they have to deal with a new name for their dog who is currently called Sandy.
Time and time again, Nate Silver, has utterly debunked the notion that the Presidential race is a "tossup." Today, for example, he writes:
"Although the fact that Mr. Obama held the lead in so many polls is partly coincidental, . . . they nevertheless represent powerful evidence against the idea that the race is a “tossup.” A tossup race isn’t likely to produce 19 leads for one candidate and one for the other — any more than a fair coin is likely to come up heads 19 times and tails just once in 20 tosses. (The probability of a fair coin doing so is about 1 chance in 50,000.)"
Yet, The NY Times continues to report the race as "too close to call," despite their own analyst's conclusion that the odds of Obama winning are now better than 5 to 1. I hope Marie can devote more attention to the fact that NY Times reporters and/or editors seem either incapable of reading Silver and/or understanding him.
@Calyban. The reporters are not necessarily "incapable of reading Silver or understanding him." I commend you to this NYT op-ed which I linked in the Nov. 1 Commentariat: "Statistician Andrew Gelman on "what 'too close to call' really means.... I can simultaneously (a) accept that Obama has a 72 percent chance of winning and (b) say the election is too close to call. What if the weatherman told you there was a 30 percent chance of rain — would you be shocked if it rained that day? No. To put it another way, suppose Mitt Romney pulls out 51 percent of the popular vote and wins the election. That doesn’t mean that Nate Silver skews the polls (as is suggested by this repulsive article at Examiner.com, which, among other things, criticizes Silver for being thin and having a soft voice). Romney winning the election with 51 percent of the vote is well within the margin of error, as Silver clearly indicates. That’s what too close to call is all about."
Neither Gelman nor the NYT reporters would likely describe the race as too close to call if Obama had substantial leads in enough states to get him 270 electoral votes. He doesn't. True, they would use other euphemisms; i.e., "Romney has an uphill battle," "it's difficult to see Romney's path to victory," blah-blah. But Silver himself would say that the race, tho not a "toss-up," is still "too close to call" with anything other than those new probabilities he's been throwing up daily. I think his calculation for the likelihood of an Obama win is in the mid- to high 80s now. But that still means there is a 15 percent chance or so that Willard will win the election.
Marie
@Calyban there is no circulation upside in reporting the facts. No matter how much the NYT tries to hide behind its historical veil of unquestionable journalism - fomenting fallacy is not responsible journalism. We have found out by example, chief of which is Marie not being designated a "trusted commentator", that challenges to the writers in content and skill, is not tolerated. I understand why Frank Rich moved on.
I was given a free subscription to NYT, sponsored by the Lincoln car company, for the initial 6 months of pay-per-view. Ironic. We have 2 cars; 1 is a 2003 Jeep and the other is a 2002 Montero. Never owned a Lincoln. I just want the cars to keep running and will drive them until they stop. I have I stopped reading NYT when you had to be a facebook member to comment and I realized that the editorial staff held back or didn't publish certain comments. Now I read 538 blog via a link.
I would feel worse about the decline of major papers if their standard of journalism was not on the floor.
What we all are saying--this just in from the Daily Kos:
..."Election guru Nate Silver just posted a four word explanation of why President Obama is winning:
"Obama's ahead in Ohio."
And that's it. The national polls show a toss-up, but President Obama is favored to win re-election because he is ahead by 2.5% in Ohio."
***************************
Why I think the adrenaline junkies who call themselves journalists, and the papers (Hello, NYT) who call themselves "papers of choice" are full of shit. As I said a few days ago, I am no longer worrying about the election. Obama will win. However, I think all addicts who are calling themselves journalists should check into a 28-day drug rehab. Plus, they should be charged as pushers. (Yes, an excess of adrenaline counts--especially when it is daily being injected into readers, who end up feeling confused and upset.)
Just a buncha asswipes. Did I get that right, JJG?
@The Constant Weader: You may publish this or not, I am not going to worry the bone forever.
Akhilleus condemned Perry for executing 250 people without bothering to list the innocent. An impossible task. My point is that his office expects him to carryout texas law and all of the condemned were processed by what passes for a legal system. I did not think you required me to parse the drone war casualty list for the demonstrably innocent. An equally impossible task. However many innocent or not, none of them have been processed by any form of justice system. None of the texas victims have been accompanied by their family or friends or people who just happen to be within a blast radius.
I read, sometime, somewhere, an article by a Canadian journalist in which she interviewed a Taliban leader whose demise had been triumphantly announced the previous week by the US military. If not the leader, who was killed? Who were those accompanying him? The US lists the dead who are 16 years old as combatants. It simplifies statistic gathering. The enemy is identified from overhead in a society of beards and head gear with 100% accuracy, right?
I'm a liberal Canadian which probably puts me right there, in the political spectrum of the US, just to the left of Karl M. I don't believe in capital punishment. Not even if the guilty has raped and murdered my wife, which as I remember is the litmus test. The image of Obama, sitting in air conditioned comfort, sifting thru a pile of biographies saying "Kill this one, mmm uh, this one too, mm..." forever removes him from contention as a great leader. It could still qualify him as a great American president. I'm just not sure of the criteria. He is, in my opinion, a severely liberal president.
Re: That's a fact, Kate, asswipes; the bunch of them. But now we are going to have to prove it to Marie.
I'll relax about the President when he's sworn in for a second term come Jan.
Don't forget about the you know who's.
@I'll be damned if I can figure out everyone's resistance to the laws of probability (not to mention the laws of the Republican secretaries of state & governors of Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, etc., any one or two [or more] of whom may make Jeb Bush & Katherine Harris [Florida 2000] look like paragons of truth, justice & the American way).
To paraphrase Gelman, there is nothing inconsistent with saying (a) Obama will probably win, and/but (b) the election is too close to call -- and that is true whether or not certain public officials are poised & ready to throw the election to the Mittster -- a contingency plan which strikes me as quite plausible given the GOP's history of throwing elections & their recent history of putting their thumbs on the scale to disenfranchise likely Democratic voters. On the morning & afternoon of the general election 2004, Sen. John Kerry thought he would be President-Elect Kerry within 24 hours. I don't think you have to be a nutcase to think it likely that somebody in Ohio knows why that didn't happen.
Marie
@ Calyban: You might find an article by Naomi Klein in The Guardian of interest. Not only does she give her proposal for a verifiable voting system but also references a Harpers magazine article from 2005 on the Ohio election as a refresher. The affidavit you reference was made in 2008. I would say that after 4 years surely there can't be anything to it except that 2 days ago I watched an update of a 2006 CBC feature accusing Lance Armstrong of doping. Occasionally the truth takes a long time to appear and sometimes it's just paranoia.
@Marie-
Everything you write is true; however, I still think that Obama will win. I do not think the Repugs will be allowed to pull the same manuevers they did in 2000 and 2004--at least not on the levels they did! The Obama team is on to them, and they have literally blanketed the "swing states" with lawyers and poll watchers.
I hope I am right about this, because I have a $500 bet with my psychopathic defense contractor brother-in-law--just as I did in 2008. Of course WHEN I win, I will send his money to save the wolves--since he thinks it is "really cool" to shoot them from helicopters.
And I still think journalists are part of the problem--definitely not part of the solution.
Yes indeedy, I will always Remember the Supremes!
@Marie: I think both of us were guilty of confusing the term "toss-up" with the term "too close to call." The election is NOT a toss-up---meaning that both candidates have a roughly equal chance of winning: Obama statistically has a much better CHANCE of winning: but that does not mean that we can CALL the race for him: it's too close to CALL. The Times, bless its little pusillanimous corporate heart (Remember the Supremes!), frequently and incorrectly refers to the race as a toss-up, for reasons which Kate has well articulated.
@Calyban. "The Times, bless its little pusillanimous corporate heart (Remember the Supremes!), frequently and incorrectly refers to the race as a toss-up, for reasons which Kate has well articulated."
I did a Google search & a 30-day search of the NYT archives, & I did not find one news report which described the presidential race as a "toss-up." Yeah, there was something by Ross Douthat & some other opinion writer that used the term -- though I didn't read the articles so I don't know if they were referring to the whole race or to specific states.
This isn't to say the Google & the archives are the be-all to end-all, but I just don't know that it is true that times reporters are "frequently writing" that the presidential race is a toss-up when I didn't find a single instance of it. If you can find instances -- and it may well be that you can -- lemme know.
Marie