Elections 2012: BFP Watch Party

[Daywalker]

A Dedication to the Lunatic in hiding right now
:weedsmoke:
IK-nVzp5NbE

Lunatic fringe

I know you're out there
You're in hiding
And you hold your meetings
We can hear you coming
We know what you're after
We're wise to you this time
We won't let you kill the laughter.

Lunatic fringe
In the twilight's last gleaming
This is open season
But you won't get too far
We know you've got to blame someone
For your own confusion
But we're on guard this time
Against your final solution

We can hear you coming
(We can hear you coming)
No you're not going to win this time
We can hear the footsteps
(We can hear the footsteps)
Way out along the walkway
Lunatic fringe
We know you're out there
But in these new dark ages
There will still be light

An eye for an eye;
Well before you go under...
Can you feel the resistance?
Can you feel the thunder?

:usa:

:daywalker:

[Gráinne]

That Ass Sucker is probably waiting for Obama to take the stage before he concedes. I hate that smirking bastard.

Wait. They usually talk before concession, don't they? GOD. I can't stand it.

Don't get vague and evasive now, T-Rex. Let it fly!

[Martina]

Romney will speak in 10 mins

[DapperButch]

Last total I see on electoral is 303-203.

Obama is even ahead on the popular vote.

Think I can go to sleep now. :)

Agreed.
--

[Gráinne]

Usually, the loser calls the winner and concedes.

CBS says he has done so! I don't think they're even going to be jackalopes over Florida (as it doesn't make a difference). We should get a concession speech soon. I almost want to hear that over Obama's speech.

[Corkey]

The "call" has been made.

[Martina]

I always feel heartbroken for the loser if it's really close. Gore killed me. I don't know if I can listen. I want to hear Obama though.

[aishah]

I am old. It still awes me to think that an African-American man named Barack Obama will have been a two-term U.S. President.

It's a good good night.

not just barack obama but barack HUSSEIN obama.

subhan'allah walhamdulillah. not that i'm saying he's muslim but just that considering what it felt like for muslims leading up to the last election...it means something to me at least that the republicans weren't able to win with their hateful rhetoric about things as trivial and as meaningful as his name. and also in some ways i think a victory for immigrants and second generation americans - that not only an african-american man but that a man with a kenyan father is the president of the united states.

[*Anya*]

Fox just said Romney conceded and called Obama.

Yeah!!

I want to hear him say it and then I can go to sleep.

[DMW]

How the fuck can you have 0% precincts reporting and in a place called Licking Ohio
Romney, Mitt (R) 43,604
56.32%
Obama, Barack (D) 32,264
41.67%

and 77423 votes!



From perusing this...
I swear the majority of precincts that Romney leads or has done well in are counted...

The majority of votes not counted yet would, based on probability, go statistically to OBAMA

Obama better win this OHIO...cause these people had a plan again, i bet.
I hate cheaters.

WE ARE THE 99%

[Parker]

Yeah! Mittens is on my TV right now conceding!! :)

[Parker]

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/28036_513591555319853_1059123799_n.jpg

[lusciouskiwi]

Yeah! Mittens is on my TV right now conceding!! :)


I think I will gayly go forth and continue cleaning knowing that the misogynistic homphobic racist anti-love toilet brush isn't the president of the USA. Actually I want to say he's a fucking arsehole wanker bastard but that's not polite.

Sweet dreams to all my American mates :awww:

[Martina]

Well he was emotionally shut down, so I could watch it.

His campaign said that they hadn't written a concession speech. I am sorry, but that speech wasn't written in a flash. Oh well.

[lusciouskiwi]

https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/559042_444441438953749_1607550396_n.jpg

[aishah]

DEAR CBS if the president is 200,000 votes ahead in the popular vote (and has been at least 30,000 votes ahead for the last few hours) it is NOT A TIE. HE FUCKING WON THE POPULAR VOTE AND THE ELECTORAL VOTE. just say it already. this is downright disrespectful.

[DapperButch]

I'm sorry, Rachel, et. al., I think Romney was full of shit.

I do not think he was genuine.

I think he was full of shit.

I think he is a sociopath.

ETA: I think his last comment about praying for Obama and the country was him saying that our country NEEDS prayers now that Obama is in office.

[Medusa]

That was the biggest crock of shit I've ever heart. It was like verbal farts over and over.

[Kobi]

......lifts rock, shoves Romney back under it..........

[Medusa]

Was Gabby Gifford re-elected or was she even up?

[Martina]

I wish I had been able to see or hear MSNBC tonight.

I don't think he was genuine at all. She often reads him wrong. She thought he was being snide and weird at the Al Smith dinner. All he was doing was trying not to laugh at his own jokes.

He was shut down and on automatic. If he felt anything, it was anger. I could see it. I do believe he loves his country and that he thought he would be a good President.

But he lied to everyone. He stood for nothing. He's the ultimate Capitalist. Winning is his creed. Ironically, that is not the best way to win the Presidency.

[aishah]

Was Gabby Gifford re-elected or was she even up?

she resigned in january.

[Corkey]

Was Gabby Gifford re-elected or was she even up?

Not up, she gave up her seat.

[aishah]

0qX7ZsxD3Ik

[*Anya*]

Good night BFP.

Good night John Boy.

Enjoyed your party Medusa.

Dapper, I have never "heard" (read) you swear before.

I kind of enjoyed it:)

Peace out.

[Martina]

Come on, Mr. President. I gotta get some sleep. It's an early day tomorrow.

[lusciouskiwi]

copied from Tim Riley - In the words of that modern day philosopher RuPaul ........ Barack Obama... shantay you stay. Mitt Romney... sashay away...

[aishah]

CBS JESUS CHRIST WITH THE POPULAR VOTE ALREADY. *rage*

[Gráinne]

I think you're right about the concession. That was barely contained fury, and so was Ann's expression. She looked like an avenging angel in that red dress and her hairstyle. Frightening.

[Sun]

So happy for Maine & Maryland queer folks who worked their azzez off to pass marriage equality. Looks like Washington is going to follow though they are still counting.

MN is in a close race to fuck up the constitution and deny same sex couples the right to marry. But they are fighting the good fight lead by some radical lesbian UU Ministers. Love you Meg Riley.

I have hope for America, again.

But that Sheriff in AZ has got to go. I think Medusa should take him out.

[Medusa]

But that Sheriff in AZ has got to go. I think Medusa should take him out.



I'd load up a rocket launcher full of pissed-off honeybadgers and lob them at him while he wore one of those pink jumpsuits that he thinks is so awesome.

[Parker]

SERIOUSLY! I have 45 minutes before someone drags me by the hair...

Wait. That's not all bad.

I remember 4 years ago, watching that crowd gather in Chicago. Watching them come out. Feeling proud to be a citizen of the United States after a long dry spell.

No Pressure.

Just make magic.

I know - I remember standing in my living room - I couldnt sit down, I was so excited!


I am also tired of CBS talking about how they are tied in the popular vote and how nothing will change because half the country is against Obama, etc. SFTU and support him like you would Mittens had he won!

[Corkey]

I know - I remember standing in my living room - I couldnt sit down, I was so excited!


I am also tired of CBS talking about how they are tied in the popular vote and how nothing will change because half the country is against Obama, etc. SFTU and support him like you would Mittens had he won!


Change the channel and get yer grove on.....

[Parker]

Change the channel and get yer grove on.....

lol, I know, right - I need to get off of CBS for a while!

[Daywalker]

Move aside, let the Man go through

TRqP52c0OLU

:party:

:daywalker:

[Sun]

It is not looking good for MN. Too many people did not vote on the amendments but left them blank

[Medusa]

Here he is! OUR President!!!

[GraffitiBoi]

It is not looking good for MN. Too many people did not vote on the amendments but left them blank

A blank vote is being considered a 'no' vote. In this case, that is good for us.

[Sun]

A blank vote is being considered a 'no' vote. In this case, that is good for us.

Oh cool! Thank you. I had that backwards.

[Sun]

A Minister friend in MN is asking me to ask you all for your prayers or positive energy or whatever you can send them, they are really pulling for this amendment to go down. My friend Leslie will not even perform weddings for straight people as long as everyone can not marry.

So, I am following her request and asking you all for your help.

She said please 3x. Very sweet. A good ally.

Thank you.

[Daywalker]

A link to a screen shot from Victoria Jackson's status
where she whimpers that she can't stop crying and
that 'America died'...and some Asshat makes
the comment:
'No. we're gonna take it back, with guns this time'.
:|

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=555840001108182&set=a.116898608335659.16274.108038612554992&type=1&theater

That's a death threat to our President.
I reported it to the FBI

:coffee:

Nighty Night everyone, I'm crashing after our President is done speaking.

:usa:


:daywalker:

[Kobi]

They passed recreational marijuana in Colorado?

[Corkey]

They passed recreational marijuana in Colorado?


I know huh....

[Gráinne]

That man and his speech gave me chills from my living room, let alone what it must have been like in the convention center.

[Kobi]

I know huh....


So what rate are they taxing it at?

[Medusa]

That was an amazing speech. I was moved beyond words.

Barack Obama will go down in history as America's greatest President. This I believe.

[Angeltoes]

A link to a screen shot from Victoria Jackson's status
where she whimpers that she can't stop crying and
that 'America died'...and some Asshat makes
the comment:
'No. we're gonna take it back, with guns this time'.
:|

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=555840001108182&set=a.116898608335659.16274.108038612554992&type=1&theater

That's a death threat to our President.
I reported it to the FBI

:coffee:

Nighty Night everyone, I'm crashing after our President is done speaking.

:usa:


:daywalker:

Okay, just like she took back her career after SNL.
Would a group hug be weird at this point? ****much love to all****

[Martina]

*sniffle*

The belief in government, in what it can be -- music to my ears.

[Gráinne]

I'm in, but I'll probably lean on Angeltoes and start snoring :).

[Corkey]

I'm so glad for us, not just us but the Nation and the world.
Now I'm going to go to bed and cuddle my bride of 4 years today, with a light heart and a smile as large as the Grand Canyon.

[Gráinne]

Aww Happy Anniversary, Corkey :) So glad your day wasn't marred by a different result.

[DamonK]

"....people that waited in very long lines....by the way, we gotta fix that....."
Priceless

[alexri]

I couldn't not look anymore. I couldn't sleep. I got up, and turned on the computer just in time to catch the news that Romney accepted defeat.

Great job, Maine and Maryland. We won't know Washington and Minnesota until later.

So glad to see the "legitimate rape" and "god's will rape pregnancy" people lose.

So glad to say 4 more years.

West Virginia elects its first openly gay legislator.

Massachusetts elects its first female senator.

Also elected to the US Senate for the first time, tonight: A gay woman, an Asian-American woman and a disabled woman.

And, the first openly pansexual legislator, Mary Gonzalez from Texas.

A record voter turnout in most states.

Now to try and fall back asleep...

[Dude]

:watereyes: <=== I love that guy and his wife.
Genuine and you can feel it.

"no matter what we look like , we will all be able to succeed and thrive"

Two elections in a row that got me all emotional.

Thank you Medusa for texting me updates while I was
at work.
When I left the house it was Romney 33 Obama 3 , so
I was freaking out.

98% of my family voted for the binder guy.

Washington gay marriage Yes! Washington medical weed yes!
What an awesome night.

[Sun]

A friend in DC who works legislative advocacy just posted on FB that MN is counting at 84% and only 48% yes votes so he does not think that they will have enough yes votes to pass the amendment.

Looks like MN is going to beat this thing after all.

Hopefully this will be the end of states trying to block marriage equality by changing the state constitution. It is not working from coast to coast.

[Parker]

They passed recreational marijuana in Colorado?


In Washington as well. :winky:

[Words]

That was an amazing speech. I was moved beyond words.

Barack Obama will go down in history as America's greatest President. This I believe.

Word.

And the fact that he's a PoC makes it all so much sweeter.

So very happy for you all.

Words

[GraffitiBoi]

Great job, Maine and Maryland. We won't know Washington and Minnesota until later.



It has been announced that both Washington and Minnesota are victorius as well! The Marriage Amendment in MN was struck down and same-sex marriage is now legal in Washington!!!!!

[princesskathie]

Wow, America sure dodged a bullet tonight! Four more years for the President who actually cares about the people of our nation and the world! Way to go, America!!

[puddin']

i feel such pride right now!!

[Miss Scarlett]

That was an amazing speech. I was moved beyond words.

Barack Obama will go down in history as America's greatest President. This I believe.

I agree! He's the only President in my lifetime who I believe truly cares about the people...ALL people.

Now if Congress will get with the program and follow suit. They're in Washington to represent the people not the money; not the special interests.

[girl_dee]

Just woke up. Is it really real? They didn't steal the election did they?

[girl_dee]

:watereyes: <=== I love that guy and his wife.
Genuine and you can feel it.

"no matter what we look like , we will all be able to succeed and thrive"

Two elections in a row that got me all emotional.

Thank you Medusa for texting me updates while I was
at work.
When I left the house it was Romney 33 Obama 3 , so
I was freaking out.

98% of my family voted for the binder guy.

Washington gay marriage Yes! Washington medical weed yes!
What an awesome night.

About 98% percent of my family voted for the binder guy too.

My family FB page was making me so sick i stopped looking at it.

i think i'll take a look now :)

[easygoingfemme]

Just woke up. Is it really real? They didn't steal the election did they?

You can stop pinching yourself!
Obama finished up with 97 more electoral votes than Romney. Unless there were more mass troubles with voting booths than we were made aware of, there isn't anything I can see that would warrant a re-count on this one.

[girl_dee]

Whew!!!

Was just watching his acceptance speech.

"the election four years ago wasn't about me, it was about you"

[Miss Scarlett]

Call me cynical but I have an uneasy feeling that something slimy is in the works. After the 2008 election the US House Districts here in NC were redrawn to bring more Republicans into predominately Democratic districts to water them down enough so more Republicans will be elected.

[easygoingfemme]

Breakfast celebration

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/318716_10151219937794194_1741288893_n.jpg

[The_Lady_Snow]

O9sABRosdNg




Que Viva El Presidente Barack Obama!!!



http://images1.fanpop.com/images/photos/2500000/ObamaHope-barack-obama-2587361-1680-1050.jpg

[Sparkle]

***Happy Tears***

and no small amount of relief!!!

[Zimmeh]

I am ecstatic about Obama winning again!

Zimmeh

[tara_kerrie]

Look out Washington! Marriage equality AND marijuana is legal!!!

[DapperButch]

Good night BFP.

Good night John Boy.

Enjoyed your party Medusa.

Dapper, I have never "heard" (read) you swear before.

I kind of enjoyed it:)

Peace out.

Yes, I have heard from more than one person IRL that I have been a bit over the top about this election! A bit rabid, really.

[Okiebug61]

Thank You America!

[*Anya*]

Yes, I have heard from more than one person IRL that I have been a bit over the top about this election! A bit rabid, really.

I thought it was sweet, authentic and real.

The possible consequences for all of us LGBTQ; our country and the rights of women pretty much hung in the balance of the outcome of this election.

You couldn't hear me in my living room but I was swearing like a sailor ( no offense to any non-swearing sailors).

This election was worth all of us getting excited and over the top.

[UofMfan]

I didn't go to bed until way too late. Today I am paying the price, but it's worth it.

What a load off our shoulders.

Tea Party favorites were voted out, marriage equality was voted in, let's keep moving forward!

And lastly...

Florida:

100% reporting

Obama: 49.8%

Romney: 49.3%


:wine:

[ruffryder]

....

Just make magic.



http://global.fncstatic.com/static/managed/img/fn2/video/062812_ent_magicmike_640.jpg



Oooops wrong thread!


http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cRBPy9juTdY/T-Qrkd0kPTI/AAAAAAAAAWQ/N4HrOSjTQKM/s1600/obama_yes_we_can.jpg

[Dude]

About 98% percent of my family voted for the binder guy too.

My family FB page was making me so sick i stopped looking at it.

i think i'll take a look now :)

I estranged myself from mine over this election
and the huge issues at stake.

If only , I was an ugly person right now
I would have so much to say to them.
The only gay person they know but surely
they know some women? or are
women themselves? :| ???

What I wouldnt give to have watched their faces
while listening to that acceptance speech!

Clinton , I was happy about but Obama? he brings
tears to people's eyes. and goose bumps!!!
You just cant fake genuine!

Fucking emotional hang-ovah this morning.
woah
that was some scarey shit.

:coffee:

[Kobi]

Ok the post election exhaustion blahs has set in.

They keep replaying the concession speech and the acceptance speech.

Romney finally learned how to keep it short. And, it was nice to see his energizer bunny on crack demeanor gone. I am presuming the deer caught in the headlights look in his eyes was the result of realizing he is going to have to face those in the new world order who invested gazillions in him and its not gonna be pretty.

Obama will always be an incredible orator. He just knows how to paint a picture with words, how to talk to people, how to make sure they feel themselves to be an important part of what is going on, and he is mindful to thank them with a palatable sincerity. Dont always agree with him, what he does or how he does it, but the man does ooze integrity, character, and thoughtfulness.

Election brought out a lot of good stuff for women too. Heard there are record numbers who will be serving in the next Congress.

[MissItalianDiva]

Still sitting in excitement from last night. Proud that Americans made the choice not to allow money to buy votes...now we can only hope the Republicans receive that same message. I am crossing my fingers on that one.

[Sun]

From my sleep deprived, coffee fog, I have to say that...

I do believe that the women of the United States of America, have spoken.

Welcome to this new day.

[Medusa]

I bet Linda McMahon feels like an asshole after trying to buy a Senate seat with 100 million of her own money.

[DMW]

In Florida there are 71228 votes not counted yet
and Obama leads by 47028...I wonder what precincts are not done?
I hope orange isn't counted in yet because that helps Obama significantly
with florida win.

Just kills me ...with a Republican Ohio gov and a Republican Florida gov..
It is so obvious how they tried to do it again.

Heitkamp in north dakota
Tester in Montana...
we need them
380 fillibusters or more in the senate in the last 6 yrs...so abbynormal
Mitch McConnell
and the house threatening to default on the American debt ceiling.
rediculous...
and we lost so many good moderates...
They don't sincerely care about americas future....the teaparty congress
ie...marco rubio...and need coffee
Boehner needs to bend over to the US not the new young teaparty congress
At least Toomey is out.
Is Ron Johnson of wisconsin still in the house?
God i miss Feingold

[princessbelle]

What a beautiful day!!!!!!! The air is a little lighter, the wind a little softer, the smiles a little brighter.

Our Guidance. Our leader. Our hope. Our President.

http://i599.photobucket.com/albums/tt74/dewey60/president-obama.jpg

[ruffryder]

In Florida there are 71228 votes not counted yet
and Obama leads by 47028...I wonder what precincts are not done?
I hope orange isn't counted in yet because that helps Obama significantly
with florida win.

...

Orange already went Democrat with 58.6 to Obama/40.5 Romney. Obama also won St Lucie, Hillsbourough, Palm Beach, Monroe, Alachua, Jefferson, and by a landslide Gadsden, Miami Dade, Leon, Osceola, and Broward. The news talked about Obama winning the Interstate 4 corridor and called him a winner due to that.

I believe they are pretty much done counting, not sure what is going on. Obama wins FL I believe. It' is showing 100% of the precints reporting and Obama at 49.8% to Romney 49.3%. It's more over 100,000 votes difference and should not bring a recount. Can't put it past this state, FloriDUH!

Barr got almost 8000 votes here!

[DMW]

Ruff....That is what i am thinkin'... that it is done....

So cool about Palm Beach too. Some of those counties....
God bless the Jewish people that live there.
and the Canadians that have duel citizenship.
ANd of course....the puerto ricans...for the other counties
Awesome
Thanks for the Info Ruffryder

Eric Cantor...he is another horrible republican congressman

The redistricting....has kept some of these republicans safe from being ejected.
Should be illegal. Because the majority of people in whichever state you want
to pick...would have voted against re-election..and would want these people out of congress.
But the redistricting...took those people out of those counties... therefore, the didn't get to vote the rotten eggs out .Should be illegal. Need new (fair) redistricting Laws established.

[dreadgeek]

1) The Southern Strategy of race -baiting is now dead. The GOP can never again do the wink and nod and use things like "we want to teach blacks how to work" as a way of gaining votes. The GOP will have to change its tune on immigration and send the Muslim-baiting folks like Bachmann (who won) and West (who didn't) into political Siberia.

2) The country has turned a corner on gay rights. We were running 0 for 32 until last night and we swept on marriage equality so we are now 4 for 32.

3) The end of the drug war may not be in sight but we just passed the beginning of the end of the drug war.

4) The pendulum has swung and America is now course-correcting back to a more liberal-centrist position.

5) The GOP is going to have to drop the anti-birth control insanity and they will have to moderate their anti-abortion stance.

Cheers
Aj

[pinkgeek]

In Hawaii we voted to make it so that if you are involved in redistricting you can't run for office for ____ period of time. It's not a perfect solution, but it's something. Hoping it passed!


The redistricting....has kept some of these republicans safe from being ejected.
Should be illegal. Because the majority of people in whichever state you want
to pick...would have voted against re-election..and would want these people out of congress.
But the redistricting...took those people out of those counties... therefore, the didn't get to vote the rotten eggs out .Should be illegal. Need new (fair) redistricting Laws established.

[Sun]

Arizona is still counting the votes on the Senate race and I am hoping that Kyrsten Sinema (http://kyrstensinema.com/) will be the winner. The race is very close. 2,000 votes are left to be counted.

[DMW]

Orange already went Democrat with 58.6 to Obama/40.5 Romney. Obama also won St Lucie, Hillsbourough, Palm Beach, Monroe, Alachua, Jefferson, and by a landslide Gadsden, Miami Dade, Leon, Osceola, and Broward. The news talked about Obama winning the Interstate 4 corridor and called him a winner due to that.

I believe they are pretty much done counting, not sure what is going on. Obama wins FL I believe. It' is showing 100% of the precints reporting and Obama at 49.8% to Romney 49.3%. It's more over 100,000 votes difference and should not bring a recount. Can't put it past this state, FloriDUH!

Barr got almost 8000 votes here!

This is what bothers me....
Voter Suppression

A stunning 23 percent of African Americans, the highest figure in the nation, cannot vote due to laws on felon disenfranchisement in Florida. Gov. Rick Scott (R) has made it harder for ex-felons to restore their eligibility and in 2011 signed a law cutting early voting days nearly in half. The result has been chaos during early voting in places like Miami-Dade County, where people have waited in line for as many as eight hours. Florida also has a photo ID law.

And then....the other votes that could have gone eitherway...
70,953 that didn't go to Obama or Romney that went to other candidates.


Right now,
The count is Obama leads by 47261
with 71278 left to be counted

which is a difference of 24017 votes...


I often wonder if the republicans pay and support other candidates to
take away from the dems...that is 70k plus votes.
or, to rig the machines to a loss. scramble the numbers etc..put em somewhere

It is a matter of priciple....that bothers me. the truths that exist and that are denied.

thank God for the majority population and that their votes got counted.

[pinkgeek]

For the 2nd time in my voting life I'm proud to have been raised mostly in America. No President is perfect and in a year most will be gripping, but this reelection means a step forward. It means we might win the fight against AIDS, it means marriage equality will continue to move forward, it means DOMA will go away, it means that the first election wasn't a fluke, it means Latino voters (all voters of color really) have gone from being the "one election voter group" to an irrefutably powerful demographic that the Republicans will never again try to ignore, it means all Americans will see some justice in health care. With my whole heart I believe the stage is set for the greatest era of civil rights and equality in American history.

[DMW]

Ey Oh....way to go OHIO

The Pretenders - My City Was Gone - YouTube

Love Chrissy Hynde...talent...pure talent

and another song
Chrissy Hynde and the City of Akron. - YouTube

[DMW]

Awesome post!


For the 2nd time in my voting life I'm proud to have been raised mostly in America. No President is perfect and in a year most will be gripping, but this reelection means a step forward. It means we might win the fight against AIDS, it means marriage equality will continue to move forward, it means DOMA will go away, it means that the first election wasn't a fluke, it means Latino voters (all voters of color really) have gone from being the "one election voter group" to an irrefutably powerful demographic that the Republicans will never again try to ignore, it means all Americans will see some justice in health care. With my whole heart I believe the stage is set for the greatest era of civil rights and equality in American history.

[Martina]

Prop 30 -- a raise in income tax for those making over 250k -- passed. This is good news for education in California -- and good news for me.

[Zimmeh]

Omg!! You just had me cracking up laughing at work :)

Zimmeh

I'd load up a rocket launcher full of pissed-off honeybadgers and lob them at him while he wore one of those pink jumpsuits that he thinks is so awesome.

[Martina]

I just wanna say to all my white born again relatives, you will never ever have the power to decide the Presidency again. Demographic changes mean that you will never ever be able to impose your ignorant standards on others. You think that you are true Americans. You are not. No one running for President will be obliged to pander to you ever again.

You lost more than this election tonight. Your time is over.

Karl Rove, your day is over too. Genius, my ass.

edited to add -- Does anyone remember what hell the eighties were when the Moral Majority intimidated anyone running for election? Who could have imagined this day coming. Those folks will NEVER ever hold significant power on the national stage AGAIN.

[Kobi]

1) The Southern Strategy of race -baiting is now dead. The GOP can never again do the wink and nod and use things like "we want to teach blacks how to work" as a way of gaining votes. The GOP will have to change its tune on immigration and send the Muslim-baiting folks like Bachmann (who won) and West (who didn't) into political Siberia.

2) The country has turned a corner on gay rights. We were running 0 for 32 until last night and we swept on marriage equality so we are now 4 for 32.

3) The end of the drug war may not be in sight but we just passed the beginning of the end of the drug war.

4) The pendulum has swung and America is now course-correcting back to a more liberal-centrist position.

5) The GOP is going to have to drop the anti-birth control insanity and they will have to moderate their anti-abortion stance.

Cheers
Aj


Aj I love your brain but are you serious on this?

I am suspecting just the opposite. When the dust settles and they analyze what went wrong, the GOP is going to be back on the warpath with a vengence.

The reason? The close popular vote - last count I think was 48.8-48.4. Swing states, tho successful, were won by the hair on someones chinny chin chin. Thats still a shitload of hatred and division in a very polarized county.

Congress has the same composition with some new faces and there is no reason to think the stalemate of the last 4 years will end. And, I dont see an appreciable difference on the local level where the war on women and others is still being waged.

And, unfortunately, in 4 years, there will be no charismatic Obama leading the way. Biden is not an Obama. Hillary, I love, but she isnt an Obama and barring some unforeseen change of heart, this country is not ready for a woman to lead it.

On the other hand, the GOP has a lot of up and coming white male stars they have been and will be grooming and investing in. And, they now know to focus better on potential groups who may help push them over the top. They will not lay down.

Personally, I am going to enjoy the victory, but this was just another successful skirmish in a very big ideological war.

[Soon]

http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQFeB868SaZcvGHMQjGXNjzzHpZw1TUF JJCXMKxPR4ByI5gISmO6Q

[dreadgeek]

[COLOR="Navy"]
Aj I love your brain but are you serious on this?

Serious as a heart attack Kobi. Now, I might be wrong that has happened more times than not but I don't think I'm wrong for a few reasons:

1) A number of true conservatives (as opposed to right-wing reactionaries who call themselves conservative) who have been talking about the GOP's demographics problem for a while now have already started the conversation about how to gain more minority voters. The percentage of the American electorate that is white keeps ticking downward. 74% in 2008, 72% in 2012 and on track for 70% in 2016. There's simply no mathematical way that the GOP can be nationally viable trying to court only the white vote and pealing off a few scattered black and Latino votes here and there. Mathematically impossible. Obama won 75% of the Latino vote (13% of the population) and 91% of the black vote (10%). That means that if the GOP continues going on as it has, it could lose substantial majorities of almost a *quarter* of the population. That's not total numbers, those are actual votes.

2) The GOP lost women voters by a full 19% on the national level. That's devastating. That can be tied to their stance on women's health issues, abortion, birth control and equal pay for equal work. They can't suffer that kind of thing again.

3) It's clear that the nation has moved on gay rights. We were 0 for 32 until last night and we were 4 for 4 in the cycle that finished yesterday. That's two of the pillars of the culture wars that the GOP can no longer rely on to push them over the top. Does that mean that America turns into queer nirvana tomorrow? No, it will be hard to be queer in Alabama for a long, long time to come. It does mean that the GOP is going to have to face the fact that the culture war is over and they lost.

The country is certainly as divided as you say it is and we will have contentious elections for some time to come but 2012 is the Republican's 1968. In that year, the Democrats lost badly an election that should have been winnable and five cycles later (1992) nominate Bill Clinton, a centrist Democrat. The GOP will win more elections and they will win more presidential elections but they have no choice but to change their tune. The consequences of the near total epistemic closure on the right is now coming home and from what I have read on conservative blogs that are sane (so not Drudge, Red State or WND) they are waking up to the fact that they did this to themselves.

Like I said, I might be wrong but I think we've seen a sea change in American politics.


Cheers
Aj

[DMW]

Update on Florida
this is interesting...
the counts on florida
now, obama leading romney 47261 and 50072 votes left to be counted

[JustJo]

I hope that dreadgeek is right...and I fear that Kobi is.

I'm beyond relieved and thankful that Obama won. Romney, and his crazy woman-hating, racist cohorts scare the crap out of me.

The worst thing, to me, is how freaking close this race was. The Republican platform was a call to hatred, to racism, and to repression.

And it was a close race.

That scares the hell out of me.

I hope that, in 4 years, the numbers will have shifted. I hope that the sane Conservatives (who I have no issue with) will figure out that they need to rid themselves of the insane fringe element of haters in their party.

I hope so.

I'm just not betting on it.

I'm not really celebrating....I'm breathing a sigh of relief. I feel like we just dodged a really big bullet, and we have a small reprieve.

[Zimmeh]

Florida is known as the ass backwards state for a reason. There are still quite a few old Republicans in power down here and I would like to see them try and live on $9.65 an hour for a month!

I was born in Daytona Beach, Florida and this state has changed so much and it is now governed by someone who was convicted of Medicare fraud and employers look to Disney to see how much they pay their employees...

Where is the great state that I was born in?

Zimmeh

Update on Florida
this is interesting...
the counts on florida
now, obama leading romney 47261 and 50072 votes left to be counted

[Kobi]

Serious as a heart attack Kobi. Now, I might be wrong that has happened more times than not but I don't think I'm wrong for a few reasons:

1) A number of true conservatives (as opposed to right-wing reactionaries who call themselves conservative) who have been talking about the GOP's demographics problem for a while now have already started the conversation about how to gain more minority voters. The percentage of the American electorate that is white keeps ticking downward. 74% in 2008, 72% in 2012 and on track for 70% in 2016. There's simply no mathematical way that the GOP can be nationally viable trying to court only the white vote and pealing off a few scattered black and Latino votes here and there. Mathematically impossible. Obama won 75% of the Latino vote (13% of the population) and 91% of the black vote (10%). That means that if the GOP continues going on as it has, it could lose substantial majorities of almost a *quarter* of the population. That's not total numbers, those are actual votes.

2) The GOP lost women voters by a full 19% on the national level. That's devastating. That can be tied to their stance on women's health issues, abortion, birth control and equal pay for equal work. They can't suffer that kind of thing again.

3) It's clear that the nation has moved on gay rights. We were 0 for 32 until last night and we were 4 for 4 in the cycle that finished yesterday. That's two of the pillars of the culture wars that the GOP can no longer rely on to push them over the top. Does that mean that America turns into queer nirvana tomorrow? No, it will be hard to be queer in Alabama for a long, long time to come. It does mean that the GOP is going to have to face the fact that the culture war is over and they lost.

The country is certainly as divided as you say it is and we will have contentious elections for some time to come but 2012 is the Republican's 1968. In that year, the Democrats lost badly an election that should have been winnable and five cycles later (1992) nominate Bill Clinton, a centrist Democrat. The GOP will win more elections and they will win more presidential elections but they have no choice but to change their tune. The consequences of the near total epistemic closure on the right is now coming home and from what I have read on conservative blogs that are sane (so not Drudge, Red State or WND) they are waking up to the fact that they did this to themselves.

Like I said, I might be wrong but I think we've seen a sea change in American politics.


Cheers
Aj


Aj, I understand your rationale well. I hope you are right. I hope I am wrong.

Yes, the GOP needs to change strategies to draw in more minority and female voters. They need the numbers and they need them in areas they usually dont win. Only then will they have the opportunity to exert their true agenda. Does that mean they are going to abandon their sexist, racist bullshit? Not likely.

The GOP is pragmatic and opportunistic tho in a fucked up way. I suspect they will go after the minority vote in a more concentrated way in areas they dont usually have success.

Specifically, they will target minority males. They will attempt to draw in these males by doing what they have been successfully doing for 4 years now......men need to regain their control, men need to assert their manhood and its control, men need to keep their women in line, men need to reassert their dominance. And, in their fucked up brains....as men go so do "their women".

Put it in a historical context. When it came to abolition, blacks and women teamed up, they were both slaves/indentured servants in a white mans world. And yet, when the issue of giving the right to vote to former slaves arose, black male leaders abandoned the women who fought along side of them.

It was Frederick Douglass who turned down Anthony and Stantons request that he insist that women be allow the right to vote just as black men were about to be allowed to. According to Douglass, "their treatment as slaves entitled the now liberated African-American men, who lacked women's indirect empowerment, to voting rights before women were granted the franchise. African-American women, he believed, would have the same degree of empowerment as white women once African-American men had the vote; hence, general female suffrage was, according to Douglass, of less concern than black male suffrage."

Men bonded in solidarity with other men for their own benefit. A man is a man is a man....and a woman is not. And women had to fight another 50 years to get the right to vote. Even then, it required a lil bit of extortion.

History has a way of repeating itself over and over and over just in more creative ways as time goes on. It is a mistake to assume something is an ideological change when it may just be slanting the ideology in a potentially more lucrative and fruitful direction.

Same with gay rights. To say "the culture war is over and they lost" is to lose sight of history. The GOP already has a significant contingent of rich, white and non white queer males. They even have some rich queer females. The operative words here are rich and male....not queer. Just as the end of slavery hasnt abolished racism in this country, the passage of queer friendly legislation isnt going to abolish homophobia. It may, however, lull us into believing an ideological change has occured when it really hasnt.

I hope you are right. I hope I am wrong cuz I am fucking weary of fighting this fight. Yet, history continuously warns me to never underestimate the power, influence, and control of both internalized and externalized hatred in its many forms. It can be used to exploit, control and otherwise fuck with people in some pretty nefarious ways.

[girl_dee]

I feel there will always have racist, sexist assholes, but the country is finallt shifting, the tables are turning.

The GOP i feel isn't going to gaim supporters with their ideals. Young people won't have it. Some will but the balance is shifting away from the ideals that seem dated and unfair.

Look at the audience for both candidates. Obama's audience represents America as it is today, diverse. Romneys reflects only the elite white man.

[dreadgeek]

Aj, I understand your rationale well. I hope you are right. I hope I am wrong.

Take this in the spirit in which it is given Kobi, so do I. ;) I would really strongly prefer that my grandson and granddaughter *not* have to continue fighting this. I don't want to give the impression that I'm being a Pollyanna because I'm constitutionally very poor at being that optimistic. Your analysis is spot on. The wild card is whether the GOP wants to be a national party or a regional party. One or two more elections like this and they could be the latter.

Consider: if the GOP had not embraced the Southern strategy my parents would have probably been Republicans by the mid-80s. They were liberal on civil rights, pro-union, nominally feminist and that was about the extent of their liberalism. On everything else they were fairly conservative (in the old sense not in this new crazy, clown-car sense). So honestly they *should* have been Republicans. Blacks *used* to vote Republican when we could vote, the GOP is right that MLK was a Republican as was Jackie Robinson. Then they embraced the race-baiting and blacks turned away from the GOP in droves. It will be a month of seven Sundays, particularly given their recent flat-out embrace of virulent racism, before blacks return to the GOP.

My own prediction, given the fact that Latinos stampeded toward Obama in a big way is that the GOP has one, perhaps two, Presidential electoral cycles to get their act together regarding race and if they don't, they're done. If they lose the Latino vote for two generations at the level they've lost the black vote for two generations, the GOP as it currently stands winds up a rump regional party that is strong in Deep Dixie, can hold on in some of the Midwest and Rocky Mountain states and is all but dead in Florida, the Southwest, West Coast and East Coast north of Virginia. They could lose Texas and Arizona soon if they keep going as they are.


Yes, the GOP needs to change strategies to draw in more minority and female voters. They need the numbers and they need them in areas they usually dont win. Only then will they have the opportunity to exert their true agenda. Does that mean they are going to abandon their sexist, racist bullshit? Not likely.

You couldn't pay me to be a GOP strategist right now because they have an *impossible* job. They have to simultaneously hold the sane part of the base, shed the theocratic and rabid John Birch Society parts of the party *and* expand their base beyond the South. That's a tall order. How they are going to do it, I don't know and I doubt that there are a dozen people in the GOP who have any ideas about how to pull it off.


The GOP is pragmatic and opportunistic tho in a fucked up way. I suspect they will go after the minority vote in a more concentrated way in areas they dont usually have success.

Specifically, they will target minority males. They will attempt to draw in these males by doing what they have been successfully doing for 4 years now......men need to regain their control, men need to assert their manhood and its control, men need to keep their women in line, men need to reassert their dominance. And, in their fucked up brains....as men go so do "their women".

I can see them doing this but it doesn't necessarily get them where they want to go. An 18 point gap with 50% of the population is not a tenable position to be in. Someone in GOP-land has to be looking at that number, considering the fates of Todd Akin and the rest of the "Rape-Thing Crew" and thinking "sweet and sour Jesus how do we send these people packing?"

<some really excellent historical analysis regretfully snipped>


History has a way of repeating itself over and over and over just in more creative ways as time goes on. It is a mistake to assume something is an ideological change when it may just be slanting the ideology in a potentially more lucrative and fruitful direction.

I hope I'm not making that mistake.


Same with gay rights. To say "the culture war is over and they lost" is to lose sight of history. The GOP already has a significant contingent of rich, white and non white queer males. They even have some rich queer females. The operative words here are rich and male....not queer. Just as the end of slavery hasnt abolished racism in this country, the passage of queer friendly legislation isnt going to abolish homophobia. It may, however, lull us into believing an ideological change has occured when it really hasnt.

I said what I did about the culture war for two reasons:

1) We went 4 for 4 last night in popular referendums on marriage equality. Now, I don't think it's a good thing for majorities to vote on the rights of minorities but given that we'd been 0 for 32 until last night I think something has genuinely shifted and marriage equality is about to become what interracial marriage was forty years ago. On the ascendancy toward acceptance.

2) Not a single one of the "Rape Thing Crew" won. Not one. It may not be winning but given what how that's gone on both issues for a while, it sure as hell doesn't look like we're losing.


I hope you are right. I hope I am wrong cuz I am fucking weary of fighting this fight. Yet, history continuously warns me to never underestimate the power, influence, and control of both internalized and externalized hatred in its many forms. It can be used to exploit, control and otherwise fuck with people in some pretty nefarious ways.


Oh I don't think it'll be easy but I think that the pendulum has swung. Now that it's all over, I'm going to share with you the nightmare scenario that has woken me up for most of the last four years. My greatest fear was that the GOP would pull out a sweep last night and empower the theocrats and the plutocrats and they would demand, and receive, their pounds of flesh. We would wind up in a theocratic America where freedom of religion exists on paper but not in either law or practice. This would, of course, break the nation in some pretty profound ways and that it would be from those ashes that America would swing back the other way. It appears--as we've both said, I may be very wrong about this--that the swing has happened without us having to have a *historical* event. By historical I mean Germany in the 30s historical which is what it looked like for a while back in 2011.

Great analysis from you, as always, Kobi.

Cheers
Aj

[Linus]

Take this in the spirit in which it is given Kobi, so do I. ;) I would really strongly prefer that my grandson and granddaughter *not* have to continue fighting this. I don't want to give the impression that I'm being a Pollyanna because I'm constitutionally very poor at being that optimistic. Your analysis is spot on. The wild card is whether the GOP wants to be a national party or a regional party. One or two more elections like this and they could be the latter.


While Canadians and Americans differ on many things, you may want to look at a historical political events that lead up to the creation of a party known as the Reform Party. Canada, unlike the US, has very strong regional sentiment (I suspect that there are diversity ties with the regional piece as well). You could divide the country into BC (West Coast), "Western" (largely Alberta but often includes Saskatchewan and Manitoba), Ontario (Central with very diverse population located mostly in a large city, Toronto), Quebec (francophone with a unique culture) and the East (often viewed as a "poorer" part of the country due to its dependence on resource trade of fish and lumber). This is a very simplistic view.

For the longest time, two main parties -- the Progressive Conservatives* and Liberals -- and a third smaller party (the New Democratic Party or NDP -- very socialist; what some Americans might call Communist) primarily ruled the nation overall and treated everyone as if they were from Ontario. When the Constitution came about and special provisions were put in place for Quebec (the idea of a distinct society due to language, a huge Catholic base and a xenophobic attitude towards anglophones or the rest of the country), it created an avenue for the other parts to also stand up and say "Me too!"

When Brian Mulroney was in power, Reagan was President (for point of time reference). When Brian Mulroney won, he won votes across the country and from the differing regions. It was both based on seats and general populous attitude**. This meant balancing the needs and desires of all the regions, a challenging task for the boy from Baie-Comeau, Quebec. When he retired, a vacuum was left as to who would replace him. At the time of his retirement, a new party had been formed to represent Quebec interests in the form of the Bloc-Quebecois (sometimes affectionately referred to as the BlocHeads). They came about after the Meech Lake accords failed to add more to Quebec's idea of them being a distinct society. Most came from the Quebec MPs of the PC party and were lead/created by Mulroney's former cabinet minister and former friend, Lucien Bouchard.

At the same time, a new party was being formed in the West (Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba -- Prairie Provinces) known as the Reform Party. They were founded by Preston Manning and he wanted less centrist policies that the PCs and/or Liberals offered. In fact, he wanted more right-wing, traditional family attitude (a light version of what here in America is seen in the Tea Party faction). This split of the PCs meant a fractured House in the PCs and it's ultimate demise. It also meant nearly a decade of Liberal control of Federal politics under Jean Chretien.

Now, why does this matter to the US? Well, this meant huge fracturing of the parties and no concessions in the House since it was all "me-me-me!". The Reform Party and what was left of the PCs have since merged but it remains rather more Reform towards the West than an overall national centrist-right. And I expect that we will see this happen with the GOP. I've heard from a lot of Republicans that say they do not agree with the current stance of the party (particularly the talking heads) and seem to be leaning more towards Libertarian or not voting at all (!!!).

I suspect that given the large Christian right-wing base that has been emerging and it's perceived attacks on itself that it probably feels the GOP isn't doing enough to stand up against, we will see a party like the Reform Party of Canada emerge here. There will be those that will try to stay with the GOP, attempting to revive what used to exist (more centrist-right). And then a variety of splinter groups (either regionally based or issue based) making up the remaining conservative types.

This won't necessarily bode well for the House and/or Senate. While these will be at odds with each other over a variety of things, if they form a block on various issues it will prevent any one President, party or Representative from passing bills forward, which means the continuation of lame-duck sessions. And having multiple "lame-duck" sessions won't help either. It means a stagnant nation with little to no growth on a variety of fronts.

The return of the word "compromise" needs to happen in this nation for it to be successful, regardless of who is President. I don't see this happening for a while since it's starting to sound almost like a chorus of "me-me-me" going on in the background (think of the seagulls from the movie Finding Nemo and replace the "mine?" with "me!") The idea of sharing and that we're **ALL** in this together seems lost these days (not sure why).

Anyways, that's the way I see it happening. I don't think it'll take a few more federal elections (whether Presidential, House of Reps or Senate). I think it's already starting. I wonder how long before someone formally creates a national Tea Party to represent those issues. And then a Christian Coalition Party. And so on. And we see this nation turn worse before things getting better.





*As a former Progressive Conservative member and former President of various regional youth parts of the Party, the experience and description above is from my POV and understanding growing up in Ottawa (which is all politics). Today, I'm a-political. While I do not regret, I know I'd never go back to the current day Conservatives or Liberals for that matter. I'd vote NDP or Green (depending on how that MP views their policies) since few parties are interested in representing *ALL* citizens, IMO.

**Unlike the US, Canada doesn't elect our country's leader directly. The leader of the party with the most seats in the House of Commons becomes the leader of the nation (Parliamentary system). It is therefore possible to become a leader without winning your seat and without having the popular vote for your overall party.

[Martina]

There is no doubt that this election was the deciding battle in the Culture Wars. That does not mean they are over. But white conservatives will never be able to dominate as they once did. The demographics won't allow it.

I heard that this election was the last one -- given current trends -- where you could win if you got a big turnout of whites and got 60% or so of that vote. That wasn't that hard in the past. It was possible yesterday, but didn't happen. It will never be possible again.

As of now, Republicans are losing ground with every demographic but white men. Every demographic. And the the folks they are losing ground with -- many of them are increasing in terms of percentage of the population.

It is possible that the GOP can re-invent itself. But it will take time. It cannot base itself on racism and homophobia. That will never work again, as dreadgeek points out.

It's a fucking watershed moment.

There will always be conservatives among us. It's a personality type, IMO. There's been a lot of social psychology on the subject. But it will look different forever more in this country. It will not be the race-baiting, woman-hating, queer-fearing conservatism we know so well.

Those people are still with us. But they can't win a national election again. Now, if you live in Alabama, . . . .

[UofMfan]

This is not only makes me happy, but shows the power of the women vote.


http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j269/translator08/Notheocracy.jpg

[dreadgeek]

There will always be conservatives among us. It's a personality type, IMO. There's been a lot of social psychology on the subject. But it will look different forever more in this country. It will not be the race-baiting, woman-hating, queer-fearing conservatism we know so well.

Those people are still with us. But they can't win a national election again. Now, if you live in Alabama, . . . .

Let me say one or two things in defense of conservatives. Some (not all) of the social psychology on conservatives has really been on either right-wing reactionaries or right-wing authoritarian reactionaries. Neither of which I would call conservative. To me, conservatism is about caution, stability and a respect for evolved social solutions. So, for example, a conservative approach to dealing with Social Security and Medicare would be to tweak the retirement age, recognizing that when SS was created living to 65 was rare and living to 85 was rarer still. So with new demographic realities can come new realities of retirement age so start pushing the retirement age up, so if you're 45 now (as I am) I work until 70 or 75. If you are 30 you're working until 75 or 80. Turn the dial, don't flip the switch would be a conservative way of putting it. Real conservatism is in favor of both marriage equality and gays serving in the military because the former represents social stability and the latter represents a form of patriotism. Real conservatives recognize that just as government power can be concentrated and abused, so can corporate power and so corporate power must be checked not because corporations are evil but because we must protect the republic from plutocrats who will always seek to tilt the playing field more in their direction.

Does this sound like a political party you know? Yes, that's right, if you are a Democrat guess what *you* are now what conservatism looks like in America. In favor of preserving Social Security and Medicare? You're a conservative. In favor of repealing DADT and marriage equality in all 50 states (perhaps soon to be 51?)? Then you're a conservative. That doesn't mean you are a *Republican* just a *conservative*. That doesn't mean that you aren't a liberal, either, just that American liberalism has *become* a form of conservatism.

The insanity that has passed for conservative most of our adult lives is really right-wing reactionary politics that wraps itself in the mantle of conservatism to look respectable. Libertarian philosophy is too radical and too Utopian to be truly conservative. Ayn Rand acolytes are far too radical and Utopian. The Christian theocrats are so Utopian that they can't be considered conservative by any reasonable definition.

Cheers
Aj

[Okiebug61]

We no longer have "Affirmative Action" in Oklahoma. What bugs the hell out me is that a Woman wrote the bill that was passed last night :-(.

[DapperButch]

I am presuming the deer caught in the headlights look in his eyes was the result of realizing he is going to have to face those in the new world order who invested gazillions in him and its not gonna be pretty.



Completely agree. He looked pale, empty eyes, and disconnected from his body. He looked like he had just came out of some sort of trauma (like he had just walked away from a car accident), and was in utter shock and feeling numb. I concur on how he looked and what was worrying him.

[Greyson]

We no longer have "Affirmative Action" in Oklahoma. What bugs the hell out me is that a Woman wrote the bill that was passed last night :-(.

Thanks for mentioning this. I read a blurb on this somewhere this morning but I decided not to post it because I was not aware of it until this morning. I know I will be searching the internet to learn more about it.

My initial reaction was one of disbelief. I try not to stereotype but honestly my mind did go to "It's the South......."

[Okiebug61]

Thanks for mentioning this. I read a blurb on this somewhere this morning but I decided not to post it because I was not aware of it until this morning. I know I will be searching the internet to learn more about it.

My initial reaction was one of disbelief. I try not to stereotype but honestly my mind did go to "It's the South......."

You are correct. Everytime any part of the nation goes forward we go 2 steps backwards, because we have to hang on to our Traditional Oklahoma Values. (Puke).

We now have an open gun carrying law so saddle up your horse and slap your six shooter on your hip it's going to get scary.

[Gentle Tiger]

Boy was I ever surrounded by unhappy people at work today. I work in Romney zone. Several that really do not like the President.

Needless to say I was quite happy; along with a few others. :D

[girl_dee]

Boy was I ever surrounded by unhappy people at work today. I work in Romney zone. Several that really do not like the President.

Needless to say I was quite happy; along with a few others. :D

That's what happened to me 4 years ago. Grown adults went in their offices and shut the door when i had the inauguration on.

i sat there all by myself watching !

[Martina]

I have read that conservatives prioritize fairness over compassion. They are both good values. But that makes them more sensitive to issues like welfare or affirmative action.

They tend to be more frightened by difference. That has been found in a number of studies. They are less open, less adventurous, less interested in others outside their own group. Purity is a a value that resonates for them. So that is rife for exploitation by racists.

When I was growing up, conservatives were against intervention in foreign wars, which was something I can get behind. They were more "Don't fuck with me and I won't fuck with you," something I can get behind as well.

The eighties and later Moral Majority conservatives who tried to impose their own standards and values on others -- those folks were NOT like the conservatives I grew up with.

The reason conservatism became so extreme was because white male privilege has come under attack since the sixties. So to fight back, they grabbed onto ideology -- Christian, racist, misogynistic ideology, which alienated a lot of otherwise conservative folks. That's what whites did when their privilege came under attack after the Civil War. They emphasized and elaborated on racist ideologies to justify Jim Crow laws and other restrictions on the freedoms of African Americans.

When I was young, conservatives weren't all that pro anything. They were more libertarian.

[Linus]

I saw this on Facebook (not sure if anyone posted it yet) and was curious what others thought:

http://www.syrlinus.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/2012-election-slavery.jpg

[Kobi]

Linus, that is a very interesting map comparison. Have to mull that over.

[Sun]

Update on the post I made last night re: Sheriffs race in Maricopa AZ :fastdraq:

Badass racist Joe Arpaio. Apparently some 480,000 votes were not counted and someone called the election. Many were early mail in votes. Looking forward to seeing the results. This is the Sheriff who is proud of his "Tent City" torture chamber.

Also open gun laws in AZ. Any idiot can get a gun. Nice place.

[girl_dee]

PLEASE lets get that maniac out of there. HOW is HE not in prison?!?!

[Corkey]

I saw this on Facebook (not sure if anyone posted it yet) and was curious what others thought:

http://www.syrlinus.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/2012-election-slavery.jpg


An accurate account of the red (confederate) states of America. For all we evolve, there are somethings that remain the same.

[Gráinne]

I may have posted this already, but it seems the last word:

1fPQ3AuQ1kY&feature=my_favorites&list=FLSUZfc89ydl275x-sp6I3UQ

[Miss Scarlett]

I think he was over confident and expecting an enormous voter backlash against Obama so losing came as a shock.

Completely agree. He looked pale, empty eyes, and disconnected from his body. He looked like he had just came out of some sort of trauma (like he had just walked away from a car accident), and was in utter shock and feeling numb. I concur on how he looked and what was worrying him.

[Martina]

Rachel is on fire tonight.

[princessbelle]

Rachel is on fire tonight.


(news to Republicans)

...."President Obama did win the electoral and popular vote, again. And...there really wasn't any chemicals of mass destruction, and there really is global warming, and we really did land on the moon"...

She's so enjoyable to watch. She is happy. Like all of us.

[*Anya*]

I TiVo'd Obama's speech because I had to go to bed last night.

I am struck by the folks listening: young, old, men, women, straight, lesbian, gay, trans, black, white, Hispanic, Asian and other ethnicities- a real rainbow coalition.

It is awesome to hear and see him be the true orator that he genuinely is and that I have not heard for a very long time.

[tara_kerrie]

You are correct. Everytime any part of the nation goes forward we go 2 steps backwards, because we have to hang on to our Traditional Oklahoma Values. (Puke).

We now have an open gun carrying law so saddle up your horse and slap your six shooter on your hip it's going to get scary.

Arkansas is the same way. I do not think that Arkansas will ever move forward.
Although the medical marijuana act wasnt rejected by as big of a margin as i thought. 52% against 48% for

[Sun]

Huffington Post is all over this story

BREAKING: Arizona Outrage Over Unprecedented Provisional Ballot Mayhem; Record Latino Vote Marred (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-biggers/breaking-arizona-outrage-_b_2090237.html?utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false)

People are protesting and waiting at the election office until every vote is counted. Note that this comes on top of an ongoing demonstration protesting Arpaio's brutality that caused the death of a woman in Tent City who was denied medication for diabetes. The womans family was awarded nothing in a lawsuit. The people are outraged. There is no justice here.

[Sun]

This is unreal. Nazi's and KKK on the streets. This is the old West at its worst.

Seriously if I were not seeing it I would have a hard time believing it.

Another article:

It is Going to Take the DOJ or a Conservative Candidate to Oust Sheriff Joe Arpaio with the Archaic Tea Party Stronghold Here
(http://tucsoncitizen.com/hispanic-politico/2012/11/07/it-is-going-to-take-the-doj-or-a-conservative-candidate-to-oust-sheriff-joe-arpaio-with-the-archaic-tea-party-stronghold-here/)

This is really all about Democracy. If this vote is stolen from the people and this criminal Sheriff is allowed to stay in office well we are all in serious trouble. If the win is legitimate, so be it. The Tea Party poured a lot of money into this race. But KKK and Neo Nazi's should not be running this state. People are fighting for life here.

[Martina]

Rachel's intro tonight:
We are not going to have a Supreme Court that overturns Roe versus Wade. There will be no more Antonin Scalia’s and Samuel Alito’s added to this court. We are not going to repeal health reform. Nobody is going to kill Medicare and make old people in this generation or any other generation fight it out on the open market to try to get themselves health care. We are not going to do that.

We are not going to give a twenty percent tax cut to millionaires and billionaires and expect programs like food stamps and kid’s health insurance to cover the cost of that tax cut. We’re not going to make you clear it with your boss if you want to get birth control from the insurance plan that you are on. We are not going to redefine rape. We are not going to amend the United States Constitution to stop gay people from getting married. We are not going to double Guantanamo. We are not eliminating the Department of Energy or the Department of Education or Housing at the Federal level.

We are not going to spend two trillion dollars on the military that the military does not want. We are not scaling back on student loans because the country’s new plan is that you should borrow money from your parents. We are not vetoing the Dream Act. We are not self-deporting. We are not letting Detroit go bankrupt. We are not starting a trade war with China on inauguration day in January. We are not going to have as a President a man who once led a mob of friends to run down a scared gay kid, to hold him down and forcibly cut his hair off with a pair of scissors while that kid cried and screamed for help. And there was no apology, not ever. We are not going to have as Secretary of State John Bolton. We are not bringing Dick Cheney back. We are not going to have a foreign policy shop stocked with architects of the Iraq War. We are not going to do it. We had the choice to do that if we wanted to do that as a country. And we said “No” last night, loudly.

[Martina]

http://resources3.news.com.au/images/2012/11/08/1226512/746723-sasha-and-malia-obama.jpg

[Allison W]

This is unreal. Nazi's and KKK on the streets. This is the old West at its worst.

Seriously if I were not seeing it I would have a hard time believing it.

Another article:

It is Going to Take the DOJ or a Conservative Candidate to Oust Sheriff Joe Arpaio with the Archaic Tea Party Stronghold Here
(http://tucsoncitizen.com/hispanic-politico/2012/11/07/it-is-going-to-take-the-doj-or-a-conservative-candidate-to-oust-sheriff-joe-arpaio-with-the-archaic-tea-party-stronghold-here/)

This is really all about Democracy. If this vote is stolen from the people and this criminal Sheriff is allowed to stay in office well we are all in serious trouble. If the win is legitimate, so be it. The Tea Party poured a lot of money into this race. But KKK and Neo Nazi's should not be running this state. People are fighting for life here.

In fairness, the DOJ or another conservative candidate aren't the only things that could oust Arpaio. He's eighty years old, and all the outside money in the world can't buy off the Grim Reaper forever. Not yet, anyway.

That said that's kind of beside the point. Yeah this is seriously fucked up and Joe is a bad bad man and shouldn't be spending another day in power, let alone however many years he's got left on the egg timer. His re-election also says some pretty bad things about the moral fibre of the people who re-elected him, at that.

[Miss Scarlett]

One of the commentators on the CBS overnight news stated that Romney "looked shellshocked" when he came out to make his concession speech.

I confess that I was getting a tad concerned about the outcome the other night but when I saw that Romney failed to carry Massachusetts and Wisconsin I realized that Obama was going to win. It says a lot when you can't carry your own state and that if your running mate.

[LeftWriteFemme]

Ohio GOP Senate Candidate Josh Mandel's Family Takes Out Newspaper Ad Denouncing His Anti-Gay Positions

Just over two weeks ago I posted a video of Ohio GOP senate candidate Josh Mandel espousing his anti-gay positions in debate, saying that he opposed 'DADT' repeal and is a supporter of marriage between a man and a woman, but promising to represent every resident of Ohio and be "blind" to sexual orientation.

Some members of Mandel's family took a full-page ad out in the Cleveland Jewish News denouncing him:

Open Letter to Josh Mandel,
Republican 
Candidate for U.S. Senator from Ohio


Dear Josh,

Four years ago you came into our family. We still remember the excitement surrounding your wedding, and how happy our family members were as they described it afterwards. So we were deeply saddened when you announced during your October 18th debate with Senator Sherrod Brown that you believe only some people should share this right to marry the person they love, while others should not.



Your cousins, Ellen Ratner and Cholene Espinoza, are among the many wonderful couples whose rights you do not recognize. They were married almost eight years ago in Massachusetts, at a time when it was the only state in the nation to allow same-sex marriage. Their wedding, like yours, was a beautiful and happy occasion for all of us in our family. It hurts us that you would embrace discrimination against them and countless other loving couples in Ohio and around the country.



We are equally distressed by your belief that gay men and women should not be allowed to serve openly in the military. Like you, Cholene spent many years in the armed forces. A graduate of the Air Force Academy and an accomplished pilot, she became the second woman in history to fly the U-2 reconnaissance plane. And yet, you have argued that she, like many gay and lesbian soldiers, should be forced to live a life of secrecy and lies.



Josh, as you know, our roots are deep in the Cleveland area and we have friends and family we love throughout Ohio. This family is sprawling and diverse, but it has always believed strongly in the values of equality and inclusiveness. Your discriminatory stance violates these core values of our family. Nevertheless we hope that over time, as you advance in years and wisdom, you will come to embrace the values of inclusiveness and equality as well.



Your cousins,



Michael Ratner, Bruce Ratner, Karen Ranucci, Pamela Lipkin, Rebecca 
Ratner, Elizabeth Ratner, Patrick Markee, Jacob Ratner, Ana Ratner

Read more: http://www.towleroad.com/2012/11/ohio-gop-senate-candidate-josh-mandels-family-takes-out-newspaper-ad-denouncing-his-anti-gay-positio.html#ixzz2BdXa6Rmf



http://www.towleroad.com/2012/11/ohio-gop-senate-candidate-josh-mandels-family-takes-out-newspaper-ad-denouncing-his-anti-gay-positio.html

[Kobi]

(Reuters) - Florida Democrat Earl K. Wood and Alabama Republican Charles Beasley won their respective elections but they will not take office.

Both men died weeks before the November 6 election yet managed to beat their very much alive opponents by comfortable margins.

http://news.yahoo.com/dead-candidates-win-elections-florida-alabama-202607386.html

[Miss Scarlett]

(Reuters) - Florida Democrat Earl K. Wood and Alabama Republican Charles Beasley won their respective elections but they will not take office.

Both men died weeks before the November 6 election yet managed to beat their very much alive opponents by comfortable margins.

http://news.yahoo.com/dead-candidates-win-elections-florida-alabama-202607386.html

When things like this happen I can't help but wonder exactly how many of the folks that voted for these two candidates knew they had died...

[Zimmeh]

I knew that Earl K Wood had passed away and I did my research on the guy replacing him and voted for Earl K Wood. Scott Randolph seemed to be a better candidate than Huckeba.

Zimmeh

When things like this happen I can't help but wonder exactly how many of the folks that voted for these two candidates knew they had died...

[Miss Scarlett]

I knew that Earl K Wood had passed away and I did my research on the guy replacing him and voted for Earl K Wood. Scott Randolph seemed to be a better candidate than Huckeba.

Zimmeh

That's awesome Zimmeh! It's so important to research candidates before voting. I wish more people did this. You rock!!!!!

[The_Lady_Snow]

White People Mourning Mitt Romney (http://whitepeoplemourningromney.tumblr.com/)

[princessbelle]

I've been looking around the webs at the different networks the night of the election. I found this clip of Diane Sawyer. Wow. Giving her the benefit of the doubt, maybe she was just really tired, but who knows. The tweets were so funny. Dang, i had 2 margaritas, was loaded on carbs and a ton of comfort junk food and my words weren't slurring as bad as hers.


xzDypei_q7E

[Okiebug61]

I think she was just worn out. I'll take her coverage over the other two boring anchors anyday.

[princessbelle]

I think she was just worn out. I'll take her coverage over the other two boring anchors anyday.

I like her too.

It was a long day for everyone!!!

[Greyson]

"The poll finds that racial prejudice is not limited to one group of partisans. Although Republicans were more likely than Democrats to express racial prejudice in the questions measuring explicit racism (79 percent among Republicans compared with 32 percent among Democrats), the implicit test found little difference between the two parties. That test showed a majority of both Democrats and Republicans held anti-black feelings (55 percent of Democrats and 64 percent of Republicans), as did about half of political independents (49 percent)."




http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_AP_POLL_RACIAL_ATTITUDES?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-10-27-11-47-18

[Greyson]

Roseanne Barr Finished Sixth in the Presidential Race



http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2012/11/08/roseanne_barr_presidential_race_she_finished_fifth .html

[The_Lady_Snow]

Adviser: Romney "shellshocked" by loss


Mitt Romney's campaign got its first hint something was wrong on the afternoon of Election Day, when state campaign workers on the ground began reporting huge turnout in areas favorable to President Obama: northeastern Ohio, northern Virginia, central Florida and Miami-Dade.

Then came the early exit polls that also were favorable to the president.

But it wasn't until the polls closed that concern turned into alarm. They expected North Carolina to be called early. It wasn't. They expected Pennsylvania to be up in the air all night; it went early for the President.


LINKYLOO (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57547239/adviser-romney-shellshocked-by-loss/)

[girl_dee]

*It was like a sucker punch*


Really?

the arrogance of this man didn't allow him to even REMOTELY feel that Barack Obama would win, so sure of himself.

A'ishah i believe said he hadn't even considered a concession speech.

My sister and i today chatted and are in awe that SO many people are shocked.

[UofMfan]

Mitt Romney Campaign: We Lost Florida To Obama In Presidential Election (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/08/mitt-romney-florida-election-results_n_2094513.html)

[ruffryder]

When things like this happen I can't help but wonder exactly how many of the folks that voted for these two candidates knew they had died...

A shame. Some people go to the polls to basically vote for the President of their choice. Is that bad? Maybe, maybe not. At least they are voting for their choice and it's counting. On the other hand, What about all the other candidates or referendums, amendments that they are voting for and perhaps have no clue about. :| Alot of people just tend to go with their party and vote that way.

Did ya'll hear that Puerto Rico voted and opts for statehood and Congress will have to approve that. What do you think about that? More latino/P.R. voters for sure. How does all this fare for the election of 2016 and if Republican Sen. Marco Rubio should run for the Presidency.

A lot of latinos, women, and gays voted for Obama for the various reasons Romney didn't appeal to them. However I know some latinos, women, and gay people that voted for Romney. I guess it all comes down to what your interests are in the United States and what appeals to you. Perhaps some of their social issues took a back seat to other issues such as economic, foreign, and environmental. I wonder if the Republicans will look at this coming into 2016 and try to appeal to a broader audience.

This is an interesting article World Reacts To Obama Win and The Issues He Faces Globally (http://tucsoncitizen.com/usa-today-news/2012/11/07/world-reacts-to-obama-win-and-the-issues-he-faces-globally/) Looks like he not only has his hands full at home but abroad for his next term.

[Allison W]

I wonder if the Republicans will look at this coming into 2016 and try to appeal to a broader audience.

Considering Paul Ryan is on the short list for the GOP presidential nominee in 2016, I'm pretty sure the current misunderstanding is "WE LOST BECAUSE WE DIDN'T ALIENATE THE NOT-OLD-RICH-WHITE-CHRISTIAN-MALE DEMOGRAPHIC ENOUGH."

[Martina]

The pundits and tea party folks are saying that Romney wasn't really a conservative, was not far enough to the right. And some folks, I am sure, still blame the liberal media.

But if those were the only reasons Romney and others lost -- not far enough to the right and liberal media bias -- they would have seen it coming. They would not have been shocked.

Republicans have been fear mongers for generations. Appealing to racism and homophobia is clearly not going to work as the electorate becomes less white and and as older voters are replaced by younger ones.

And Obama's ground game has now been shown to have been more effective than expensive ads. All over the press today is Karl Rove's PAC's failure -- that the $100 million raised got them nothing, not a single win.

Plus Republicans have to note the wins for gay marriage.

Republicans will have to move to the center. They will have to find a message that is not about the fear of gays and POC. They will learn the great data driven ground game. They invented it after all.

Think of it. They thought they had won. Not only did they lose, it wasn't really that close. They lost seats in the Senate when they expected to gain them. They can see they are losing the cultural issues -- gay marriage, pot, etc.

In the future, they will have to SOUNDLY repudiate any future Todd Akins. They won't be able to appear on stage with Donald Trump. MOST OF ALL, they have to find a way to get moderate Republicans engaged in the primary process.

Think of what happened in Indiana. Dick Lugar, a senior Senator, lost BIG in the primary to tea party maniac Richard Mourdock, who made his rape comment and lost Republicans that seat. Think of it. The Republicans went from having one of the most senior and influential Senators on the Hill to losing the seat to a Democrat. *Thump*

The primary process pushed Romney so far to the right that he couldn't come back. If he had campaigned as Moderate Mitt, he might have won the general election. But if he had, he would never have gotten the nomination. Catch-22.

Maybe someone with the charisma of Chris Christie can get the nomination next time, especially after this disaster. But they will still lose down ticket races if they don't change their message re gays and POC and if they don't find a way to involve more moderates in the political process.

The Republicans are embarrassed, and they should be.

[BullDog]

It really is amazing that most of the Republicans don't really seem to get why they lost and didn't even see it coming. Meanwhile, Team Obama got just the results they were expecting. It really doesn't help the Republicans to produce data that shows them winning if it isn't based in reality.

The Republicans with at least half a brain realize they have a demographic problem, but they don't seem to get they have a policy problem as well. The electorate recognizes there is a deficit. They think Obama's approach of asking the wealthiest Americans to pay a bit more and cutting military spending makes a lot more sense than tax cuts, "closing loopholes" and severely slashing social programs. Apparently Speaker Boehner and friends didn't get the memo that it was President Obama and his policies that won. Not only did they win the election but there is plenty of polling that shows the electorate prefers Obama's approach. I think President Obama should sell his proposal for dealing with the "fiscal cliff" directly to the people because the Republicans don't appear to be ready to compromise. I really hope the Democrats stand firm.

Oh yeah and the Republican's demographic problem isn't going away if they keep referring to African Americans and others as takers and Latinos as illegals and all the rape talk, not even supporting equal pay for women and trying to suppress the vote. On top of that they have warring factions between the Tea Party and Establishment Republicans.

They have a lot of problems and I am skeptical they can really turn this around. America is changing and changing fast. It has been for quite some time.

[Martina]

from Michael Moore


We have to have Obama's back. As he is blocked and attacked by the Right, we need to be there with him. We are the majority. Let's act like it.

And please Mr. President, make the banks and Wall Street pay. You're the boss, not them. Lead the fight to get money out of politics – the spending on this election is shameful and dangerous. Don't wait til 2014 to bring the troops home – bring 'em home now. Stop the drone strikes on civilians. End the senseless war on drugs. Act like a pit bull when it comes to climate change – ignore the nuts, and fix this now. Take the profit motive out of things that any civilized country would say, "this is for the common good." Make higher education affordable for everyone and don't send 22-year-olds out into the world already in massive debt. Order a moratorium on home foreclosures and evictions. Enact economic policy that will create good-paying jobs and spend the money that's needed to do that. Make your second term one for the history books.

Finally, thanks must be given to the Occupy movement who, a year ago, set the tone of this election year by getting everyone to talk about the 1% vs. 99%. It inspired Obama and his campaign to realize that there was a huge popular sentiment against what the wealthy have done to the country and there was something wrong if just 400 rich guys owned more than 160 million Americans combined (all those moochers and bums). This led to Romney's "47%" remarks and THAT was the beginning of the end of his campaign. Thank you Mother Jones for releasing that secret tape , and thank you to the minimum wage worker who placed a camera on the serving buffet next to the candle. This morning's headline in the Washington Post says it all: "At Romney headquarters, the defeat of the 1 percent." Thank you Sandra Fluke for enduring the insults hurled at you and then becoming an important grassroots leader against the war on women. Thank you Todd Akin for...well, for just being you. Thank you CEOs of Chrysler and GM for coming out forcefully against the Republican(!) candidate, saying he lived in "some parallel universe" when he lied about Jeep. Thank you Governor Christie for your new bromance with Obama. You know, you really didn't have to!

[Martina]

Video of obama thanking chicago staff

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/election-2012/wp/2012/11/08/video-president-obama-cries-while-addressing-campaign-staff/

[The_Lady_Snow]

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc6/197074_468761623176022_1756123119_n.jpg

[*Anya*]

This just about makes me cry! When I first came out in '78, the thought that there would now be states where we could marry was so out of my frame of reference, it was unthinkable.

It is a moving train and will not be stopped, though I cannot believe it îs stil not legal in California of all places!

Washington same-sex marriage opponents concede
By Natalie Jennings, Published: NOVEMBER 08, 4:43 PM ET

Washington state is on track to become the ninth state to approve gay marriage as opponents of a referendum there conceded Thursday afternoon:

“With added results showing that we have not closed the gap, it now appears clear that Referendum 74 will be narrowly approved,” said Joseph Backholm, chairman of Preserve Marriage Washington, which worked to defeat the measure.

Voters in Maryland and Maine also approved same-sex marriage measures on Tuesday, while Minnesota voters rejected a constitutional ban on it.

With the news from WA, means 49+ million Americans (16% of pop) will live in states where same-sex couples can get a marriage license!

[Greyson]

LGBT Voters Crucial to Obama Popular Vote Victory: LGBT Voters Vital to Outcome in Florida



http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/press/press-releases/lgbt-voters-crucial-to-obama-popular-vote-victory/

[Martina]

They're back-peddling on immigration policy. Latinos got out and voted, and it will pay off for them. That is not always the case. We lgbt folks voted Democratic for decades before we started getting crumbs from the table.

It's a good day for my students.

It was fun this morning to hear the clip of Hannity saying he had "evolved" on the issue.

Gawd.

But who cares. This is how politics works. I am just glad that there will be reform.

[Martina]

I meant the Republicans are backpeddaling on their anti-immigration policies. It's a joy to behold. It's another "I never thought I'd see the day."

They're back-peddling on immigration policy. Latinos got out and voted, and it will pay off for them. That is not always the case. We lgbt folks voted Democratic for decades before we started getting crumbs from the table.

It's a good day for my students.

It was fun this morning to hear the clip of Hannity saying he had "evolved" on the issue.

Gawd.

But who cares. This is how politics works. I am just glad that there will be reform.

[Linus]

First elected Transwoman in NH State Legislature: http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/news/982833-469/with-state-representive-win-laughton-states-first.html

Also of note is that NH is the first all-woman delegation (Governor, Congresswomen and Senators)! http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/08/new-hampshires-all-mother-congressional-delegation-and-governor/

[Kobi]

Much of what I see going on is the typical morning after a disappointing evening with sudden tranformations, "new" pronouncements, and generalized bargaining that goes along with licking ones wounds. As a result, I try not to overinvest in what looks like fundamental changes of heart.

The cynic in me gives this euphoric peroid a couple of weeks to a month before reality sets back in.

Remember, it was just Monday when we were all on pins and needles, worried about what could happen, worried about the polls, worried that we could lose, worried about the impact of losing, worried about where we would be moving to and if our passports were up to date. We were worried with good reason.

Come Tuesday, with victory at hand, that worry turns into euphoria. Almost like you can feel the strutting of the peacock amass in its glory at having dodged utter disaster. Relief for sure.

So were we worried for nothing? Victims of our own misgivings? Or were we reacting to something very real, almost palatable?

Is a huge electoral win a pronouncement of a country undivided when in reality, the margin of victory over all was .4% of all voters. Not exactly an overwhelming stamp of approval or is it?

I am thrilled voters went against those who still have mental processes that include things like legitimate rape. Yet, I am very mindful that the most damage to womens reproductive rights was not done on the federal level. It was done by state legislatures who enacted weird shit under the guise of protecting womens health.

It is great more states are going to allow gay marriage or at least not define marriage as between a woman and a man. If memory serves, with the exception of Iowa, the approvals would overlap as expected on the maps of the election/pre-civil war maps Linus shared. Fundamental change or following the typical course of division?

Im not sure what to think about the marijuana stuff. I dont drink or do drugs so it is of no importance to me except as a driver who has to share the road with another group of individuals with substance induced impaired judgement. As a cultural change I do see some issues tho not necessarily in a positive direction. To me, this just opens the system up to more and more dui cases clogging up the court system, more avoidable deaths, more revamping of the educational system and their just say no to drugs or whatever the current programming is, more confusion for kids about whether and/or which drugs are good for them or bad for them, more escapist coping. Just my opinion tho.

I do see much more stuff taking shape as to the states defying and challenging the federal government, and the feds challenging the states. Not sure if this is a good thing or not. Conflict does beget change eventually albeit sometimes ugly change with unpredictable and unexpected results.

Interesting times to be sure.

[Sun]

This is one BAD ASS straight white male. Tell it.

Letter to a future Republican strategist regarding white people

November 9, 2012

To whom it may concern regarding the United States federal elections of 2014, 2016 and beyond:

Allow me to introduce myself to you, the existing (or aspiring!) strategist for the Republican Party. My name is Eric Arnold Garland and I am a White Man. Boy, am I ever – you need sunglasses just to look at my photo!

If I read the news correctly, I fit a profile that is of extreme importance to the GOP, as I embody the archetype that fits your narrative of Real Americans. Just how much should my profile interest you? Are you sitting down?

My family lineage goes back to the MAYFLOWER, BOAT ONE!!! (Garland family of New England-> John Adams -> Howard Alden -> Plymouth colony ->KINGS OF MUTHAF***IN’ ENGLAND)
I am a heterosexual, married to the super Caucasian mother of my two beautiful children who are, inexplicably, EVEN WHITER THAN I AM.
I am college educated (Master’s degree!) and affluent.
I am a job creator and small businessman.
We pay a lot of taxes! Every year!
I grew up in a rural area and despise laziness!
Having started my own business, I have complained at length about the insanity of federal, state and local bureaucracy – and its deleterious impact on the innovative small businessman.
I currently live in the suburbs in a historically Red state.

HOLY WHITE PEOPLE, BATMAN!!! Wow, you’re thinking – this is not some Mexirican in the Sun Belt we need to attract via harsh anti-Castro policies or appeals to “valores de familia” - this is the BREAD AND BUTTER OF THE GRAND OLD PARTY, a Mayflower-descended small business owner, burdened by taxation, looking out for his beautiful White family in the suburbs of a city (St Louis) surrounded by racial tension and urban blight!

How can I put this gently? My wife and I are not sensitive to your messaging, nor did we vote for the candidates you proposed for us this past Tuesday.

B-b-but, what? Aren’t we investors, hard-workin’ white folk surrounded by same in a manicured cul-de-sac, scared by a vision of economic collapse amidst the takers in a land of fewer givers? Didn’t Mitt Romney’s strong family, wealth, leadership history and chiseled chin give us the uncontrollable urge to high-five him into the White House?

No.

May I explain why not, purely for your education, such that you might be interested in winning an election on the national level at some point in the future? It bears pointing out that I should be your Low Hanging Fruit, the easy vote to get as opposed to, say, African-Americans, Latinos, or Asians – and you’re not even speaking well to me. The reasons why ought to concern you deeply.

As a Card-Carrying White Male I love expressing my opinion irrespective of whether people care to hear it, so let’s get started.

>>>>>>

Science - One of the reasons my family is affluent is that my wife and I have a collective fifteen years of university education between us. I have a Masters degree in Science and Technology Policy, and my wife is a physician who holds degrees in medicine as well as cell and molecular biology. We are really quite unimpressed with Congressional representatives such as Todd Akin and Paul Broun who actually serve on the House science committee and who believe, respectively, that rape does not cause pregnancy and that evolution and astrophysics are lies straight from Satan’s butt cheeks. These are, sadly, only two of innumerable assaults that the Republican Party has made against hard science – with nothing to say of logic in general. Please understand the unbearable tension this might create between us and your candidates.

Climate - Within just the past 18 months the following events have come to our attention: a record-breaking drought that sent temperatures over 100 degrees for weeks, killing half the corn in the Midwest and half the TREES on our suburban property – AND – a hurricane that drowned not New Orleans or Tampa or North Carolina but my native state of VERMONT. As an encore, a second hurricane drowned lower Manhattan, New Jersey and Long Island. The shouted views of decrepit mental fossil Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma that this is a fraud perpetrated on the American people by evil, conspiring climate scientists is belied by such events and is looking irresponsible to even the most skeptical.

Healthcare - My wife and I are quite familiar with America’s healthcare system due to our professions, and having lived abroad extensively, also very aware of comparable systems. Your party’s insistence on declaring the private U.S. healthcare system “the best in the world” fails nearly every factual measure available to any curious mind. We watch our country piss away 60% more expenditures than the next most expensive system (Switzerland) for health outcomes that rival former Soviet bloc nations. On a personal scale, my wife watches poor WORKING people show up in emergency rooms with fourth-stage cancer because they were unable to afford primary care visits. I have watched countless small businesses unable to attract talented workers because of the outrageous and climbing cost of private insurance. And I watch European and Asian businesses outpace American companies because they can attract that talent without asking people to risk bankruptcy and death. That you think this state of affairs is somehow preferable to “Obamacare,” which you compared ludicrously to Trotskyite Russian communism, is a sign of deficient minds unfit to guide health policy in America.

War - Nations do have to go to war sometimes, but that Iraq thing was pretty bad, to put it mildly. Somebody should have been, I dunno – FIRED for bad performance. Aren’t you the party of good corporate managers or something? This topic could get 10,000 words on its own. Let’s just leave it at: You guys suck at running wars.

Deficits and debt - Whenever the GOP is out of power, it immediately appeals to the imagination of voters who remember the Lyndon Baines Johnson (!) administration and claim that the Republican alternative is the party of “cutting spending” and “reducing the deficit.” The only problem with your claim is that Republican governments throughout my entire 38 year life (Reagan, Bush 41, Bush 43) have failed to cut spending and deficit and debt EVEN ONCE. I hope you understand that your credibility suffers every time you promise one thing for three decades and do the EXACT OPPOSITE. Egads – if you actually were the party of fiscal responsibility – you might win our votes despite your 13th century view of science!

Gay marriage - As the child of Baby Boomers who got divorced (as was the fashion!) in the 80s and 90s, and for whom 50% of my friends had their homes broken by divorce in the critical years before age 18, I sure am unsympathetic to your caterwauling bullshit that “gays will destroy the sanctity of marriage.” Perhaps if everyone in your generation didn’t take the period of 1978 – 1995 to start surreptitiously banging their neighbors and coworkers, only to abandon their kids because “they just weren’t happy,” I would take your defense of marriage more seriously. The institution of Middle Class suburban marriage was broken by the generation of aging white Baby Boomers who populate what is left of the Republican Party, so your defense is wrongheaded and disingenuous. And moreover, as someone who got called “faggot” about 127 times a day from the years 1985 through 1991 – guess what – I grew up to be pretty good friends with actual homosexuals, whose sexual orientation is usually the least significant thing about them. The Republican perseveration on homosexuals as any sort of threat consigns them to history’s trough of intellectual pig dung.

>>>>>>

That’s quite enough for one essay, wouldn’t you say? Now, given my initial description as a wealthy, hard-working, job creating, heterosexual, married suburban White Male – doesn’t your current platform look woefully insufficient to the task of gaining my vote? This doesn’t even get into the demographic tensions that show that people of my exact profile are going away permanently in America. You can’t even win on what you perceive to be “home field advantage.”

Uh oh, wait, I can already hear you through the web browser, dismissing all of my above points because THAT GUY WAS NEVER GONNA BE A REPUBLICAN ANYHOW, CUZ HE’S A LIBRUL WHO HATES AMERICA AND…

All right, let’s do one last point:

Meanness- Your party is really mean, mocking and demonizing everyone who does not follow you into the pits of hell. You constantly imply – as Mitt Romney did in his “47% speech” – that anybody who disagrees with you does so not by logic or moral conviction, but because they are shiftless, lazy parasites who want “free stuff” from “traditional Americans.” Wow, you guys managed to follow up a stunning electoral defeat with insulting the very people you wish to attract for a majority in the political system! Brilliant! You are losing elections because being angry and defensive and just-plain-mean is more important than being smart and winning elections – and thus you deserve everything happening to you.

If you want to know exactly where you failed in 2012, and will continue to fail, here it is. Look you assholes, I’m as traditional an American as it gets, and I do not “want free stuff.” I am a taxpayer, and ALWAYS HAVE BEEN. I got my first job – dragging bags of cow manure, horse feed and fertilizer around a farm store – when I was 12. I started my first company when I was 28. I have followed the vast majority of the rules set out for middle class white males (for good and for ill.) And if it weren’t bad enough that your policy positions are a complete clusterfuck for the reasons I lay out in great detail, you manage to follow up the whole exercise with insulting me, my wife, and my friends of every stripe who didn’t vote for your political party – all of whom are hard-working, taxpaying, job creating, law abiding, great AMERICANS of EVERY COLOR AND CREED.

From this white, Mayflower-descended strategic analyst, allow me to offer you the three strategic options you have before you:

1. You drastically moderate your platform to harmonize with the policy positions I present above

2. You disband the party and reorganize it to reflect current realities

3. You kick and scream and stamp your feet and call me and my friends names – and submit to several decades of one party rule

While I do not want a one-party system, I also don’t particularly care which of these options you choose. If you look carefully at the numbers on Tuesday, nobody else cares, either.

Just a word to the wise from one White Man to (presumably) another.

[Kobi]

Dear Eric Arnold Garland,

Your righteous indignation is duly noted. However, we are having just a little difficulty taking your temper tantrum seriously.

First of all, we checked the Mayflower records. We confirm your lineage did make the voyage. Unfortunately, they traveled in coach which is the Mayflower equivalent to the 47% slacker class. IF they had traveled first class, your DNA would carry more weight.

Second of all, we appreciate you elaborating on why you yourself are so freakin special. We hear that your unique specialness makes you an authority on all and everything. We have received millions of letters from special people just like you.

We do understand that on the day all of you were born, you were each led to believe a star rose in the east and wise men came bearing gifts. I regret to inform you that your parents lied. You were all nothing but flailing mounds of flesh in stinky diapers screaming your colicy lungs out. Nice to see you have at least outgrown the diapers.

Thirdly, while we appreciate how valuable you THINK you are to the cause, you really arent. While we appreciate you buying into all the rhetoric, the fact you still have to work to make a living, renders you nothing more than a common peon.

Those of us who ARE important do appreciate your willingness to behave like a rat in a maze, chasing the miniscule trinkets of success we set in your path, deluding yourself into thinking you are succeeding. It amuses us to watch you and your overinflated sense of self think you are actually going somewhere.

Fourth, and here is where you become wearisome, you are a necessary cog in the wheel of life but you are also a drain. You are a small business owner. I know you think this makes you special, an entrepeneur, a potential savior. Truth is, you cost us a small fortune. Guaranteed loans, special tax incentives, all the little perkies we feed you is what make it possible for you to be and feel successful.

You own a lily white house in a lily white neighborhood with a lily white fence. It is the handouts you get that makes this possible. You tend to forget the mortgage and property taxes you deduct from your taxes deprives us of billions of dollars of revenue each year. You tend to forget we choose to subsidize the clean water you drink, the remnants of the toilets you flush, the electricty you depend on, the gas for the guzzlers you insist on buying, the food you put on the table......all money given to make your life easier and less expensive. Are you grateful for these gifts? I think not.

Same for your wife, the physician who doesnt see people until they have 4th stage cancer. The hippocratic oath says.....first do no harm. It does not say first do no harm only to those who can afford care. You are merely exploiting an industry for your own personal six figure or more gain. If you and your wife are soooooo concerned about poor people, what are YOU doing to change that?

One last thing....we know you fancy yourself as a job creator. There are millions of unemployed Americans and you can accommodate how many? Do I need to use both hands or will one suffice? Oh, btw, creating more bigoted, sanctimonious, self centered, me-ists doesnt count.

In closing, we thank you for your input. We thoroughly enjoyed it. It added immense laughter to the morning coffee hour.

Please accept this gift :baby: from us. Given your excessive whining, we are sure it will come in handy.

Sincerely,

Ask me if I give a shit,
the whom to which this was addressed

[Soon]

"Romney and Tea Party loonies dismissed half the country as chattel and moochers who did not belong in their 'traditional' America. But the more they insulted the president with birther cracks, the more they tried to force chastity belts on women, and the more they made Hispanics, blacks and gays feel like the help, the more these groups burned to prove that, knitted together, they could give the dead-enders of white male domination the boot. The election about the economy also sounded the death knell for the Republican culture wars. Romney was still running in an illusory country where husbands told wives how to vote, and the wives who worked had better get home in time to cook dinner. But in the real country, many wives were urging husbands not to vote for a Brylcreemed boss out of a ’50s boardroom whose party was helping to revive a 50-year-old debate over contraception. Just like the Bushes before him, Romney tried to portray himself as more American than his Democratic opponent. But America’s gallimaufry wasn’t knuckling under to the gentry this time."

- Maureen Dowd, writing for the New York Times.

[The_Lady_Snow]

Ben Stein: The GOP will come back


(CBS News) Before we close the book on the week just past, some last thoughts on Campaign 2012. Republicans have been doing a lot of soul-searching since Tuesday's election - and that includes our contributor Ben Stein:

Wow. It sure hurts to lose, and we in the GOP came so close in so many vital states and in the popular vote.

And, in hindsight, we can see we made some big mistakes - weak behavior in the third debate, wacky Senate candidates, naming as a candidate a man of great wealth and a finance background after a Wall Street debacle.

But let's not cry and swear to leave the country, as some of my Republican friends did the other night.

Our position as a party is not at all terrible. We still control the House. We have enough votes in the Senate to block anything we hate. The Democrats know they won by a modest margin. They have no overwhelming mandate, and they know it.

I have seen our party in far worse shape - after the Goldwater disaster of '64; after Watergate and the thorough beating we got in the 1974 elections when we barely held a third of the House. We have been pronounced dead and buried over and over again. And we've always come back, like the Energizer Bunny.

Only we don't want to be just a bunny. We want to be the creating party, the party of life and energy. And we can be.

We still have great ideas: Limited government; a warm welcome for small business and job creators; appreciation of living by work, not handouts; the protection of innocent life; fairness for he working family; recognition of the basics of individual liberty.

But we have to make some changes in our hearts - big changes. This is not the white man's country exclusively anymore, and it hasn't been for a long time. The strategy of appealing to angry white men is not correct, either morally or practically.

This is a genuine multi-cultural, multi-racial democracy today. We must appeal to working women, to single women, to blacks. In particular, we can and must stop hurting the feelings of Hispanics and start inviting them into our party. We must plead with them to see that we have common cause on many issues, especially small business, the value of hard work, the sanctity of family and life.

We can do it and we will do it.

Next time around, let's find a man or woman with the eloquence and charisma of a Barack Obama on our side, and a party platform that invites everyone, of every sex and race who shares the best of our values into our tent. And at their best, they are still America's best values.

© 2012 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.

[Greyson]

Why Arizona is a red state in a sea of blue states



"Before this election cycle, New Mexico experimented with messaging and figured out how to reach its diverse Latino population. They created messages that moved beyond “Sí, se puede” (Yes, we can) and which appealed to first-generation Latinos as well as to sixth-generation Latinos, resulting in a greater voter turnout. New Mexicans, in other words, did not treat Latinos neither as a static or homogenous group, and took steps to ensure its message appealed across generational lines."


http://21border.com/2012/11/12/why-arizona-is-a-red-state-among-a-sea-of-blue-states/

[The_Lady_Snow]

Georgians 'peacefully' petition the Obama administration, asking to secede from the United States
Posted by Max Blau @maxblau on Mon, Nov 12, 2012 at 11:50 AM


It's been less than a week since the nation re-elected President Barack Obama, giving the Commander in Chief another four years in office. Unsurprisingly, the election's outcome didn't please everyone. But rather than simply deal with the results, however, thousands of Georgians have decided that they would rather secede from the United States.

LINKYLOO (http://clatl.com/freshloaf/archives/2012/11/12/georgians-peacefully-petition-the-obama-administration-asking-to-secede-from-the-united-states)

[Martina]

What would JC -- Jimmy Carter -- say?

[tonaderspeisung]

add alabama, arkansas, colorado, florida, indiana, kentucky, louisiana, michigan, mississippi, missouri, montana, new jersey, new york, north carolina, north dakota, oregon, south carolina and tennessee to the list

they need 25,000 signatures in 30 days to be reviewed by the admin


i think a vote with your feet response is valid to a government you find destructive

it's an interesting where would you draw the line question though

in the past i have toyed with the idea of being an individual secessionist
i find the idea of being a sovereign entity very appealing

[The_Lady_Snow]

Secession petitions filed in 20 states
By Mike Krumboltz, Yahoo! News | The Lookout – 7 hrs ago


In the wake of last week's presidential election, thousands of Americans have signed petitions seeking permission for their states to peacefully secede from the United States. The petitions were filed on We the People, a government website.
States with citizens filing include Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. Oddly, folks from Georgia have filed twice. Even stranger, several of the petitions come from states that went for President Barack Obama.

LINKYLOO (http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/secission-petitions-filed-20-states-190210006.html)

[Toughy]

at least Colorado voters actually legalized marijuana by constitutional amendment.....LEGAL in the state....not decriminalized.....and they also legalized industrial hemp..........

Washington state also legalized marijuana and hemp.

[Corkey]

The White House has a disclaimer on it's petition site, they may or may not get back to them. Under the Constitution citizens have a right to petition the government, that doesn't mean the government must respond.
Although it would be nice to see how they put the rejection letter out...

[Kobi]

Secession petitions filed in 20 states
By Mike Krumboltz, Yahoo! News | The Lookout – 7 hrs ago


In the wake of last week's presidential election, thousands of Americans have signed petitions seeking permission for their states to peacefully secede from the United States. The petitions were filed on We the People, a government website.
States with citizens filing include Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. Oddly, folks from Georgia have filed twice. Even stranger, several of the petitions come from states that went for President Barack Obama.

LINKYLOO (http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/secission-petitions-filed-20-states-190210006.html)




Is up to 27 states now.

Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Ohio, Michigan, Misssissippi, Missouri, Montana, New York, New Jersey, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Penn, South Carolina, Tenn, Texas.

Lots of unhappy people.

[Corkey]

It could very well be all 50, it is just the sore losers coming out of hiding. Nothing will come of it because none will be allowed to leave the union.

[Kobi]

It could very well be all 50, it is just the sore losers coming out of hiding. Nothing will come of it because none will be allowed to leave the union.


So you think this is election related?

I was thinking it is more reflective of a growing states rights thing i.e. the war on womens reproductive rights was state legislature driven, governors refusing monies for planned parenthood, governors refusing to set up the insurance exchanges under Obamacare, legalization of pot in Colorado and Washington in defiance of it being a class one banned substance under federal law, Arizona and other states setting up their own immigration policies etc.

Kind of miffed my state isnt there yet. Paul Revere must be turning over in his grave.

[Corkey]

So you think this is election related?

I was thinking it is more reflective of a growing states rights thing i.e. the war on womens reproductive rights was state legislature driven, governors refusing monies for planned parenthood, governors refusing to set up the insurance exchanges under Obamacare, legalization of pot in Colorado and Washington in defiance of it being a class one banned substance under federal law, Arizona and other states setting up their own immigration policies etc.

Kind of miffed my state isnt there yet. Paul Revere must be turning over in his grave.


That is what the elections were all about. It is the red states, read (racists) attempt at dissolving the union, like they tried before. Yes it is an attempt to make the President look weak, and yep they are all nuttier than a cashew on crack.

[Kobi]

That is what the elections were all about. It is the red states, read (racists) attempt at dissolving the union, like they tried before. Yes it is an attempt to make the President look weak, and yep they are all nuttier than a cashew on crack.


To some degree that may be the case - except those petitions are not all from red states.

Calif, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Ohio, Michigan, NY, NJ, Nevada, Oregon, and Penn are blue states.

[Corkey]

To some degree that may be the case - except those petitions are not all from red states.

Calif, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Ohio, Michigan, NY, NJ, Nevada, Oregon, and Penn are blue states.



Racists live in all states, their fearless leader batshitcrazy Rush and Beck are on the air waves in all 50 states.

[Martina]

Have all the cool people move out of Texas (what, like a tenth of the population) and move all the tea party racists from other states into Texas and let it secede. Can you imagine how mean-spirited and angry that place would be. Let em hate on each other.

Whenever a gay kid self-identifies, he or she is given the choice to leave the country of Texas and come to us. There will be loving chosen family and friends waiting to welcome her or him.

[Kobi]

Alaska, Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Ohio, Oklahoma, Michigan, Misssissippi, Missouri, Montana, New York, New Jersey, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Penn, South Carolina, Tenn, Texas, Utah, Wyoming.

My favorite petition is:

Mr. President, please sign an executive order such that each American citizen who signed a petition from any state to secede from the USA shall have their citizenship stripped and be peacefully deported.

[TexasCowboi]

Have all the cool people move out of Texas (what, like a tenth of the population) and move all the tea party racists from other states into Texas and let it secede. Can you imagine how mean-spirited and angry that place would be. Let em hate on each other.

Whenever a gay kid self-identifies, he or she is given the choice to leave the country of Texas and come to us. There will be loving chosen family and friends waiting to welcome her or him.


Excuse me?

[TexasCowboi]

Alaska, Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Ohio, Oklahoma, Michigan, Misssissippi, Missouri, Montana, New York, New Jersey, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Penn, South Carolina, Tenn, Texas, Utah, Wyoming.

My favorite petition is:

Mr. President, please sign an executive order such that each American citizen who signed a petition from any state to secede from the USA shall have their citizenship stripped and be peacefully deported.





I rather like this idea....

[Andrea]

Alaska, Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Ohio, Oklahoma, Michigan, Misssissippi, Missouri, Montana, New York, New Jersey, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Penn, South Carolina, Tenn, Texas, Utah, Wyoming.

My favorite petition is:

Mr. President, please sign an executive order such that each American citizen who signed a petition from any state to secede from the USA shall have their citizenship stripped and be peacefully deported.




I wonder if there is a country that would want such people....... <eye twinkle>

[Martina]

Excuse me?

Obviously I am joking, but . . . Texas brought us George W. Bush and all that has meant. I think there's going to be some derision -- for a generation or two anyway. Maybe more.

Seriously, is there a more proudly reactionary state in the union? Texas has had FIVE times, FIVE TIMES the number of executions of any other state.

Texas is an outlier in so many measurements of progress, especially given its great wealth, that it boggles the mind. It's not that it's poor and ignorant. It's rich and determinedly proudly ignorant. I can imagine loving one's home regardless, but conservative Texas is beyond a red state. It really is another country.

The Texas Board of Education has done more harm to high school social science and science teaching -- nationwide -- than maybe any other entity in the U.S. Texas is a huge market, and, in the past, publishers created texts that could be sold in Texas under their laws, texts that deny there is a separation of church and state, that discuss evolution as if it were ONE possible explanation for biological diversity, texts that pretty much ignore the presence Hispanics in the U.S.

As an educator, I have thank Texas so much for wielding that influence.

I googled -- this article (http://open.salon.com/blog/ted_frier/2011/08/17/gop_offers_up_another_made_in_texas_reactionary) is a year old. It quotes another article, from The Washington Post, that I did not bother to look up.

"Perry is known in Texas as "Governor Supercuts," not only for his spiffy hairdo, but also for cutting the budgets of schools and poverty programs and holding down wages," writes Texas liberal James Hightower. "In his 10-year tenure, Perry has created more minimum wage jobs than all other states combined, and his superrich state now has more families in poverty than any other."

The Washington Post's Harold Meyerson provides more particulars:

Rick Perry's Texas is Ross Perot's Mexico in reverse, says Meyerson. Through a third world combination of low wages, no benefits, high rates of poverty, scant taxes, few regulations, but generous corporate subsidies in the Texas "crony capitalist" tradition, the Lone Star State has managed to attract businesses from other states "to a place where workers come cheap," says Meyerson.

Texas also boasts a number of other firsts, writes Meyerson:

It is first in the percentage of workers in minimum wage jobs.

It is first in adults without high school diplomas, at around 12% and projected to reach 30% by 2030 if there is not more support given to public education.

It is first in the percentage of medically uninsured adults and first in the percentage of children without medical insurance.

It is first in the number of executions.

It has the fourth-highest rate of poverty of any state.

Confronted with a $27 billion budget deficit this year, Perry did not raise taxes but instead slashed $4 billion from the public schools, Meyerson reports.

Oooo, I read the rest of the article. I like this quote --

"The failure of the nation to Americanize the South has made it possible for the South, under leaders like George W. Bush (and now Rick Perry) to Southernize the United States," writes Lind.

Lind, who is a Texas native himself, believes that the revival of Southern conservatism is "an aberration" and that white, Protestant fundamentalism will be a shrinking influence in our politics. "Trigger-happy, free-spending, Bible-thumping Southern conservatism" is doomed in the long run, says Lind. "The only question is how much damage it will do before its unregretted demise."

Thank you, Texas.

I have to enjoy the fact that changing demographics are eventually going to turn Texas into one big beautiful blue state, regardless of how reactionary its conservatives are. Looking forward to that day.

[Martina]

This conservative did a little more than wring her hands. She ran over her husband with a car.

PHOENIX (Reuters) - An Arizona woman, in despair at the re-election of Democratic President Barack Obama, ran down her husband with the family car in suburban Phoenix on Saturday because he failed to vote in the election, police said on Monday.

Holly Solomon, 28, was arrested after running over husband Daniel Solomon following a wild chase that left him pinned underneath the vehicle.

Daniel Solomon, 36, was in critical condition at a local hospital, but is expected to survive, Gilbert police spokesman Sergeant Jesse Sanger said.

Police said Daniel Solomon told them his wife became angry over his "lack of voter participation" in last Tuesday's presidential election and believed her family would face hardship as a result of Obama winning another term.

Witnesses reported the argument broke out on Saturday morning in a parking lot and escalated. Mrs Solomon then chased her husband around the lot with the car, yelling at him as he tried to hide behind a light pole, police said. He was struck after attempting to flee to a nearby street.

Obama won the national election with 332 electoral votes compared with 206 for Republican challenger Mitt Romney. Arizona's 11 electoral votes were won by Romney.

[Oiler41]

There is always talk of people moving to Canada and Secession after an election. For both, I have but one thing to say:

If you don't like it here in the good old U.S.A. because your candidate didn't win, stop whining about it and threatening to secede; quit making idle threats and get the fuck out and don't come back. There are people lined up around the world who would leap at the opportunity to come here and take your place.

It doesn't matter which political party wins or loses; the other side is going to cry, flail around on the ground, and whimper about leaving the country or seceding. In a few months, it will all pass, as it always does. We live in a free society. If one doesn't like what is happening where they are, they have the right to change that up to and including finding another country to call home. I say quit the foaming at the mouth and get on with it. I will not lose one moment of sleep over anyone threatening to secede or leave the country; it is little more than post-election rhetoric.

Glynn

[Martina]

I honestly have to admire the level of hysterics the conservatives are displaying. The amount of weeping and moaning and gnashing of teeth is impressive. I am enjoying it, honestly.

[dreadgeek]

There is always talk of people moving to Canada and Secession after an election. For both, I have but one thing to say:

If you don't like it here in the good old U.S.A. because your candidate didn't win, stop whining about it and threatening to secede; quit making idle threats and get the fuck out and don't come back. There are people lined up around the world who would leap at the opportunity to come here and take your place.

The thing I found most beautiful about pseudo-conservatives who thought Romney would win in a landslide saying they are going to Canada is the breathtaking ignorance it displays. Think about it, these people are saying, "A Kenyan, Muslim, Atheist, Marxist, Socialist, has taken over the country and tried to bring European Social Democracy to our nation so we're going to move to Canada which is a nation with a Social Democratic social contract."

You've *got* to love the idea of moving to a *more* left-leaning nation because this country took a few incremental steps to the left.

Cheers
Aj

[Linus]

The thing I found most beautiful about pseudo-conservatives who thought Romney would win in a landslide saying they are going to Canada is the breathtaking ignorance it displays. Think about it, these people are saying, "A Kenyan, Muslim, Atheist, Marxist, Socialist, has taken over the country and tried to bring European Social Democracy to our nation so we're going to move to Canada which is a nation with a Social Democratic social contract."

You've *got* to love the idea of moving to a *more* left-leaning nation because this country took a few incremental steps to the left.

Cheers
Aj

I think it's the allusion of the White Christian Man ruling a nation, especially a Conservative. They seem to believe that because the Conservatives are in power somehow we're not as socialist as we are as a nation/culture. :canadian:

[dreadgeek]

I think it's the allusion of the White Christian Man ruling a nation, especially a Conservative. They seem to believe that because the Conservatives are in power somehow we're not as socialist as we are as a nation/culture. :canadian:

Well, you know how it is. I mean, when's the last time *you* saw a white man in the halls of American power? I mean, we haven't had a white president in, what, almost four years! It's even worse when you think about Secretary of State. When was the last time a white man held that position? It's been at least 10 years.

Cheers
Aj

[DapperButch]

This conservative did a little more than wring her hands. She ran over her husband with a car.

I honestly have to admire the level of hysterics the conservatives are displaying. The amount of weeping and moaning and gnashing of teeth is impressive. I am enjoying it, honestly.

These are separate posts and I know that you weren't saying you were pleased with the woman running over her husband, but reading both of these posts made me think....

...this could have just as easily been us. The strong beliefs and fear that we had that the country would be doomed if Romney took over office is just as strong in Republicans.

I questioned in a post prior to the election the effect of the election results on the losing party...I wondered if there would be an increase in anxiety, depression, etc. for those whose candidate didn't win.

My guess is that this woman truly, deeply believes that things will get worse for her family due to Obama winning, and it just put her over the edge, so to speak.

[Greyson]

Today I went to the California Secretary of State website to try and analyze election results. What I found surprised me.

There are a total of 59 counties in California. Votes are tallied from each preceint by County. First I looked to see how each County voted on the 11 propsitions on the ballot. To my amazement each of the 59 counties all agreed on each of the 11 Propsitions. Perhaps the percentages of Yes and No votes varied by County but in the final tally of each single vote for the propositions every county had the exact same result. All of the Propostions passed or not, across the board, the same in each County. (I hope this is making sense. The percentages of votes varied but the "pass or fail" was identical statewide.)

Then I took a look at the Presidential vote in each of the counties and it was pretty much what I expected, conservative counties voted in majority for Romney, more moderate and/or Urban Counties voted for President Obama. The exception was Orange County. Historically Orange County votes Republican. This time Obama won in Orange County by a samll percentage.

In the Senate Race, the same. conservative counties voted for Elizabeth Emken, Republican. (In this race Orange County voted in the majority for the Republican.) In the more progressive and/or moderate Urban Areas, Senator Feinstein, Democract won.

Can anyone explain why all counties voted the same on the propositons but not in the nation wide races? Yes, I know propositions are not officially partisan but most of us know which Party supports each Proposition. Thanks for your help.

[*Anya*]

Greyson, I am just trying to wrap my mind around Orange County, CA voting for Obama.

Perhaps the demographic is finally changing but it is still called the Orange Curtain.

It used to be a hotbed of the John Birch Society!

I lived there for 20 years and met more than my share of rabid Republicans.

[Linus]

Today I went to the California Secretary of State website to try and analyze election results. What I found surprised me.

There are a total of 59 counties in California. Votes are tallied from each preceint by County. First I looked to see how each County voted on the 11 propsitions on the ballot. To my amazement each of the 59 counties all agreed on each of the 11 Propsitions. Perhaps the percentages of Yes and No votes varied by County but in the final tally of each single vote for the propositions every county had the exact same result. All of the Propostions passed or not, across the board, the same in each County. (I hope this is making sense. The percentages of votes varied but the "pass or fail" was identical statewide.)

Then I took a look at the Presidential vote in each of the counties and it was pretty much what I expected, conservative counties voted in majority for Romney, more moderate and/or Urban Counties voted for President Obama. The exception was Orange County. Historically Orange County votes Republican. This time Obama won in Orange County by a samll percentage.

In the Senate Race, the same. conservative counties voted for Elizabeth Emken, Republican. (In this race Orange County voted in the majority for the Republican.) In the more progressive and/or moderate Urban Areas, Senator Feinstein, Democract won.

Can anyone explain why all counties voted the same on the propositons but not in the nation wide races? Yes, I know propositions are not officially partisan but most of us know which Party supports each Proposition. Thanks for your help.

Are you sure? The OC Register said this:

http://www.ocregister.com/sections/elections/president/

PRESIDENT AND VICE PRESIDENT
Orange County California Precincts Reporting 100%
100%
Barack Obama - D 44.2% 385,963 59.1% 5,581,902
Mitt Romney - R 53.6% 467,901 38.6% 3,645,245
Gary Johnson - L 1.2% 10,598 1% 98,890
Jill Stein - G 0.4% 3,440 0.6% 57,788
Roseanne Barr - P 0.3% 2,429 0.4% 36,974
Thomas Hoefling - A 0.3% 2,218 0.3% 27,105

[Greyson]

Anya and Linus,

Below is the link which I was reading about 7:30AM this morning. I know I was shocked. I remember when the old saying about Orange County was "Behind the Orange Curtain."

Okay, I was on my second cup of coffee when I read this, or thought I did. Do either of you have an idea about all of the counties agreeing on each proposition?

Thanks for your input, seriously.

http://vote.sos.ca.gov/

[Toughy]

I would have fainted dead away if Orange County had voted Obama.....

Greyson my friend....I'm not sure what you mean about the Propositions vote because if you go here: http://vote.sos.ca.gov/returns/maps/ballot-measures/prop/34/ you will find that 11 of 59 counties voted yes while the rest of the counties voted no. For those who don't know a yes on Prop 34 would have abolished the death penalty (yes CA has the death penalty) and instead made it life without the possibility of parole. It failed 53% no to 47% yes.

Prop 30, 32, 33, 34, 37, 39 also had counties voting yes and no.....that is 6 of the 11 Propositions.

I am confused by your question.

[Martina]

...this could have just as easily been us. The strong beliefs and fear that we had that the country would be doomed if Romney took over office is just as strong in Republicans.


Well, yes, there would have been a lot of dismay, but I think it's a little different. I think on some level the conservatives are aware that their time as the big bully on the block is over. Seriously, I do think the election marks the end of the so-called culture wars. I think the conservatives got to flare up big in the primaries and were slapped down in the general election. They know what the demographics mean. In addition, they have used gay rights propositions cynically to get the white vote out so that their candidates got a boost. This time gay marriage won. It's a sea change. Not just Obama winning.

These are white people, sometimes well off people, having to face the fact that they may never be the force they were in this country. (BTW, I have no idea whether the driver of that car was white. Speaking in general). They are enraged. The tone is different than it would be for us. Even though Obama is the encumbent, even though the Democratic Party is in less disarray than the Republican Party, the fact is that historically the people currently represented by the Republican Party have held much more power in this country than those represented by the Democratic Party. They still do.

But they couldn't buy this election. That's one amazing thing. And demographics are changing. The culture is changing. Young white evangelical males are not even as conservative as their parents on some social issues, like gay rights. The misery they are feeling is not just because they lost an election. They truly see that the future is not theirs. They do not know what to do with themselves, they are so pissed off.

And that's why I am gloating. Not just because the other side lost.

[Kobi]

I am a big believer that history repeats itself over and over, and it gives us such an opportunity to learn. Also helps temper our perceptions into a more realistic range:

Don’t get cocky, Democrats: The post-Romney GOP looks just like you did two decades ago
(http://news.yahoo.com/don%E2%80%99t-get-cocky--democrats--the-post-romney-gop-looks-just-like-you-did-two-decades-ago-13564462.html)

Why Obama is surely facing a second term riddled with scandal and upheaval
(http://news.yahoo.com/why-obama-is-surely-facing-a-second-term-riddled-with-scandal-and-upheaval-12242962.html;_ylt=AimyDjfzcNAjjguC1G_DjFH59XQA;_y lu=X3oDMTFqMDgxZXM0BG1pdANBcnRpY2xlIEJvZHkEcG9zAzE Ec2VjA01lZGlhQXJ0aWNsZUJvZHlBc3NlbWJseQ--;_ylg=X3oDMTM2ZjhuaWVpBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRw c3RhaWQDYzA1MGEwZTMtZTJjMi0zZTgzLTgxZWYtMmMwNDQ5Mm EzNWU1BHBzdGNhdANwb2xpdGljc3x3aGl0ZWhvdXNlBHB0A3N0 b3J5cGFnZQ--;_ylv=3)

People are not simple beings. They are very complex, very unpredictable, very fickle, and very self absorbed. Yet, they are also gullible, malleable, easily manipulated given the right message.

Kind of what makes the game of politics so fascinating.

Anyone want to take bets on the winner of the 2016 presidential election? I'm betting it will be a reformulated but still racist, sexist, white Republican male. And, he will win by a landslide. History indicates that is exactly what will happen.

[Martina]

That's party shit. The fact is that white male people will never ever hold the power they once did in this country barring some kind of change in civilization a la The Handmaid's Tale.

It was all I could do not to sing out loud to someone I know, "It's the end of the world as you know it. It's the end of the world as you know it. It's the end of the world as YOU know it. And *I* feel fine."

*proudly dancing on the grave of the moral majority and nothing anybody can say or do is going to muffle one little bit my BLISS*

I have lived through Reagan, Bush and W. Clinton was more Republican than Nixon in many ways. He sold poor people down the pike with welfare reform and has talked for years about that with pride. He knows better. I have forgiven him, but his Presidency did not feel like much of a relief from the Reagan ideology that has prevailed most of my adult life.

It's a new day. It really is. We are going to raise taxes on the RICH. OMFG.

*It's the end of their world as they know it . . . . . . *

[Kobi]

......Art Linkletter would be proud......

Any adults wish to make a bet on the 2016 presidential election?

[Greyson]

I would have fainted dead away if Orange County had voted Obama.....

Greyson my friend....I'm not sure what you mean about the Propositions vote because if you go here: http://vote.sos.ca.gov/returns/maps/ballot-measures/prop/34/ you will find that 11 of 59 counties voted yes while the rest of the counties voted no. For those who don't know a yes on Prop 34 would have abolished the death penalty (yes CA has the death penalty) and instead made it life without the possibility of parole. It failed 53% no to 47% yes.

Prop 30, 32, 33, 34, 37, 39 also had counties voting yes and no.....that is 6 of the 11 Propositions.

I am confused by your question.


Hi Toughy and all you other politco junkies. I really do not have the time to go back and take a look at the site right now. I have an unexpected dental emergency going on right now.

Honestly, I am almost afraid to go take a look. I studied it for about two hours yesterday morning and if I misinterpretted what I thought I was reading, well maybe I need to get some sort of medical evaluation. My apologies to all of you.

[Martina]

......Art Linkletter would be proud......

Any adults wish to make a bet on the 2016 presidential election?


Why would Linkletter be proud?

ADULTS??? What would that mean?

[Martina]

......Art Linkletter would be proud......

Any adults wish to make a bet on the 2016 presidential election?


Ooooo, I googled. "KIDS say the darnedest things" is your allusion. And then the ADULTS comment.

Kobi, being passive aggressive is not too mature. Just sayin.

[Corkey]

I loved the Linkletter, but he was old fashioned, grew up watching it.
Dance all you want Martina I'm sure some of us would join you.

[Okiebug61]

......Art Linkletter would be proud......

Any adults wish to make a bet on the 2016 presidential election?


I say Rubio, Christie, Jeb Bush are all being looked at by the GOP.

I understand all eyes are on Hillary's final call when she leaves as SOS.

[Kobi]

Ooooo, I googled. "KIDS say the darnedest things" is your allusion. And then the ADULTS comment.

Kobi, being passive aggressive is not too mature. Just sayin.


Passive aggressive indicates a clandestine form of communication for those who are unable or fearful of expressing their feelings or thoughts in a direct manner.

I am actually pretty straightforward, and pretty darn clever, and use humor and imagery well. ;)

[Martina]

I am actually pretty straightforward, and pretty darn clever, and use humor and imagery well. ;)



Lawd. *shakes head and displays a hint of a smile*

[Kobi]

Lawd. *shakes head and displays a hint of a smile*



(f)

I think I'm growing on her......

albeit perhaps like mold on wet sheet rock......

but its progress.......

:jester:

[Kobi]

Is anyone else following some of the more entertaining petitions on the whitehouse.gov site?

My favorite funnies....at least I hope they were meant to be funny......

1. Establish new legal system of motorcycle riding "Judges" who serve as police, judge, jury, and executioner all in one.

2. Allow United States Military service members to place their hands in their pockets.

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the bonds of service to the United States military, this regretful termination of service to this great nation is often precipitated by inane uniform and personal conduct policies.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all uniforms have pockets and hands fit perfectly inside them, and they sheathe our knife hands gloriously. It must be acknowledged that placing one's hands in one's pockets is not a sign of disrespect, but a precautionary action to prevent injuries.

Therefore, these undeniable truths being told, the service members of the United States military respectfully request the President of the United States to restore our sacred right to place our hands in our pockets -- on or off duty.

3. provide University graduates ability to trade their diplomas back for 100% tuition refunds.

Because of the inability of recent college graduates to find gainful employment in order to repay their college debt, and since this college debt cannot be eliminated in bankruptcy, and most of the recent additions to the job market have been in service related industries, the Obama administration should take up the cause of reducing college debt and hold those accountable responsible.

In the name of Consumer Protection, recent college graduates should have the ability to return the diploma and not make any reference to receiving education from the college in exchange for a 100% refund of college tuition. This may be extended with a graduated (ha, get it?) reduction for the last four years, with a red line at January 20, 2008.

4. have the President to attend a Fark.com party. If scheduling does not permit, at least have a beer with Drew Curtis

Too many serious petitions on this site asking the President to work his butt off. We believe that he should have a chance to have a good time.

[BullDog]

I'm too busy following the latest idiotic moves by John McCain. He's so concerned about Benghazi and wants Watergate-like hearings. Plus he will do whatever is in his power to block Susan Rice from becoming Secretary of State. Meanwhile he was too busy ranting in front of cameras at his press conference yesterday that he missed a classified intelligence briefing on a Senate committee he's serving on. It was a three hour briefing with testimony from officials from the State Department, the Pentagon, the CIA and the National Counterterrorism Center about Benghazi. Apparently there was a "scheduling error."

He calls the Whitehouse administration incompetent and Susan Rice not very bright. This from the man who picked Sarah Palin as his running mate and voted for Condoleezza Rice for Secretary of State despite all of the untruths she passed along from the Bush administration, whereas Susan Rice was not involved in Benghazi and was just the messenger based on CIA briefings on what was known at the time. Yeah he's real concerned about Benghazi.

[Corkey]

I'm too busy following the latest idiotic moves by John McCain. He's so concerned about Benghazi and wants Watergate-like hearings. Plus he will do whatever is in his power to block Susan Rice from becoming Secretary of State. Meanwhile he was too busy ranting in front of cameras at his press conference yesterday that he missed a classified intelligence briefing on a Senate committee he's serving on. It was a three hour briefing with testimony from officials from the State Department, the Pentagon, the CIA and the National Counterterrorism Center about Benghazi. Apparently there was a "scheduling error."

He calls the Whitehouse administration incompetent and Susan Rice not very bright. This from the man who picked Sarah Palin as his running mate and voted for Condoleezza Rice for Secretary of State despite all of the untruths she passed along from the Bush administration, whereas Susan Rice was not involved in Benghazi and was just the messenger based on CIA briefings on what was known at the time. Yeah he's real concerned about Benghazi.

The man is clearly out of his mind, and off the brink.

[Greyson]

Kay S. Hymowitz
The Misunderstood Gender Gap
Women’s voting habits have less to do with their sex than the media think.
16 November 2012


Romney lost the black, Hispanic, and Asian vote, while he won the college-educated vote (though not post-grads), the votes of those making over $50,000 a year, and the votes of older Generation X-ers, Baby Boomers, and voters over 65. In other words, married women voted less as part of a sisterhood than as part of a cohort of white people holding college diplomas, earning more than $50,000 a year, and wearing reading glasses.


http://www.city-journal.org/2012/eon1116kh.html

[Kobi]

Kay S. Hymowitz
The Misunderstood Gender Gap
Women’s voting habits have less to do with their sex than the media think.
16 November 2012


Romney lost the black, Hispanic, and Asian vote, while he won the college-educated vote (though not post-grads), the votes of those making over $50,000 a year, and the votes of older Generation X-ers, Baby Boomers, and voters over 65. In other words, married women voted less as part of a sisterhood than as part of a cohort of white people holding college diplomas, earning more than $50,000 a year, and wearing reading glasses.


http://www.city-journal.org/2012/eon1116kh.html




Thanks for posting this Greyson. It is important to break stuff down a little more than the media and politicans like to do.

Kay Hymowitz is a bit of a controversial figure in "analyzing" data that involves women. Sometimes, she comes across as a modern day Phyllis Schafly.

She has written a few controversial books that have both some merit and some wtf moments. Her book "Manning Up: How The Rise Of Women Have Turned Men Into Boys was interesting tho difficult to read. Amazon.com description.


And then there are her thoughts on why the gender wage gap will never go away i.e. Women prefer the Mommy track (http://www.city-journal.org/2011/21_3_gender-gap.html)

Women of color might have a bit of a problem with Marriage and Caste in America: Separate and Unequal Families in a Post-Marital Age

[Greyson]

Thanks for posting this Greyson. It is important to break stuff down a little more than the media and politicans like to do.

Kay Hymowitz is a bit of a controversial figure in "analyzing" data that involves women. Sometimes, she comes across as a modern day Phyllis Schafly.

She has written a few controversial books that have both some merit and some wtf moments. Her book "Manning Up: How The Rise Of Women Have Turned Men Into Boys was interesting tho difficult to read. Amazon.com description. (http://www.amazon.com/Manning-Up-Rise-Women-Turned/dp/0465028365)


And then there are her thoughts on why the gender wage gap will never go away i.e. Women prefer the Mommy track (http://www.city-journal.org/2011/21_3_gender-gap.html)

Women of color might have a bit of a problem with Marriage and Caste in America: Separate and Unequal Families in a Post-Marital Age (http://www.amazon.com/Marriage-Caste-America-Separate-Post-Marital/dp/1566637538)



Thanks Kobi. I found this article in "The City." A popular read for Urban Planners. I did not know of her writings but I do appreciate you showing me, us.

I do not always agree with stuff I post but I post it because I think there is some relevence to pieces of it. But really, I do appreciate your follow up post.

[Kobi]

The defeated GOP candidate famously disparaged Obama as the candidate of the 47 percent. Now, liberals gleefully view Mitt's final tally as poetic justice.

Got to love irony. (http://news.yahoo.com/irony-alert-mitt-romneys-final-vote-tally-nears-101000083--election.html;_ylt=AsrY0SfAqmLz4gEECUhv1Qew73QA;_y lu=X3oDMTVxOG4yMWgyBGNjb2RlA2dtcHRvcDEwMDBwb29sd2l raXVwcmVzdARtaXQDQXJ0aWNsZSBNaXhlZCBMaXN0IE5ld3MgZ m9yIFlvdSB3aXRoIE1vcmUgTGluawRwa2cDNDU0MWJiYmEtNmQ wNy0zYTRjLTk4NmEtY2E5ZTgzOTkxZTdhBHBvcwM0BHNlYwNuZ XdzX2Zvcl95b3UEdmVyAzgzZjA2OGUwLTMzZWUtMTFlMi05ZmZ mLTNkYzdmNmY4ODdiMQ--;_ylg=X3oDMTNhb3Y3Y2prBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRw c3RhaWQDN2VmZmVmNDAtN2IwZS0zMTU1LWExNGEtMGRhMjM4OD M3ODEzBHBzdGNhdANidXNpbmVzc3x0b2RheS1zbWFya2V0cwRw dANzdG9yeXBhZ2U-;_ylv=3)

[Soon]

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/186pc68fo8xupjpg/xlarge.jpg


GOP Assembles All White Male Roster of House Committee Chairmen for Upcoming Congress
Neetzan Zimmerman (http://gawker.com/5963871/gop-assembles-all-white-male-roster-of-house-committee-chairmen-for-upcoming-congress?commented=true)

It was somewhat disappointing, though not particularly surprising, when House Speaker John Boehner announced yesterday that the GOP's 19 House committee chairs will be occupied exclusively by white men starting next year.

For one thing, the current Congress has only a single minority chairperson — Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), a Hispanic woman.

For another thing, the GOP itself is composed almost entirely of white men: Of the 234 (or 235) Republicans that make up the 113th Congress, only 20 are women, seven are Hispanic, and one is African-American.

Compare that with the Democrats, who, for the first time, will count white male lawmakers in the minority.

The news isn't all bad for female Republican representatives. Four of them were selected for Boehner's leadership team:

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., will be the Republican Conference Chairman, the fourth top Republican in the House, Rep. Lynn Jenkins, R-Kan., will be the conference's vice-chair, and Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., will act as conference secretary.

Still, the fact remains that Republicans aren't showing any willingness to learn from their mistakes — namely, the disregard for minorities that just cost them a presidential election.

As Rachel Maddow said of the image at the top of the post: "This is what you can clip and save for the next time someone in the beltway tells you how seriously the Republican party is taking its diversity problem this year."