We’ve (collectively) talked about the GOP’s desperate attempts disfranchise millions of people, particularly in Ohio, Pa, and Florida, often times in defiance of court orders, so it is worthwhile to point out what a Governor who cares about the rights of his citizens:
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Monday New Yorkers affected by superstorm Sandy will be allowed to vote in Tuesday’s U.S. election in any polling place by presenting an affidavit.
Cuomo said he was signing an executive order on Monday that will allow voters to cast ballots at voting stations other than the ones to which they are assigned. He said his order arose from concern that hundreds of thousands of New York residents could be effectively disenfranchised by the damage to many polling places caused by Sandy one week ago.
“This executive order I am signing today is an extraordinary step in that direction,” Cuomo said in a news conference.
I’d like to ask my “reasonable Republican” friends like the folks at Outside the Beltway and elsewhere, how do you continue to support a party which does everything it can to restrict voting and disfranchise legal voters? Please try to explain without a “Both sides do it” response or a reference to the New Black Panther Party or Chicago politics. At some point, don’t you get embarrassed by what your party will do to attempt to steal elections?
One of the most amazing things for me is all my former military buddies who post every jingoistic piece of nonsense they can to facebook, about how our military protects our freedoms, and what not, etc. They all were paid by taxpayers for their service, they all have pensions paid by taxpayers, they are the only people in the country who have single payer health care, the American people lavish them with praise every time they can, but these vets are the ones squealing about socialism and who, without question, hate the people of America more than anyone this side of Al Qaeda. It’s fucking crazy. Who, actually, is ungrateful?
Princess Leia
Tell it!
General Stuck
Well, what else can they do? Jump in the hot tub with a bunch of fornicating fetus aborting liberals. What would baby jeevus think?
David Koch
Cuomo trying to steal the election from Romney because the liberals know all the unskewed polls show a Romney landslide victory.
yam
Them’s fightin’ words.
But, sometimes, a kick in the head is what you need to get a point across…
LD50
I assume this is a purely rhetorical question.
Raven
If we were talking about my buddies instead of yours I’d point out say this. During Vietnam the combination of draft deferments for college student and Project 100,000, a program that took that many men into to the military that could not meet BASIC military standards. This may contribute to the veteran community being a bit on the dull side.
smith
I know Cuomo doesn’t get a lot of love here at times, but this is a heck of a thing to do.
Does anyone honestly think a Republican governor (maybe with the exception of Chris Christie) would do anything like this?
Despite his order, look for some snarky Republican poll workers to question the affidavits. It wouldn’t shock me if some Republican poll workers feign ignorance at Cuomo’s orders and try to prevent people from voting.
suzanne
Good for Andrew Cuomo. That’s the right thing to do. No question.
Meanwhile, in my shithole backwater, Jeff Flake’s office is robo calling Democratic voters telling them the wrong polling place. And this dipshit will probably win. Tell me some more how Republican Mormons love everybody just so damn much.
Walker
Time to bring you both sides!
Keith G
I am an optimist in that if more of our leaders use a framing similar to what Cole just typed (maybe after rewriting the last sentence), we on the left could successfully fight this issue head on. It’s up to us. (Hi Mnemosyne)
dmsilev
If they’re honest with you, the response will boil down to “the ends justify the means”.
Spaghetti Lee
Good for Cuomo, first of all.
I know I obsess over this a lot, but I think part of it is due to the influence of libertarians and Ayn Rand in particular. People talk about mid-century liberal Republicans and the liberal consensus of the era, and I think the big core axiom behind that is that even when Republicans disagreed with Dems over how to govern, they didn’t see government as evil, as illegitimate. Then Randism started seeping in. It’s a philosophy based on elevating a natural-born ‘elite’ and degrading and destroying the rest of society. Obviously, Randians hate democracy. They hate the idea of people deciding their own representation, they hate voting, they hate civic responsibility, they hate the idea of elections as a sort of re-affirmation of the public sphere that everyone can participate in. They hate everything about democracy. If they had the power, I have no doubt in my mind that they would abolish democracy and popular voting and just let a bunch of Rand-loving philosopher-kings decide everything. That’s why they’ve been working for years to tear down the idea of democracy and civic duty and voter participation. They want it destroyed and they want their beloved ‘producers’ to assume their natural role as kings.
The irony, of course, is that nobody squeals like a Randian about the ‘tyranny of the majority’ and ‘two wolves and a sheep deciding what to eat’. Fuck ’em. They’re just mad that they’re not the wolves, but they have every desire to be. They can burn in hell for all I care.
ETA: I guess what I’m trying to say is, they’d wear “people who don’t believe in democracy” as a badge of honor. They can’t be reasoned with, they can only be crushed and destroyed. They’re a cancer. They’re filth and dreck and scum.
lamh35
The MSM buzzard deserve this shit.
Romney Charges Reporters for Election Night Party
West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)
@General Stuck: I don’t know, General, assuming our own party went batshit crazy, would you stay tuned to Radio KRZY? There are certainly those of the Democratic persuasion who I could not support or who have greatly pissed me off. (I’m not talking about blue dogs, who barely count as Democrats.)
Yeah, I know, the chance for introspection and self-examination among Republicans is a tall order, but here and there a few of their “brave soldiers” fall to the liberal horde (Charles Johnson, sometimes-sorta David Frum).
dmsilev
@lamh35: One last grift, I suppose. Got to get every dime you can.
BGinCHI
Cole, if you want to catch one of those Reasonable Republicans, you need to set up a trap and one of those cameras that goes off when it’s tripped.
The best you are going to do is a late-night photo.
lamh35
Also, Obama up 91% on 538 blog!!!
@ThePlumLineGS
.@fivethirtyeight has Romney’s chances of winning down to 8.6 percent: http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/
Hill Dweller
@lamh35: It won’t matter. The Village has Stockholm Syndrome.
some guy
Silver puts FL into the blue column, 314 .
gonna happen manana
General Stuck
I’m not that worried about Joyner and the crowd at OTB. They are the ugly foster child in the corner of the asylum.
It is people like Powerline boys, who I’ve been following for a while now during the campaign. Highly educated, hi functionaling cogs in the machine, ever increasing their slide into a state of neo fascist logic. Self contained with information and sources of information that could direct them to think and do about anything to fix this country for the true cause. They no longer care about right and wrong, truth and fantasy in politics, or about anywhere else. Only power to wield, or have their many cadavers in congress and the WH to wield for sucking the lifeblood out of the poor and unworthy for a more pure and productive American bloodline.
We are going to have to fight them again. You can here it in their rhetoric, between the lines.
Raven
I also think the right wing does a masterful job of casting vets as victims of political correctness. The Wounded Warriors commercial on TV makes me physically ill with it’s bullshit. This is and interesting piece about that effort from a West Point Vietnam Vet.
Teacherboy
As a non-vet, it’s kind of frustrating that in our current climate, only people like John can say this kind of stuff. If I talked about vets like that, I’d get that knee-jerk “why do you hate the troops” bullshit. The military should not be outside a sphere of respectful criticism. That’s a bad road to (continue) to go down.
dmsilev
@BGinCHI: No, no, you need to set a live trap; the captive breeding program has a real inbreeding problem due to the extreme rarity of the species.
lamh35
Michelle Obama to Floridians: ‘Don’t let anybody push you out of line’
“We are gonna get this done”
I love me some FLOTUS!
Ann Romney who???
dmsilev
@lamh35: What I want to know is why there’s still a (small) difference between the forecast and the now-cast. Aren’t they supposed to converge on each other?
It’s probably a rounding error or something, but it still bugs me.
jibeaux
It’s a helluva thing to do because it’s a logistical nightmare. Some of those elections will involve hyper-local races, and your precinct’s ballot might not look like the ballots a mile away.
suzanne
@lamh35: It would be so hilarious if it was completely empty. God. I don’t just want him to LOSE. I want him to crap in his pants on national TV. I want it to be EMBARRASSING.
And I want Political Observer to come back.
Raven
@Teacherboy: Nothing new about that. At Vietnam Vet gatherings one favorite pin says “If You Weren’t There Shit Your Mouth”. That’s why those of us who were in the Anti-War movement drove them fucking crazy.
Litlebritdifrnt
John I cannot believe that you are saying something this naive. The Tea Party is almost entirely made up of people who have sucked off the Government teat their entire lives. Around here it is career military, who have done their 20, and then slid easily into GS12 positions and then retired from them, they are sitting pretty collecting TWO government retirement checks every month while screeching “BIG GOVERNMENT” and whining about “TAXED ENOUGH ALREADY” completely forgetting that the taxpayers are cutting them a check every month, to do nothing. These people are so soaked in government largesse that they cannot see the wood for the trees.
Short Bus Bully
Lemmee sum up the entire GOP for you guys: “Because brown people are lazy.”
When you have that in common, everything else is relative.
kuvasz
http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/pagre/conservatism.html
Spaghetti Lee
@West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.):
I guess it would depend on the time frame and what the specific type of ‘crazy’ would be. I have a (very, very) small smidgen of sympathy for moderate Republicans who don’t quite get what’s happened to the GOP, particularly those who have been around for a while and have memories of Ike and Rockfeller and Margaret C. Smith and all the rest. I think it was possible until quite recently to pretend that there was still a place for socially moderate, fiscally conservative (in the old sense of ‘being careful with money’ not the tea party sense of ‘tear it all down and let Ayn Rand sort it out’) Republicans in the modern party. They had been the backbone for a long time, after all. and until the ’06 midterms they still had a decent bloc in the House. But during the Obama presidency? I honestly don’t know how anyone who fits that description can look at the GOP and think that’s still their party.
Green Caboose
I am a volunteer Poll Watcher for the Democratic Party in Colorado. We are under STRICT training to NEVER challenge anyone’s right to vote. EVER. SERIOUSLY. (I’m quoting from the training materials here.)
The Republicans, by contrast, are given a list of voters to challenge. Guess what? They are mostly dark-skinned people.
The difference between the two parties is …. um … black and white … so to speak.
The Fat Kate Middleton
”
I’d like to ask my “reasonable Republican” friends.” Ha. That’s all I can say. I thought I had em, too, but I learned. And today spent all day sending out the sweetest people to canvass, who came back to tell me what assholes Repubs were (Repubs weren’t s’posed to be on the list, but, hey.) The Repubs were horrible … left my canvassers in tears: “Get your socialist ass out of here!” “No, no .. we’re for Romney. What the hell are you doing here ? Get out!!” My favorite: “You scared my dogs! [She knocked on the door.] What the hell are you doing here?”
Umm, it’s an election here? The thing that bothered me the most about the last one was that this was a woman I used to work with, who was so proud of her progressiveness.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
FiveThirtyEight has Obama at 91.4%
Dear Baby Jesus, up there reading your little Baby Einsteins, please make Nate Silver be right.
trollhattan
@BGinCHI:
That’s exactly how they discovered the California WOLVERINE! That, and some raw chicken.
Coincidence? I think not.
Soonergrunt
Teabagging hypocrites are hypocritical.
Spaghetti Lee
@suzanne:
It won’t happen, but I have fantasies about a complete Romney meltdown on camera, i.e. “What the fuck is the matter with you people?! You were supposed to elect me! I was supposed to be president! I was destined to be president! Fuck you all, you worthless servants!”
Question: what would be the Mormon version of a rage-fueled all-night bender? Grape soda and pop-punk music?
Hill Dweller
Willard is holding his rally in a state he will lose by 20 points.
Alison
If they were capable of feeling embarrassment or shame, it would have – or at least should have – happened a long time ago. Thus…they’re not capable of it, so fuck them nine ways to Sunday, basically. If the only way you can win is through deceit and cheating and lying, and you’re okay with that, well…you’re an awful person. Sadly, this country has a long history, and probably a long future, of rewarding and feting awful people.
But not tomorrow, damn it. Not tomorrow.
Patricia Kayden
@lamh35: Dang. Does Romneybot get the $$$? A true douchebag right to the bitter end.
Robin G.
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: At this point, I want him to be right just so he can say “Fuck You” to everyone who’s mocked him this last month. I want him to call Every. Single. Race.
General Stuck
@West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.):
I was mostly just snarking, and I am on record saying the GOP is going to have an internal civil war if they lose this election. There are plenty of moderates who are very conservative, but also believe in the small d democracy thing, and they do covet power like a normal wingnut. Being out of power for republicans is like a life long heroin junky without a fix. And they are even more vicious fighting each other than with democrats. So I don’t know how that will play out. The southern white supremacists have taken over the wheel in the GOP, and they are not about the fine art of compromise in a democracy. They are a wrecking crew with huge resentment underneath all the faux patriotism, and they will not stand down quietly, especially after having tasted some power and influence at the national level.
And democrats are not republicans. The mindset and world view is way different, and the dem party, aside from some sniping by the left wing, is in pretty good shape these days, imho, for knowing what it stands for and is against. Albeit not always the best at articulating their message.
IowaOldLady
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: Sing it!
Nate Silver’s numbers will make me sleep better tonight.
West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)
@Spaghetti Lee: Well, now that I think about it, I’m hard-pressed to identify an active Republican moderate, too. I do suspect that even Boehner has a sort of pragmatic, country-club take on things and that he probably doesn’t care for these newly-minted wingnuts he’s required to herd. (Mind you, I’m not suggesting John B. is moderate, but you get what I’m saying.)
The Fat Kate Middleton
@Green Caboose: Cannot tell you how sick this makes me. When I send my canvassers out, we are so, so careful about the information they give to potential voters. We also have a printout from the state if they have questions about voting rights.
dexwood
Amen, Mr. Cole, amen.
gene108
Maybe the whole voter suppression thing is cultural?
Even Christie allowed for early voting in NJ (we don
t normally have it) over this weekend and for voting via e-mail/the internet, if you request an absentee ballot because of Sandy.
A good chunk of PA is basically mid-West, once you head west from Philadelphia.
Maybe there’s something in the water that places that align with mid-Western values tilt towards restricting voting rights versus Republicans in other states.
The Republicans in the South, of course, would reinstate literacy tests, if not for the VRA along with requiring six forms of ID to be decided by the poll worker at the polling place the day of the election and subject to change as the poll workers see fit.
Water balloon
I wonder how much confusion that will cause. Most people don’t know what state assembly district they live in, so how would they know which ballot they should receive if they’re not at their usual polling place?
I ask this as a Long Islander who just got his power back 3 hours ago. It is nice to rejoin civilization. And have heat again.
lamh35
man when tweety is on, he’s on. He was a speechwriter for Jimmy Carter after all. But in the moment he does deliver a good bit of the time.
Chris Matthews – Let Me Finish, November 5, 2012
suzanne
@Spaghetti Lee:
Their benders are the same as ours. They just will lie about it the next day.
I too would just wet myself with happiness should Mitt. Ann, or Tagg lose their shit in an embarrassing, hilarious way. Seriously. I haven’t been a good enough person to deserve that.
eemom
I can’t even begin to imagine Romtron’s concession speech.
My son is watching “Game Changer” and he remarked on the “He’s an Arab” scene. I told him that, yes, that plus the concession speech were two moments in 2008 when John McCain behaved like an honorable man — and I detest John McCain.
Romtron does not have an honorable bone in his body. Nor an honorable cell. Nor an honorable subatomic particle.
trollhattan
@efgoldman:
Same asshat who sold six-buck, eight-slice pizza slices to the Olympic committee members for a buck each. It’s a reflex, and a damn annoying one.
AliceBlue
@Spaghetti Lee:
I think Willard will keep a stiff upper lip through it all. Queen Ann’s probably going to be the one who loses her shit because You People didn’t vote for her husband.
JustAnotherBob
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: Make Sam be even righter.
Random drift model 98.2%
Bayesian model 99.8%
http://election.princeton.edu/
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@Spaghetti Lee:
Turn the machines back on!
lamh35
Also, tonight’s rally in Iowas will be the last grassroots campaign rally of President Obama’s political career. Bruce Springsteen is supposed to be there I believe, but I’m not sure.
But FLOTUS Michelle Obama will be there to introduce her husband.
So check it out online at http://www.barackobama.com
trollhattan
@suzanne:
My Mormon joke:
Q: How do you keep your Mormon fishing buddy from drinking all your beer?
A: Bring another Mormon.
And, scene.
trollhattan
@AliceBlue:
I demand Tagg wear the plaid jumper, and that Sasha belts him in the nuts.
Spaghetti Lee
@gene108:
I don’t see the need for big its-in-the-blood can’t-change-the-culture discussions if simpler answers would do. Ted Strickland lost in 2010 by 77,000 votes out of 3.8 million cast. If that didn’t happen, none of this would be happening.
smith
@AliceBlue:
I agree with this. I think Ann is scarier than Mitt. I think she wants to be First Lady with a burning passion. She is going to be extremely bitter if they lose.
lamh35
something for you viewing pleasure. I”m sure Kay will love this:
Sherrod Brown Dancing to Jay-Z
suzanne
@trollhattan: It’s so hilarious being the gentile friend of lots of Mormons in a large but insular LDS community. They get all confessional when they’re away from their kind. I heard about abortions, drug use, domestic violence, drinking, gay sex….all the fun stuff they won’t tell each other, but are longing to spill to someone.
Spaghetti Lee
@Hill Dweller:
Not if you…*dun dun DUNNNN* UNSKEW THE POLLS!
Then he only loses MA by 10 points.
Chris
@Teacherboy:
I met so many of those “WAAAAAAHHHH!!!! society doesn’t love us soldiers enough!” fuckers in Army ROTC, made it a lot easier to decide to drop out. And yes, I hate these fuckers. There is no institution in America that gets as much gushing praise and respect as the military, and while that doesn’t always translate into real physical support for troops and veterans, it’s generally not the DFHs who skimp on that.
Rekster
and, ACORN!
FlyingToaster
@Patricia Kayden: Romney uses the money to pay Boston for renting the Convention Center. Or, really, to pay back his campaign for renting the Convention Center. I’m pretty sure that the campaign will finish out in the black, since they’ve been just as much “fee-for-service” as Governor Romney was, back in the day.
Weirdly enough, I don’t believe that Scott Brown is charging reporters to attend at the Park Plaza Castle.
Reasonable 4ce
I would point out that any suppression of the vote in New York by Sandy is at least as likely to hurt Romneytron 2.1 as Obama. Staten Island has been reeling, and I assume most readers of this blog know how wingnutty that place can be. What is less known is that Breezy Point and the western end of the Rockaway peninsula are in the infamous 9th Congressional district, which elected Bob Turner (Likud – Brighton Beach) in last year’s special election.
BTW, it’s a shame Turner lost the Repuke Senate primary in June. How awesome it would have been to have watched Gillibrand kick his ass. That’s the same reason I’m sorry Harold Ford (DINO – One Percent) didn’t run against her in the Democratic primary in 2010.
Reasonable 4ce
I would point out that any suppression of the vote in New York by Sandy is at least as likely to hurt Romneytron 2.1 as Obama. Staten Island has been reeling, and I assume most readers of this blog know how wingnutty that place can be. What is less known is that Breezy Point and the western end of the Rockaway peninsula are in the infamous 9th Congressional district, which elected Bob Turner (Likud – Brighton Beach) in last year’s special election.
BTW, it’s a shame Turner lost the Repuke Senate primary in June. How awesome it would have been to have watched Gillibrand kick his ass. That’s the same reason I’m sorry Harold Ford (DINO – One Percent) didn’t run against her in the Democratic primary in 2010.
pseudonymous in nc
@AliceBlue:
Strangely, I think it’s going to be a weight off Mittens’ shoulders. We’ve remarked on how he looks relaxed and happy (and very fucking rich) with his prodigious extended family, even if he’s rigging the games at the Rmoney compound to remain undisputed patriarch. This is it for him: he doesn’t need to do a Newt or Palin and trawl the wingnut welfare grifting circuit in Bumfuck, IA. He’ll get board memberships and give high-ticket speeches to C-suite brigade and find new tax havens for his millions. He will have no need to ever give a fuck about politics again.
batgirl
I want to ask Condi Rice about Republican voter suppression. I saw her many years ago at Book Expo America explain how her family became Republicans in part because it was a Republican that “allowed” her father to register to vote after he was turned away with a crazy poll test by a Democrat. She should be ashamed for remaining quiet as her party works to take away the vote from African-Americans and Latinos.
priscianusjr
Well, here’s somebody that doesn’t believe in democracy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN7IB-d7Hfw&feature=player_embedded#!
Reasonable 4ce
Sorry for posting twice. My bad.
Soonergrunt
@suzanne: I grew up in Wyoming and Colorado. Lots of Mormons in both places. You couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting one.
The first kids to drink beer or liquor, the first ones to smoke pot, the first ones to drop acid, the first ones to lose their virginity and on and on and on were the Mormon kids.
seaboogie
Maybe they are the arm of the Republican party that actually likes fighting in wars – unlike the majority of Repubs who neither believe in actually fighting themselves or funding their fantasies.
TimE
@Chris: I wonder what it will take (and this is a real question, I honestly don’t know) for the military to lose that ‘uncritical’ status. It’s such a complicated thing, though. Made even more complicated by how the diabolical geniuses in procurement spread out the bloated Pentagon budget across the country so that it becomes almost impossible to cut anything. I know it’s a topic best saved for another day, like any day other than the day before an election, but this really is a topic I would love to see more of in the future.
DPS
It’s not so much that they don’t believe in democracy as that they specifically believe in not having democracy. Different ones believe in different kinds of rule by minority (white supremacy, plutocracy, theocracy) and some just would really like to have some kind of autocrat to salute, have frenzied rallies for, etc.
lamh35
Anyone watching the half-time interviews with Obama and that other guy?
How was it.
Lyrebird
Word.
OT but related to Kay’s (Ohio) senate race:
http://www.advocate.com/politics/politicians/2012/11/05/antigay-gop-senate-candidate-blasted-own-family
It’s cute, I like it…
..and GO SHERROD BROWN!
rikyrah
ain’t this the truth
Donut
@dmsilev:
Check it now. Obama probability at 92.2%, Romey at 7.8% in both the Forecast and Now-cast.
The curves on the graphs, they are beautiful to see
priscianusjr
And here’s one of the architects of voter suppression:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/11/notes-on-voter-fraud.html
handy
@eemom:
McCain is a bitter, hypocritical, opportunistic narcissist. But you know what he’s not? A coward. Mitt Romney is.
eemom
@pseudonymous in nc:
Oh, I don’t think so. Consider:
— his entire adult life has been devoted to the pursuit of this goal.
— he has mortgaged whatever marginal excuse for a soul he may once have had to the devil eleventy ways to Sunday to achieve it.
— it’s what his father most wanted and couldn’t achieve
— he came THIS. CLOSE. (At least how he sees it)
— loss is by all accounts a devastating experience for all who have ever undergone it, regardless of party or character.
And last but not least:
— I WANT HIM TO SUFFER.
DCLaw1
Possibly the most grating cant I hear regarding the military is the “protecting our freedoms” line. Military service certainly has many virtues, but I’m sorry, our armed forces have long ceased being used primarily to protect American freedoms. The statement and assumption is cloying. It speaks to a fundamental dishonesty – a fantasy Americans conjur for themselves – to keep the actual, far messier and more morally ambiguous purposes of US military intervention far from public discussion. Then again, I generally find political/social pieties deeply annoying.
Svensker
@lamh35:
Lame. Obama thinks the American People are amazing and resilient. Also, the Bears are da bomb. Romney gets so much energy from The American People he’s just amazed and he likes the Patriots and is worried about drug use in Sport. He did say “sport” and not “sports.”
Loneoak
I feel like this is one of those conversations amongst folks from other ethnic groups that I have an intellectual interest in, but I should just remain silent about.
David Koch
Mittens was on half-time of Monday night football, he looked complete perplexed, as if he was shooting a POW tape in the Hanoi Hilton. Meanwhile, Obama was his natural cool self.
redshirt
@DCLaw1: The Empire needs soldiers and myths to keep them motivated.
Svensker
@DCLaw1:
Ah to the frigging men.
lamh35
Looks like the Obama’s final rally is starting.
Here is the link on CNN LIVE
http://edition.cnn.com/video/flashLive/live.html?stream=4
trollhattan
@suzanne:
I can sort of imagine. A buddy who lives in a town in southeast Idaho–we’ll call it “Pocatello”–married a jack Mormon whose family mostly are still active. Hoo-boy, the family gatherings sure generated a lot of tales.
It didn’t last.
Chris
@DPS:
Yeah. That’s what their repeated “we’re a republic not a democracy!” meme is about. It’s a cathartic way of not quite saying “FUCK democracy!”
ruemara
I find it more disturbing to see good liberals buy into the view that voting is a privilege. Just seems that if navel gazing gives credence to people who like to take away your rights, climb out of your navel and take a look at reality.
David Koch
I watched Fixxed News tonight, they’re all down in the dumps, dejected, saying the polls are skewed.
HA!
I wish they would broadcast Romney’s concession call to the President. Gawd, tomorrow’s humiliation of the racist douchebag will be so sweet.
pseudonymous in nc
@Donut:
Nate had to go back and do his crunching after taping Colbert, which I believe is around 8pm, so he may have missed a few of the final polls.
@eemom:
Honestly, I don’t. I want him to pay more in fucking taxes, if that counts as suffering to him. I’d like for his line of business to become sufficiently anathema that he can’t in fact continue to be a vulture capitalist. But (I hope) there’s sufficient relief in the US narrowly choosing not to have a snake-oil vendor as its chief executive that we can bid Willard Mitt Romney a hearty fuckity-bye-bye and that’s it.
I do want the GOP in Congress to suffer.
David Koch
Bruce on CSPAN, right now.
Another Halocene Human
Just saw an awesome idea shared on dKos:
Feed the Lines
Send pizzas to people stuck in long lines at polling places. Follow @thefoodcaptain for national tips.
David Koch
but chuck todd says it tied! and Dick Morris was just on Hannity saying it will be a landslide for Mittens.
Who we gonna believe Nate’s effeminate math or Chuck’s masculine beard?
pseudonymous in nc
@DCLaw1:
I was on a bunch of flights the other month — for the first time in a while — and there were a bunch of young people in uniform, and I was very much “after you” about it, because I respect the kids who sign up and do that shit, usually because it’s their way to get ahead from a starting point way back. (Back when I smoked — really, quit now — I had some fantastic conversations with active duty military in airport smoking rooms.)
But the “protecting freedoms” stuff is literally foreign to me, as are the military parades at sporting events and the stealth bomber flyovers. I’ll be wearing a poppy when I head out to the election night party tomorrow.
freelancer
I’m gonna get up super early and walk to my polling place. Hopefully I can get some sleep before 5:30 this morning.
DCLaw1
@pseudonymous in nc: Exactly. I respect, even admire, people who willingly sign up to potentially get killed or maimed on someone else’s orders. The soldiers aren’t the ones deciding which countries to bomb or invade, but they bear all the physical responsibility for it. It’s the mythologizing about their purpose that bugs me.
Also, the weird, constant fawning often gets taken to a patronizing, almost embarrassing extreme. It feels very guilty-conscience to me, this ostentatious reverence. Or, even worse, it comes off as implying that others secretly hate them, like it’s some kind of grand, exceptional gesture to publicly praise The Troops, as if this is still the Vietnam era.
Again, much of this may simply be a product of my general hatred of social pieties and orthodoxies.
opie_jeanne
@Soonergrunt: We had a lot of them in our neighborhood in SoCal. Some were very good friends but others were really the scrapings at the bottom of the barrel, and so were their kids.
There was a party at a house where the parents were gone (not Mormons) and we caught one of the Mormon kids from down the block selling booze to the kids in the wooded area of our front yard.
opie_jeanne
@pseudonymous in nc: I’ve been to a lot of baseball games in Anaheim with flyovers, but we almost always get those big lumbering C-17s, the ones you can drive a Jeep into the back of.
A friend took me to an Angels game in September, a couple of days after my dad died, and we did get something different; I can’t remember what it was, but it had big engines that could be tipped.
anonymouse
As a foreigner do I have this straight. You have no national electoral committee, that ensures a national, single set of rules to be eligible as a candidate, what ballots should look like, how they should be dealt with etc. You have no simple vote anywhere in your electorate rule. You effectively disenfranchise provisional voters. People queue for up to 9 hours to vote. lynch mobs of partisan ‘poll watchers’ can harass and intimidate voters (legally!). Political apparatchiks can, at the stroke of a pen, strike thousands of voters off the rolls.
This is the system you use to elect dog catchers, judges (utter madness!) and the global god-emperor who reigns over us (the president)!? It’s one to be a subjugated vassal but is it too much for your poor subjects to ask that you at least take some small steps to pick our emperor that aren’t a complete joke?
Lavocat
DAMN! I’m impressed, Cole! Not only are you a real Democrat – you’re a real NEW DEAL Democrat!
Consider running for office locally? God knows West Virginia needs Democrats like you!
And I write this with love – as one ex-Republican to another.
All those horrid years of Raygunism turned me off to the maniacs destroying our country.
Jay in Oregon
@Spaghetti Lee:
Apparently there’s frequent abuse of prescription drugs among Mormons, particularly antidepressants.
And I would give serious thanks to the FSM if a sullen, red-eyed Romney came out to give a concession speech and launched into a profanity-laden tirade against the dumb fucks that voted for him.