Yikes

I just hope nobody gets cocky.  This is exactly what certain bad guys wanna see because it makes good pretext for pulling some electoral shit.  ie: "See?  The librul media was in the tank for Obama all along, but the noble conservatives showed 'em what's what."

(hat tip = Democratic Underground)

Mike O'Brien ‏@mpoindc 

Oof. RT @Chris_Moody: New CBS/NYT poll finds Obama leading 53% to 43% in Ohio and 53% to 44% in Florida. 


Josh Marshall ‏@joshtpm 

This mornings new NYT/CBS polls devastating 4 Romney. Obama by 10 in Ohio, 9 in FLA, 12 in PA. http://polltracker.talkingpointsmemo.com/pollsters/quinnipiac-cbs-nyt … 


Chris Geidner ‏@chrisgeidner 

NYT: "Mr. Obama is leading Mr. Romney 53 percent to 43 percent" in OH. Bigger in PA, nearly that in FL.http://nyti.ms/Ql07CG 


National Journal ‏@nationaljournal 

Obama has six-point lead in new Bloomberg national poll. http://njour.nl/Sl5qhu 


Michael Tackett ‏@tackettdc 

New Bloomberg national poll +6 Obama. Romney dragged by negative perceptions @juliehdavishttp://bloom.bg/S4c8Jg 



POLITICO 2012 ‏@POLITICO2012 

Quinnipiac's jaw-dropping, eyebrow-raising swing-state numbers http://politi.co/SlxRAh by @aburnspolitico 


Josh Marshall ‏@joshtpm 

Must Read article on how early voting may mean Mitts goose is already half cookedhttp://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/09/early-voting-swing-states.php … via @TPM

Favorite comment:

Tough Crowd

The blue-hairs are all up in his grill an' shit.



I know - it's Daily Kos and all, and it's chopped neatly into little bite-sized chunks, but the guy got a pretty bad reaction from people whose votes he has to get if he wants to be Romney's veep.

I suppose it's possible he was sent in there to lay the groundwork for a "speak the painful truth" kind of message - I just can't help thinking these guys are so deep in the bubble that they don't believe any of the terribly bad shit that keeps happening to them is really real(?)

Gettin' It Done - 41

Obama's done some things.

41. Avoided Scandal: As of November 2011, served longer than any president in decades without a scandal, as measured by the appearance of the word “scandal” (or lack thereof) on the front page of the Washington Post.

Boykinism

The American Conservative is a pretty decent place to get some good old fashioned conservative info.  And who the fuck coulda seen that one comin'?

With the launching of the Global War on Terrorism, Islamism succeeded Communism as the body of beliefs that, if left unchecked, threatened to sweep across the globe with dire consequences for freedom. Those who Washington had armed as “freedom fighters” now became America’s most dangerous enemies. So at least members of the national security establishment believed or purported to believe, thereby curtailing any further discussion of whether militarized globalism actually represented the best approach to promoting liberal values globally or even served U.S. interests.

TeaBaggers and others who keep trying to pass themselves off as conservatives are little more than John Birch-style radical ass-hats wrapped in American flags and clutching their bibles - both of which they bought really cheap down at Wal-Mart who brought it all in from China.

A Quickie

Something's been buggin' me about the whole 47% thing - I mean something other than the douchebaggery of WIllard saying it, and the oral flatulence of Limbaugh and Noonan and Bobo as they try to pretend it was all about clumsy wording or inept campaigning or conniving libruls who like to play "gotcha games".  There was something else. Something very much in keeping with how Repubs do things, and it took me a while to figure it out, but here it is:

For a lot of people, Willard's attempts to dodge US taxes make him a bit of a hero.  Government is evil and all taxation is theft, so anything you do to screw the IRS is a noble gesture.  For these folks, Willard is the Self-Service version of Robin Hood.

So how come they don't see "the 47% who don't pay taxes" in the same light?

There's a guy flippin' burgers who used to work for the county as a civil engineer to keep the paving contractors honest, but he got laid off when they had to cut the budget to make up for tax cuts.  He doesn't pay Federal Income Tax because he doesn't make enough.  He'd love to get back to where he pays taxes again.  And there it is.  He wants to pay his taxes; he wants to pay the bloodsuckers their tribute; he's brainwashed; he's corrupt; he's not one of us.  And before you know it: "he must be eliminated"

So in GOP Oppositeland, you can't be virtuous if you're not out to fuck somebody over, and even tho' they actually believe the 47% are trying to do exactly that, the GOP must have an enemy, so the enemy is us.

Gettin' It Done - 42

Today's installment on what Obama's done.

42. Brokered Agreement for Speedy Compensation to Victims of Gulf Oil Spill: Though lacking statutory power to compel British Petroleum to act, used moral authority of his office to convince oil company to agree in 2010 to a $20 billion fund to compensate victims of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico; $6.5 billion already paid out without lawsuits. By comparison, it took nearly two decades for plaintiffs in the Exxon Valdez Alaska oil spill case to receive $1.3 billion.

See others

Gettin' It Done

We usually hear more about how rotten the opponent is rather than hearing anything good about the guy we're pulling for.  So here's a little countdown.  Hopefully, I'm going to post something every day until Nov 6 that lists some things Mr Obama has done in his first term.

You can take whatever it is as good or bad, of course - I'm just puttin' it all up.  Here's the down payment:

50. Killed the F-22: In 2009, ended further purchases of Lockheed Martin single-seat, twin-engine, fighter aircraft, which cost $358 million apiece. Though the military had 187 built, the plane has never flown a single combat mission. Eliminating it saved $4 billion.

49. Helped South Sudan Declare Independence: Appointed two envoys to Sudan and personally attended a special UN meeting on the area. Through U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice, helped negotiate a peaceful split in 2011.

48. Provided Payment to Wronged Minority Farmers: In 2009, signed Claims Resolution Act, which provided $4.6 billion in funding for a legal settlement with black and Native American farmers who the government cheated out of loans and natural resource royalties in years past.

47. Expanded Stem Cell Research: In 2009, eliminated the Bush-era restrictions on embryonic stem cell research, which shows promise in treating spinal injuries, among many other areas.

46. Recognized the Dangers of Carbon Dioxide: In 2009, EPA declared carbon dioxide a pollutant, allowing the agency to regulate its production.

45. Expanded Health Coverage for Children: Signed 2009 Children’s Health Insurance Authorization Act, which allows the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) to cover health care for 4 million more children, paid for by a tax increase on tobacco products.

44. Pushed Broadband Coverage: Proposed and obtained in 2011 Federal Communications Commission approval for a shift of $8 billion in subsidies away from landlines and toward broadband Internet for lower-income rural families.

43. Created Recovery.gov: Web site run by independent board of Inspectors General looking for fraud and abuse in stimulus spending, provides public with detailed information on every contract funded by $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Thanks partly to this transparency, board has uncovered very little fraud, and Web site has become national model: “The stimulus has done more to promote transparency at almost all levels of government than any piece of legislation in recent memory,” reports Governing magazine.

A Little Football

The take-away quote:

"Tim Tebow's throwin' arm is proof that there is no God."

(hat tip = The Atlantic)

Buncha Dopes (cont'd)

I put up a post yesterday that ended with my standard bitch about SIlver Spoon Legacy Pukes.

see Buncha Dopes

If you can manage it, then you should leave your kids something to get 'em goin', and good on you. But we're not doing ourselves, or them, any favors by plowing the road so perfectly that we end up with cretins like Luke Russert and Chris Wallace and Meghan McCain and GW Bush and Willard-fucking-Romney in positions of real consequence.

Something occurs to me when I think about my own disdain for inherited privilege and advantage, that hooks in pretty well with the arguments coming from The Grover Fluffers at places like Club For Growth and The TeaBaggers and practically all of the GOP.

My contention is that if I leave a ginormous estate to my kids, then there's not much incentive for them to work at anything, and to participate in a world (ie: an economy) that doesn't function properly unless practically everybody participates in it in roughly the same way.  I'm not talkin' about trying to make the field perfectly level by straight-up confiscation and redistribution.  That's been tried and it doesn't work for shit either.  I'm just talkin' about putting in some rules that make it a lot harder for your great great granddaddy to have greased the skids for you to the extent that you decide to grab for some real power by running for national office just because you haven't much of anything else to do.

Now think about conversations you've had with almost any "conservative", and tell me what they've had to say about "welfare has made multiple generations dependent on government largesse" - and/or - "if you just give stuff to people without making them work for it, they'll decide not to work at all".  And of course, these are almost always the same people who scream so loudly about the sheer horribleness of "The Death Tax".

Aristocracy sucks.  It's what an awful lot of brave souls decided to overthrow back in the late 18th century.  And, weirdly, Inherited Entitlement seems to be kinda the "natural order of things".  But that's what we said we weren't going to do anymore.  We said it may well be what happens everywhere else, but not here.  We're the exception.

DumFux News

When it gets this bad, you're goin' over the cliff.



There has to come a time when nobody is unaware of how fuckin' stupid everybody thinks you are if this is where you get the information necessary to participate in the world and to conduct the actual living of your life.

Viewer Tip: hit PAUSE a few times at the end so you can read the "corrections".

Stay Tuned

Reports are coming out of North Africa now that have Libyans storming some-to-several camps or buildings and militia headquarters and killing at least 2 people in protest of the attack on the American consulate in Bhengazi last week.

From The DailyTimes:

Libyan protesters ousted a militia from its headquarters and seized a raft of other paramilitary bases in second city Benghazi early on Saturday in heavy clashes that left four people dead.

The seizure of the headquarters of Ansar al-Sharia - which has been accused of, but denied, involvement in the murder of US Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans last week - came after tens of thousands took to the streets on Friday to protest against the power of the militias.

It bears watching.

"Buncha Dopes"

Chris Wallace tries to be legit, but he almost always falls a little short.  I get the feeling he's not happy with his position at DumFux News, and I think it's because he knows the jig is up - even a big chunk of the die-hard centrists who tune in for Wallace or Bret Baier or Shep Smith have recently come to understand just how crassly partisan Rupert's Playhouse really is.

So, when Chris has to do a promo spot with the boneheads on the morning show, he can barely disguise his contempt; and apparently, the feeling is mutual.



And BTW - Chris Wallace is another reason I'm so totally against supporting any but the absolute minimal kind of intergenerational handoff.

If you can manage it, then you should leave your kids something to get 'em goin', and good on you.  But we're not doing ourselves, or them, any favors by plowing the road so perfectly that we end up with cretins like Luke Russert and Chris Wallace and Meghan McCain and GW Bush and Willard-fucking-Romney in positions of real consequence.

No more Clintons, no more Bushes, no more Rockefellers, no more Roosevelts, no more Kennedys etc etc etc

No dynasties, no aristocracy, and no Sliver-Spoon Legacy Pukes allowed.

Let My People Vote

And here's the URL for LetMyPeopleVote2012:

Today's Pix

Stewart's On Fire

Gotta see this one - Comedy Central