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No he wasn't. All he had to do was run a good campaign and change away from the Bush years would happen. It's a long told story in American politics that sometimes gets hyped into something that it was not. Change, not into something that was transformational, but away from something was what a majority wanted. (I was going to add something about the Chicago political machine but I lost my train of thought.) |
All this hand wringing about McCain is fun but, really, as soon as the economy tanked in September and October, whoever was running as a Republican had lost.
SI |
The Sweep: Vikings, voters and the charge of the Militant Middle - CNN.com
Ok, so the article is not that interesting or that good, frankly. But the question remains: after whatever happens this year and in 2012, do things start to gradually head back to the middle? Or is this polarization systemic due to jerrymandering, national pursestrings, etc? And if that's the case- what finally changes that? You can't just expect wild polarizing swings every 2 years. Eventually someone is going to figure out that controlling the middle ground has always been the best way to win elections. SI |
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I'm not sure that's true, at least in off-year elections. Turnout is going to be key in Nov. I've seen a few polls recently that put the generic ballot at even or even favoring the Dems a bit, but once a likely voter screen is attached the numbers go to +3 or +4 GOP. So many people don't vote that getting your people to show up at the polls may be more important than broad appeal. |
Guess which party this ad belongs to?
This is Jim Marshall, the Bluest of Dogs, fighting for his life once again in the GA 8th district, one of the most conservative districts in the country that is held by a Democrat (it has a PVI of R+10). He's survived very close races in the past and this will probably be another close one so I doubt this will be the worst we see from him. |
Wow!! Politicians actually doing something useful:
Senate votes to turn down volume on TV commercials - Yahoo! News |
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel officially resigns
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Meg Whitman has now passed Michael Bloomberg's record for the most money spent out-of-pocket to finance one's campaign. In her case, $119 million. And she's still tied with Jerry Brown in the polls. It probably hasn't helped that after she said corporations who hire illegal immigrants should be fined, someone found out that she had an illegal Mexican housekeeper for 9 years.
"Do as I say...." |
I think Gloria Allred is a twat, but she really punked Whitman. After Whitman denied she knew the woman was illegal and offered to take a lie detector, Allred produced a letter from the SS Admin with Whitman's husband's writing. Now Whitman is backing down from her lie detector comment.
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Libertarianism at work? :)
Firefighters watch as home burns to the ground Originally printed at http://www.wpsdlocal6.com/news/local...104052668.html By Reporter - Jason Hibbs By Photojournalist - Mark Owen September 30, 2010 OBION COUNTY, Tenn. - Imagine your home catches fire but the local fire department won't respond, then watches it burn. That's exactly what happened to a local family tonight. A local neighborhood is furious after firefighters watched as an Obion County, Tennessee, home burned to the ground. The homeowner, Gene Cranick, said he offered to pay whatever it would take for firefighters to put out the flames, but was told it was too late. They wouldn't do anything to stop his house from burning. Each year, Obion County residents must pay $75 if they want fire protection from the city of South Fulton. But the Cranicks did not pay. The mayor said if homeowners don't pay, they're out of luck. This fire went on for hours because garden hoses just wouldn't put it out. It wasn't until that fire spread to a neighbor's property, that anyone would respond. Turns out, the neighbor had paid the fee. "I thought they'd come out and put it out, even if you hadn't paid your $75, but I was wrong," said Gene Cranick. Because of that, not much is left of Cranick's house. They called 911 several times, and initially the South Fulton Fire Department would not come. The Cranicks told 9-1-1 they would pay firefighters, whatever the cost, to stop the fire before it spread to their house. "When I called I told them that. My grandson had already called there and he thought that when I got here I could get something done, I couldn't," Paulette Cranick. It was only when a neighbor's field caught fire, a neighbor who had paid the county fire service fee, that the department responded. Gene Cranick asked the fire chief to make an exception and save his home, the chief wouldn't. We asked him why. He wouldn't talk to us and called police to have us escorted off the property. Police never came but firefighters quickly left the scene. Meanwhile, the Cranick home continued to burn. We asked the mayor of South Fulton if the chief could have made an exception. "Anybody that's not in the city of South Fulton, it's a service we offer, either they accept it or they don't," Mayor David Crocker said. Friends and neighbors said it's a cruel and dangerous city policy but the Cranicks don't blame the firefighters themselves. They blame the people in charge. "They're doing their job," Paulette Cranick said of the firefighters. "They're doing what they are told to do. It's not their fault." To give you an idea of just how intense the feelings got in this situation, soon after the fire department returned to the station, the Obion County Sheriff's Department said someone went there and assaulted one of the firefighters. |
Not sure how this is Libertarian...
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Yeah that is exactly what will happen if the government cuts back on spending even just a little bit. That is about as silly as people claiming that Obama and the Democrats are communists.
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It's all about the economy. Sometimes I think the entire campaign apparatus and all the millions spent is just one big scam.
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Doesn't this amount to private fire protection? Being a former libertarian, I knew a few that were for private fire/police protection. That kind of attitude kind of turned me off. Libertarianism at the federal level, sure. But at the local level? Maybe if we want to follow the Somalian model. |
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It's not totally a scam. It allows companies and individuals to buy candidates in the future. To use an example, the campaign season allows health care companies to funnel nearly $4M into Max Baucus's campaign in the last decade so that he can royally screw "we the people" over in health care reform. SI |
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Ultimately I have to blame the voters. We say we hate it when corporations throw cash at candidates but yet we still reward the behavior with our votes. |
To a point, but at what point do you have to make the decision of "the lesser of two evils" versus "making a protest vote"? I think that's an important distinction that the libertarian crowd fails to take into account. It would be easy to always make a protest vote if I strongly felt that each side were just as bad.
But, (un?)fortunately, it's on a continuum, not a binary "yes" or "no". Let's throw out that, in a particular race, I agree with the Democrat on 60%, the Republican 30%, the Libertarian 50%, and the Green party candidate 90%. The simple answer should be "vote for the Green party candidate", right? Well, not so fast. What if leading up to the election, the results are D 45%, R 45%, L 5%, G 5%? Honest question- who should I vote for? If it's close enough that my vote might matter- is it better to stand on principle or vote for someone you agree with twice as much even if it's still a substantial margin less than your favorite candidate. If you look at the best example I can think of, which is Florida and Nader in 2000, there's a bit of disagreement. SI |
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Vote your conscience or else have this same discussion every single election about how neither the Republicans or Democrats care about your vote but you still have to vote for them because of what other voters might do. To me it's not even the "lesser of two evils" that has thrown me to vote for Libertarians the past few elections. It is the fact that on the issues that I actually side with Republicans or Democrats on they very rarely follow through on anything. Case in point... Obama was a "peace" candidate. How long did that last? Continued war in the middle East, possible war with Iran/Pakistan, continued assault on civil liberties with war on terror, and now to top it all off this weekend after years of having my Democrat friends laugh with me at the moronic color coded terror diagram this administration rolls out their own version of it. Don’t travel to the 4 million square mile Europe, bad things might happen. Nobody can take this seriously, can they? |
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Agreed. Voting strategically doesn't make sense because this isn't the supreme court - you individual vote is NOT going to turn the tide of the election. |
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Yeah, I took a fun little course in college on political parties and, yeah, it seems as if the plurality system systemically pretty much gave rise to political parties and limited it to 2. Not entirely true, but you're almost locked into that long term number. SI |
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Is your one vote "for voting your conscience" going to matter any more than you individual vote to "turn the tide of the election"? SI |
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Under that same criteria, my individual vote isn't going to do much for the Greens or Libertarians or whoever. I'm sure alot of people in Florida 2000 didn't think their individual vote mattered. Was the cause of the Greens better served for those extra votes going to Nader? Are the environmental groups, for example, happy to argue in the Supreme Court with Roberts and Alito on the bench vs. whoever Gore would've appointed? |
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I think so, because it's your conscious, it's what you believe in, voting for that is an important part of participating in democracy. I think that's important no matter what state you live in (I'm not a fan of people saying their vote for president "doesn't count" because they're in a strong red/blue state). But ya, the practical impact of your vote doesn't matter either way - so why not let what you believe in win out over implementing some "strategy" that won't impact anything? |
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Not true actually. The Libertarians, Greens, Reform, etc are kept out of the debates because of rules that the Republicans and Democrats helped write that requires a certain percentage in public opinion polls to be allowed in the debate. I think everyone will agree that Ross Perot sure did change those debates (whether you agree with the end result or not) |
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I guess if the Greens got together and chose to vote as a bloc strategically, that might make some sense. But ya, your individual vote isn't got to have any practical value no matter how you vote. I think its a part of your soul and your personal history though (when someone says, "I voted for X in 2000 and X in 2004", I find those comments very relevant to someone's political views, moreso to just someone spouting off randomly. |
Okay, as much as I'd like to see more people involved in the debates, there has to be some kind of limit, right? I mean, let's say the Libertarians and Greens both got in. Are they gonna support every single person getting into the debate? We'll have a debate of 30 people?
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There has to be some quantifiable minimum standard of relevance, but I think almost everyone (except those really vested in the big two parties), think that standard should be lower. |
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I sort of agree but as a Libertarian supporter it would be pretty two-faced of me to want 3-4 people in the debate but to keep the Reform or Communist party out of the debate. I don't know though maybe it would be a huge step forward if we did include 5-6 different viewpoints. I think people who read this thread are familiar with the Libertarians, Greens, Reform, Constitution, etc but since the mass media gives them basically zero coverage maybe the general public isn't familiar with their views. If a couple of the smaller parties gave some solid reasons for ending the wars, ending corporate favortism, changing the drug laws, saving the environment, etc then the GOP and Democrats can either explain why these ideas don't work or risk losing voters. Last election's debates would have been much more interesting watching Obama and McCain explain a central bank or how the drug laws work than watching both of them explain how they care about "Main Street" and Joe the plumber. I don't agree with Ralph Nader on a lot of issues but it would have been a lot of fun watching him hold McCain and Obama's feet to the fire on foreign policy. |
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And then that brings in another problem with our voting system. Let's say the Greens, Libertarians, and the Tea Party all become relevant parties. They get into the debates and now the voters are now split. Let's say it's now 30-30-15-15-10. With our first past the post system, we'll have people winning all of California's electoral votes with 30% of the vote. The presidential winner could theoretically be in the 20s for the popular vote.
i'm not opposed to a more parliamentary style system, but it would absolutely not be workable under out current electoral format. |
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I think that is a problem that most (outside of the JIMGa's and SteveBolleas) would welcome. |
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I'll let Steve speak for himself, but I think you have him pegged wrong if you don't think he'd support a revamped system. |
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You may be right but he seems to side with Obama 99.9% of the time and even when upset with something Obama does he makes sure to rationalize (i.e. make excuses) why it is still better than the GOP. If that isn't a two party statist I don't know what is. |
Third parties will never do anything. You have two parties who control all the power and want to keep it that way. Especially when they agree on most of the issues. It's a two-party dictatorship no matter what people pretend to believe about democracy.
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I would argue that it IS possible for this to change but it takes a fair amount of time - England was a two party system for the longest time, but through patience the Liberal Democrats have managed to get to the stage where they're influential within the country. Something which I think is potentially a VERY good thing as if we continue with coalition governments then it takes the edge off the 'swing' when the government changes between the two main parties ..... |
Dana Milbank looked at American Conservative Union ratings for GOP congressmen over the past four decades and looked at who would be vulnerable in today's climate. Murkowski scored a 77% and Bennett scored an 83% and both lost primaries as too liberal.
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Interesting: First legal test of the Health Care law goes to the Justice Dept (and the Prez)
Federal judge upholds key provisions of health care law | freep.com | Detroit Free Press |
I'm amused by the challenge to the mandate, because conservatives always seem to love to tell the story about the law passed in Kennesaw that required homeowners to own a gun and how that's why Kennesaw had such a low crime rate.
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The health care reform is way, way within the commerce clause powers that the federal courts have identified in the last few decades, but I still wonder if that power has any limit whatsoever. I really don't think it does. I'd feel better if we could just amend it to the "everything clause". That certainly would have made law school easier.
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And if we can't have relevant 3rd parties, I'd definitely settle for angry factions within existing parties. The tea party, whatever the hell it is, is definitely relevant. I'd love to see a green party-esque angry sub-party within the Democratic party. We're not going to get beneficial reform unless there's more than two political voices out there.
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Tea Party would have been more relevent in the 1950's... |
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Interesting part is it looks like companies and even unions are seeking waivers and making changes in respone to the health care bill: McDonald's, 29 other firms get health care coverage waivers - USATODAY.com http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/t...KLwbYtp6Nam7LK Microsoft Stops Covering All Healthcare Costs For Employees |
My company's plan (which is excellent, comparatively) has been grandfathered in.
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I guess I'll have to go to a dirty right-wing blog to get some kind of table regarding which organizations are getting these waivers, and how much those organizations contributed to the Obama campaign. |
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I didn't say they weren't. Doesn't change the fact that they're bigoted hate & fear-mongers though. |
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All 3 of them?? Of course it was a broad brush. I don't claim to know all of them. But given the public pronouncements of the candidates that they have put forward (which I suppose is a fairly logical way of examining them), I'm not sure what other conclusion one could draw. I'm not making any statements about the initial Tea Party groups (although I don't think they were all Libertarians or anything - there aren't that many true Libertarians in this country...particularly not that many senior citizens who just happen to be Caucasian who were Libertarians). I'm saying what they are now. |
I'm curious to know if folks think that this is an effective ad:
I think the ad for actors that can play "hicky" was by the RNSC, rather than the candidate himself. I had been waiting to see when Manchin would raise the issue that Raese does not primarily live in West Virginia and I think this is a really powerful ad. Particularly since West Virginians have more of an "us against the world" attitude (and you can almost call it a fiesty inferiority complex) than most other states. |
I believe that that will be an effective ad for most people who put any weight in ads to begin with.
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Not sure if this fits here, but what the hell.
Be sure and watch all the way until the end. |
My first season of campaign commercials in 4 years and I must admit I think they all seem like total d-bags. I don't want to vote for anybody...but I suppose I have to.
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This is what happens when a football player gets too many shots to the head. From Jon Runyan:
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Maybe we should give the citizenship test as a qualification to run for Congress. How many candidates would have to step down?
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I think the same should be given to voters personally. If you don't know the basics of government you don't get to vote.
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I figured this has become the defacto political thread, and I came here to see if Juan Williams was getting any love.
His firing was THE hot topic for a while yesterday according to Google Trends, but I guess there isn't much chance the President will step in with a position. It does tickle a couple of his "I must comment on this" hot buttons though. My take. Yes what he said was essentially the he racially profiled people he flies with. I'm not going to go so far as to call that bigoted, although that is the charge. I do hope that NPR extends this "policy" to the rest of their commentators and correspondents who may tend to stray past their role of journalist and into editorial during their commentary. I'm a fan of NPR, but this doesn't set well with me. |
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Jesse Ewiak, you are really a treat. "Look, Bill, I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous." vs. "[financial workers in the WTC on 9/11] are the moral and philosophical equivalent of Adolf Eichmann." edit: It's still against the rules for banned people to come back under new names, right? |
I love it when conservatives argue for tenure.
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I thought Rick Sanchez was fired because he was a complete jackhole and a moron.
EDIT: Ah, google tells me he went off on Jon Stewart and Jews. I remember Stewart destroying him on TDS. Not surprised Sanchez went off the deep end when his stupidity was put on full display. |
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Irony much? |
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I'm genuinely curious, do you put "the Tea Party" in caps and that use definite article intentionally? Like, to try to trick everyone or something, that we're talking about something like "the Democratic Party" or "the Republican Party" Racists in houston. Stop the presses. I am so tired of nutjobs trying to spin these stories into something politically relevant. And what's with the smarmy posts - "Oh and another example of..." Is there this huge group of people here that you're responding to that are apparently claiming that any given local Houston "tea party group" even understands the concept of fiscal responsibility, let alone are motivated by it? It's just trollish garbage and it's ALL you ever post - you offer nothing else. No original thoughts, no nothing. Just these dopey, arrogant attempts to connect anyone who thinks differently than you to the most unsavory element possible. That's just being a dick. |
It's like you're trying to say - "hey, if you have the slightest inkling towards favoring government responsibility, or a concern about rampant government corruption - you should know, that RACISTS are associated with those ideas. RACISTS!"
The local tea party movements are like a gold mine for jackoff liberals who don't have the aptitude to defend and discuss their views, but are really good at slandering any diverse opinion through association. (which thankfully, is a minority of liberals.). |
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Arrogant B.S. again, and yes, I do think that you think you're smarter than everyone else. Nobody here has a problem with disparaging racists. But that's not what you're doing at all. You're using racists to try to score political points for your team. You even kind of admit it in this post, claiming that "the conservative resentment against Obama might just have a little something to do with race". In your fucked up world, there's "your people", and racists/homophobics. Most of us are not in either group. If I went up 100 miles north of Boise this weekend, into real rural America, I'm sure, among the group of people that distrusts the federal government, wants lower taxes, more state sovereignty, and likes their firearm rights, I could find a spirited subset of people who are incredibly vile - racist, homophobic, violent wife-beaters. I could get them fired up about the federal government and start a "local tea party movement" that would be, like many of them are, very vile and disgusting. But what would this group tell us about national politics, people who disagree with the current administration on some things, or even the other, good people in that rural area? I would say absolutely nothing. You're trying to tell us it means everything. What I'm not sure of yet, is whether this is either a conscious strategy, or if you're just the small-minded liberal version of those bigoted Idaho people? |
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Have you ever noticed you're only capable of posting smarmy schtick, and can't even put together a sincere statement about your views? This is what makes you come off like an arrogant prick. (And I think it's why it's so easy to identify you as your previous FOFC identity, though I don't remember it well enough to be able to make that connection personally) There's plenty of smart liberals here who say lots of smart, sincere things that expresses their views. People disagree, I usually disagree at least on the government role stuff, but it's usually or almost never this weird smarmy arrogant B.S. that doesn't appear to be responsive to anything anyone has actually said. You don't seen capable of more than that. Everything is just schtick, probably from something else you read somewhere on the internet. It doesn't appear you have a sincere bone in your body. You don't give a shit about people, politics is a team sport/hobby where you can attack people who you feel superior to. |
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:lol: Not sure if he's just trolling or actually believes the ignorant crap that he spews... Hopefully it's the former as the latter is just plain sad... |
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Those are pretty funny. I ran them down, although I did have to google a couple to refresh my memory. I frankly wasn't even aware of the Octavia Nasr situation. Her's is a tough situation, as she expressly supported this guy who was an enemy of America(my words). She later clarified her position, and I think probably should have weathered the storm, but CNN felt otherwise. Most of these folks stated fairly direct and inflammatory opinions in rather inflammatory manners. Juan Williams couched his comments as much as he could, making it clear that the moderate muslim world has to be distinguished from the extremists. I don't think his statement measures up on the "offensometer" like many of your examples below. Oh, and you forgot Dan Rather. I'll thrown John Bolton into the arena. My sense of balance. --- Helen Thomas: "Jews should get the hell out of Palestine, and go back to Germany"~paraphrase -- Fairly straightforward statement that she was anti-Israel. Rick Sanchez:"The Jews run CNN and the rest of the media"~paraphrase Again, you don't have to be a rocket scientist or wear a tin foil to pick up on his Gibsonesque inference. Eason Jordan: Might have said(I had to look this one up):"The US Military intentionally targeted journalists and killed them...or maybe didn't care that there were journalists in the line of fire...or maybe that isn't what I meant". I think he should have been fired simply for being a speaker/panelist at a conference of his peers, and purporting nonsense...or maybe purporting nonsense. In any case he appeared on several occasions to not know what the hell he was talking about, all while making(maybe) a provocative and outlandish claim. Arnett? really, you're going to throw Arnett out there? I'm not even going to look his up. From baby milk factory to being pretty much a discredited whacko. He demonstrated a lack of judgment unprecedented by correspondents during a time of war. Ashleigh Banfield: Pretty much railroaded for stating her quite reasonable opinion in a professional and forthright manner. In an appropriate forum. She was screwed. Maher: "The terrorists are more heroic than pilots in our military" Yeah like that isn't sensationalism targeted at firing up the public. You can't blame a company beholden to that public for taking action. Besides, it looks like he's recovered just fine any way. Phil Donahue: Not sure of the controversy here. Years later, it was discovered because the powers that be thought he was too liberal and anti-war. Maybe this is something I'd be upset about. I have to admit it was under my radar. Phil isn't someone who I'd typically classify as level headed. Ward Churchill: Seriously!?! Whacko Indian nazi guy. I'm not bothered at all when universities fire people for being morons. I'm fairly certain I posted about him here somewhere. I was pretty active back then, and found him offensive. He absolutely has the right to his stupid opinion, and the school is absolutely within its rights to distance itself from him and his opinion. Chas Freeman: A bunch of senators critical of an appointee due to positions that appointee has taken in the past. Yeah this never happens. I was less bothered by this than the blocked appointment years ago of William Weld. Actually I had very little problem with this one, mainly because I'm uncomfortable with someone with his bias(granted my assessment of his purported bias) in the position for which he was nominated. Van Jones: Come on?! Really. I thought Arnett was a stretch for you. You think anyone who believes that 9/11 was perpetrated by this government(Frankly he may have only believed that the Government let it happen) has any credibility? He has NO professional standing to warrant any sort of presidential appointment. |
After taking the time to respond, I've read the last page or so. So since when is it cool to say that BSBollea is JesseEwiak? That is pretty rough, unless it happens to be the truth. In any case that's like a personal attack..even if it is true.
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Not to mention the fact that no one would give a shit whether he was Jesse or not if it wasn't for his political views, which is why I said above that it was ironic considering the discussion we're having right now. |
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I never thought this was even controversial. Everyone that used to read Jessie Ewiak knows that who this is. I don't think he was slamming him, he was just pointing out who he is. Did you really not know that is who SteveBollea is? |
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He suggested a banning for a poster that said something he disagreed with politically. That's what I find ironic. The actual identity of SteveBollea is irrelevant. |
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OK, I am with you there. I think GlenGoyle was more about wondering whether it is true so I probably should have quoted him and not you. There is no doubt that he is Jessie Ewiak. I really don't care that much, never wanted him banned or anything, I just knew the whole time who he came back as. |
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But he also said that it's reasonable to be fearful of all Muslims in Muslim garb. That's the very essence of bigotry, whether he wants to admit it or not. Imagine me saying I worry my child isn't safe around anyone in Catholic garb, or I worry about my money when I see people in Jewish garb. Even if I sincerely believe it, that's still bigotry. That being said, I think it's a poor reason to fire Williams. I don't like the witch hunts around reporters that offend a powerful constituency. NPR has a right to can him, but I wouldn't have for this offense. IMO he should have been fired long ago for dancing around the rules at NPR. They are very tight on what their reporters can do(they recently banned reporters from attending the Stewart/Colbert rally off duty). Williams has also become a stale source of conventional wisdom and doesn't offer NPR anything they can't get elsewhere for far less money and headaches. |
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It was bigotry, but it was a kind of bigotry that I think many if not most Americans have, so it was kind of honest, and an interesting admission. It was like he was admitting this personal flaw, which could have taken the conversation somewhere interesting, but I don't think O'Reilly was interested in that. I don't think he was expressing any kind of political "viewpoint" at all. He just got a little too comfortable. |
I have to admit when I first heard about this flap, I expected the comments to be much worse than what I ended up reading. And at least he was honest instead of couching his opinion in the "some people say" gambit that Fox uses.
However, a good rule of thumb for anyone in the public spotlight is that if you start a sentence with "I'm not a racist, but..." then you should just stop right there. Nothing good is about to happen. |
I'm really happy the Florida AG did not appeal the court ruling that overturned the gay adoption ban, much like Schwarzeneggar and Jerry Brown did in the Prop 8 case. Disappointed that Obama is appealing the DADT ruling. I understand he has to hedge his bets on such a controversial issue, but this seems to give him the opening he needs to let it be overturned. (Nor do I buy the argument that he is required by law to appeal as the 14th Amendment would certainly have supremacy over such a law.)
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What I find hilarious is that it was Log Cabin Republicans that started this whole anti-DADT court case.
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Yes, so we have Republicans fighting for gay rights and a Dem President fighting against. Meanwhile, the opposing lawyers in Bush vs. Gore have teamed up to take down Prop 8 and their cause was aided by a Republican governor who refused to appeal their victory. |
Lol, didn't know about that second part.
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"Racism is a lazy man's substitute for using good judgment ... Common sense becomes racism when skin color becomes a formula for figuring out who is a danger to me."
Juan Williams, 1986 |
I don't really think what he said was all that wrong. He said how he feels when he sees someone in Muslim garb on an airplane. I'm sorry, but I'm guessing a large number of us would feel odd too in that situation.
Just as we would in many other situations involving races, ethnicities, and gender. The bigger issue NPR likely had was that he appeared on a show that is primarily comprised of hate speech. We see a lot of political entities distance themselves from hate speech when someone has some form of association with it. I'm guessing this was an excuse to fire him and distance themselves from that kind of stuff. |
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I equated them as somewhat whacko liberals, but there are more than two of them in the world. So I for one never made that connection. I figured that this was made public through IP tracking or other personal connections, as I seem to recall that Jessie had personal connections with other folks here. |
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For me the problem with his comments is that he said he fears Muslims and that's okay. The second part is the big problem. |
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A black lady and here small child get into an elevator with 4 white men in leather jackets with shaved heads. Are you saying if she is fearful in anyway "That's the very essence of bigotry, whether she wants to admit it or not." |
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On my phone so I apologize for brevity. You're wrog. I disagree with a lot of people's opinions here (yours often) and have no interest in banning them. Jesse (and it IS Jesse) is just acting like the same person he was that got him banned originally. I am just surprised that someone would actually like a prick, get banned, and come back and not think that perhaps be should develop a different tone. |
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If she extends that to I'm fearful of all white men with short hair and that's okay, yes that's the very essence of bigotry. |
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Over the years I've known quite a few Muslim's that did not dress in "Muslim garb". Particularly in Turkey, but also in the US Military. There are definately different levels of "Muslim garb". Can I look at somebody and react differently based on how they look? Absolutely. That's not bigotry or racism. In any event, while working in Turkey, I had the opportunity to work with the Turkish National Police on one occassion (think of them as the Turkish FBI equivalent). We were cruising through a village on the outskirts of Adana and saw some women that were head to toe in their traditional black garb. The Turkish officer noted that women dressed in that Muslim garb were noteworthy because "their men" were the one's the Turkish govt really had to worry about because the fundamentalist extremist was the source of "angst" against the western leaning Turkish goverment. I didn't consider that Muslim officer a bigot when he mentioned that to me, not towards Muslims anyway, probably against Kurds though. |
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Sorry, but if you say it's okay to view all of them as dangerous that is bigotry. Recognizing you are making assumptions based on race or religion is natural, saying those assumptions are justified is the problem. Williams is also stupid if he thinks the ones to fear are the ones who are obviously Muslim, but that's a different discussion. |
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I would say before Muslim terrorists started using commercial airlines as weapons, it would be bigotry. After DOZENS of uses, it's profiling. I agree with him, I can't help but get a little nervous when I see young male Muslims on aircraft with me. Not dangerous...just I know the possibility is there. |
Again, the feeling isn't the problem for me. I've posted about how I recognize racist feelings as I'm driving to my work. My problem with Williams is that he didn't say these feelings were bigoted, but natural. He said they weren't bigoted and defended them. Saying all people at airports in Muslim garb are dangerous when ZERO people in Muslim garb have committed terrorist acts in the U.S. is absolutely bigotry. What else could it be when you judge an entire group of people based on clothing?
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Let's get the answer from Juan Williams: Quote:
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Maybe we are talking about two different sound bites. I'm working off of this one. |
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We're talking about the same thing, I just think you need to look at the longer quote. Quote:
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So the first part doesn't prove bigotry but the two thoughts together does? I don't get it.
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Look at it this way...
A serial killer is terrorizing an area and the only thing that the public know about him is that he wears a red hat. You are walking at night and when you tun the corner you see someone with a red hat walking towards you. What do you feel? It's not bigotry, it's called being freaking human and having a survival instinct. The only people to be blamed for someone feeling nervous about seeing a muslim on a plane are the radicals that caused the problem in the first place. |
To paraphrase, he's saying,
I'm nervous when I see people in Muslim garb because the fact is that the Muslims want to kill us all. |
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