The Election Thread

[Stattick]

From what I understand, you can also request a paper ballot instead of using the electronic machines if you go to the polling place on election day.

I don't know if this is anything anyone here has experienced, but there have been issues with the electronic voting machines not keeping the records.  Someone in Wisconsin recently requested access to the data from a past election under the open records law, and the people in charge of the voting machines were unable to oblige -- if I remember correctly, as soon as the results were announced they wiped the data packs so they could be reused.  It may still be perfectly all right, but I'd really rather know that the records are around, just in case, and I don't see why there should be any issue about keeping them.

Of course, that may be more of a Wisconsin problem, given that no trick is too low for Walker and Co. 

Was this the same election where two Democratic counties suddenly, without any warning, turned Republican for that single election, over where the voting machines were being used? I'm not saying that such things cannot happen on their own, it's just that I tend not to believe in coincidence. Or am I misremembering?

[Torch]

Congressman says abortions never necessary to save life of mother




You know, I just post a fraction of the news stories I come across. But just the raw volume of stupid coming out of the right this election cycle is staggering. I'm actually getting fatigued with posting this stuff. 

Keep in mind this is the same congressman who was taken to court by his ex-wife for failure to pay child-support. 

[Stattick]

Ok, found a pretty good video talking about the Romney's owning the voting machines:

CORRUPTION: Bain-Controlled Company Owns 2012 Voting Machines



And here's the funniest parody of a Romney commercial I've seen:

Song of Mitt's Self

[Stattick]

Darrell Issa (R-CA), releases a flood of documents onto the internet, putting our allies at risk in Libya. Why would he do that? To try to score points for Romney before the debate.

[Valerian]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/22/tommy-thompson-paul-ryan-budget_n_1997870.html

This is kind of interesting.  Tommy Thompson, who turned himself into a raving maniac in order to get the support of the far right for his shot at a U.S. Senate seat, doesn't seem to like his allies much anymore.  Thompson pledged to help Ryan's budget pass back in May.  Ryan has been supporting Thompson during public appearances.  But perhaps sensing a change in the air, Thompson has recently been touting his own plan for Medicare which isn't Ryan's, but something Thompson came up with.

Instead of setting up a new system of plans for seniors to choose from, Thompson would give seniors two choices: stay on Medicare or buy into the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program, which is essentially a private exchange that federal workers have access to.

According to a report commissioned by Kaiser Health News in September, FEHBP does a poorer job of holding costs down than does Medicare. FEHBP grew by an average of 7.1 percent per enrollee each year, compared to 5.8 percent for Medicare.

But Thompson insisted that his plan has been "projected" to "save money," arguing that the Congressional Budget Office looked at a plan that was similar to his.

"They have not looked at my plan," he said of the CBO, adding, "This is a plan by Paul Ryan, I’ve modified it. I think my plan is better."

...

When pressed by the editorial board, Thompson hadn't seemed to have thought his plan through, admitting he didn't know if it would actually save the federal government any money and referring to FEHBP as the "Health Education Benefit Package."

[MasterMischief]

I voted!  Now do your part.   

[Teo Torriatte]

President Says Obamacare Can Take Care of Romnesia After Third Presidential Debate Florida

[Stattick]

Multimedia day:

Mitt Romney: Extremely Conservative and Endorsing Richard Mourdock

537 - Obama for America TV Ad

[Stattick]

Mitt Romney may have lied under oath to help out a friend, Tom Stemberg during Tom's divorce. Stemberg is the founder of Staples. It's alleged that Romney testified that Staples was virtually worthless, so that Stemberg's disabled wife would get screwed out of the fortune that was owed her. Suffering from MS and cancer, she lost her home, has had massive financial struggles, and her ex-husband took her off of his insurance. Tom Stemberg later served Governor Romney as one of his chief health care advisers.

There's a current court battle under way to get the court records unsealed on this matter. I guess Romney has more skeletons in his past than just the plea bargain deal he made to avoid prosecution for tax evasion a couple years back.

http://www.tmz.com/2012/10/24/mitt-romney-tom-stemberg-staples-lied-perjury-divorce-case-maureen/

[Valerian]

Americans for Prosperity wants you to vote Republican -- and they'll pay for your gas to help you make up your mind.

AFP is basically an arm of the Koch brothers, right-wing extremists and billionaires.  However, since AFP somehow has non-profit and non-partisan status, they're hiding behind that status in order to make this attempt to buy votes, saying that what they're trying to do is to educate the voters.  They are, of course, misleading the voters by implying that high gas prices are all Obama's fault, and that his green-energy policies have also helped keep prices ridiculously high.

Of course, what's happening in a lot of places -- they're doing this across the country -- is that people who have no intention of voting for Romney are just taking advantage of the cheap gas.  But of course the fact that the AFC is backing up their rhetoric with money (since they don't have any facts to back it up) is making headlines and catching the public's attention, so I'm sure they consider it money well-spent.  It's little enough compared to the funding they get from the Koch brothers.



In other news, the increasingly desperate Tommy Thompson has turned to politicizing 9/11 for political gain.

The Thompson ad attacks Tammy Baldwin for voting against a 9/11 resolution that Congressional Republicans decided to politicize in 2006.  Republicans substantively changed that resolution from being the usual kind of 9/11 anniversary resolution into something that endorsed the Patriot Act, punitive immigration policies and other highly controversial measures.

And from this article:

The Baldwin campaign’s ad [in response to Thompson's] points out that Thompson, after serving four years as U.S. health secretary under George W. Bush, worked as president of Logistics Health, Inc. The Wisconsin-based company won an $11 million government contract in 2008 to treat 9/11 emergency responders but was roundly criticized for being slow to provide benefits and help those suffering from health issues related to their work at the scenes of the attacks.

Thompson made $3 million when Logistics Health was sold last year. The Baldwin ad alleges that Thompson profited off the company’s 9/11 contract.

Mahlon Mitchell, a Baldwin supporter and president of the Wisconsin Fire Fighters Association, said he was shocked by Thompson’s ad making the attacks an issue in the race.

I wish I was shocked.    Baldwin has a slight lead in the polls overall, but it's still too close to call, and Thompson knows this is his last chance for a Senate seat.  I can't see the Republicans supporting him again if he loses this time.

[Stattick]

[Oniya]

I'm going to have a short gigglefit over the fact that Kenya (where all the 'birthers' say Obama is from) has the highest percentage of Romney supporters - not that it compares to Kenya's support for Obama.

Then I'm going to wonder which third-party candidate Pakistan is 'voting' for?

[Stattick]

Cute little ad for Obama:

Lena Dunham: Your First Time

The right wing response? Slut shaming, calling her family over-sexualized, saying that she's been in therapy since she was seven, and comparing Obama to Vladimir Putin. Really. You can't make this shit up.

The site above does link to where Lena Dunham, the girl in the commercial, writes about loosing her virginity. At 20 or 21 years old, during her sophomore year in college. Can you imagine, having sex so young.

What a slut. [/sarcasm] Republican Party: Out. Of. Touch.

[Tsenta]

I really should have brought this thread up to point out all of Romney's bullshit when I had a big argument with my grandfather who is a Romnut.

[Stattick]

Mike White, the chairman and owner of Rite-Hite, a major Milwaukee manufacturer of industrial equipment, threatened his employees this week. In an e-mail, he lied and told them that the amount of taxes his company would have to pay would go up substantially if Obama was elected, and thus the company would probably have to do away with it's pension and health care benefits. Making threats like this is specifically against the law in Wisconsin, but it's unlikely that the crooked Tea Party Attorney General, J.B. Van Hollen will pursuit prosecution on this case. (JB was the guy that declared Obamacare "dead" in Wisconsin and refuses to help prosecutors in the corruption probes of Wisconsin Tea Party Governor Scott Walker.)

[Stattick]

I really should have brought this thread up to point out all of Romney's bullshit when I had a big argument with my grandfather who is a Romnut.

Fight the battles you think you can win. Frankly, most of can't "win" an argument with our parents or grandparents. They just have the attitude that they're older and wiser than us, and that they "know better". So, don't beat yourself up about an argument that you probably were doomed to loose, no matter how good your logic and evidence was. If he's going to reject your arguments because of irrational reasons, then there's nothing to be done. You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into. On the other hand, if you think there's hope that he'll actually listen, feel free to start dropping him links to some news stories. Why should parents/grandparents be the only ones that get to "dadspam"?

[Valerian]

Mitt Romney may have lied under oath to help out a friend, Tom Stemberg during Tom's divorce. Stemberg is the founder of Staples. It's alleged that Romney testified that Staples was virtually worthless, so that Stemberg's disabled wife would get screwed out of the fortune that was owed her. Suffering from MS and cancer, she lost her home, has had massive financial struggles, and her ex-husband took her off of his insurance. Tom Stemberg later served Governor Romney as one of his chief health care advisers.

There's a current court battle under way to get the court records unsealed on this matter. I guess Romney has more skeletons in his past than just the plea bargain deal he made to avoid prosecution for tax evasion a couple years back.

http://www.tmz.com/2012/10/24/mitt-romney-tom-stemberg-staples-lied-perjury-divorce-case-maureen/

Update on this: the court records have now been unsealed, and Romney's testimony is now making the rounds.

http://www.standard.net/stories/2012/10/26/transcript-released-romney-testimony-staples-ceos-testy-divorce-trial

At a Staples board meeting in September 1987, Romney and fellow board members agreed to set the value of the company’s common shares at one-tenth of one cent, the transcript shows. Romney acknowledged on the stand that he previously testified that he believed the value of the common shares at that time was roughly $1.30 a share.

"You voted in favor of that, did you not?" an attorney for Sullivan Stemberg asked of the board vote for a one-tenth-of-a-cent valuation. "But you’re telling the court that on the same day the share was really worth $1.30?"

"That’s correct," Romney responded.

"Now, was it your true belief when you voted on September 22 that the value of the stock was one-tenth of one cent?" the lawyer asked.

Romney answered: "It was my true belief that one could justify one-tenth of one cent as the value of the common stock but that the stock was probably worth more than that."

...

A year after the settlement, Staples went public, and its stock value soared to $19 a share. Bain Capital turned a $2.5 million investment into a $13 million profit. Romney’s decision to back the company helped cement his reputation as a savvy investor.

Emphasis mine.  Romney's supporters still insist he did nothing illegal -- which might be true, thanks to that very careful wording of his -- but I notice no one's trying to claim he did nothing unethical. 

[RubySlippers]

Actually the presidential race is not the big one its who will control the Senate and with Indiana's seat now favoring the Democrat due to the "if a woman is raped its god's will" opponent this is going to be where to watch. If the Democrats hold on to 51+ seats with the two independents that caucus with them or gain a seat or two, it won't matter if Romney gets in will it at least for getthing his agenda through. If Obama gets in its not much different the House and minority in the Senate are going to block things. Either way its not going to matter.

As for the polls the only issue is electoral votes and that will be decided largely in Ohio since Romney pretty much has to have it to win and Obama would be well towards enough Electors to win if he takes Idaho and Wisconsin as well. I don't care about the popularity national polls in the end its who can get bodies to vote for them that will decide this and Obama has his people working on key groups to get wins.

[Stattick]

Mitt Romnmney releases campaign photos. That's not a typo. That's how his name is spelled on the sign. "Romnmney". Also, I like the non-Euclidean nature of the pavilion too. Some people are claiming that Romney's team just horribly mangled the photo in photoshop, trying to make the event look bigger. Fox News is trying to claim that the pic was an accident, a panoramic picture gone wrong. But me, I think that the stars are right, and that Romney's true nature is shining through.

[Oniya]

There's bad Photoshopping, and there's clueless Photoshopping.  This looks like an attempt to cobble together three separate photos into a panorama, without even bothering to even attempt to match up lines and angles.  The end result being that the pavilion iz pastede on yay.  Gone wrong?  No.  Never right.  My eleven-year-old could do a better job, I'm sure.

[Stattick]

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s chief of staff during his time as secretary of state, decried John Sununu’s comment that Powell only endorsed Barack Obama because they are both black. “To say that Colin Powell would endorse President Obama because of his skin color is like saying Mother Teresa worked for profit,” Wilkerson told Ed Schultz... "“Let me just be candid: My party is full of racists."

http://tv.msnbc.com/2012/10/26/colin-powells-former-chief-of-staff-my-party-is-full-of-racists/

There's video of the interview at the link. It's powerful stuff, you should go watch it.

[Callie Del Noire]

http://tv.msnbc.com/2012/10/26/colin-powells-former-chief-of-staff-my-party-is-full-of-racists/

There's video of the interview at the link. It's powerful stuff, you should go watch it.

I have a lot of respect for some of the people that worked for President Bush.. not many.. but some. Gen Powell was one, 'Condi' Rice was another. That being said I don't agree with everything they support or represent, but the feel I get from some of the folks in the party is just that..

They ARE racist..they refuse to admit and conceed it. I've been waiting for one of them to get really angry and say the 'n-word' in front of a camera.

[Serephino]

Racism is definitely a problem.  I see Romney/Ryan signs in yards all over the place, which I find depressing.  What I also notice is that when talking to people they say we need to get that dumb *n* out of office.  Yep, I live in a very racist area.  Of course, there are people like my boyfriend's grandpa too.  He says he'd rather vote for a dumb *n* than for a dumb fuck that doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground.  Racism aside, can't argue with that logic.

I had a really nice dream the other night that Romney got arrested.  Maybe we'll get lucky and my dream will come true.

[TheGlyphstone]

So it's really old, but this video is still kinda funny:

the obama lama song

[MasterMischief]

My dad...my dad told me the "Don't re-nig in 2012" 'joke'.

Sad llama