The General American Politics Thread

[Conando]

Yeah, told my friends about that earlier. One of them actually responded with that gif.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Donald Trump's self-proclaimed megaton is apparently that Michelle Obama filed for divorce twelve years ago.

Yep, troll.

Moving on...

[Linkabel]

Donald Trump's self-proclaimed megaton is apparently that Michelle Obama filed for divorce twelve years ago.

It's ironic coming from someone who specializes in divorces.

[Patticus]

If this video goes viral like the 47% one did, could it hurt Romney?

"I’m a big believer in getting money where money is, and it’s in Washington."

It makes it sound like the only reason he'd go to Washington would be to line his own pockets. The Obama campaign could use another Romney leaked tape right now.

[Stacy]

If this video goes viral like the 47% one did, could it hurt Romney?

"I’m a big believer in getting money where money is, and it’s in Washington."

I think I heard a toilet flush, ouch!

Edited October 24, 2012 by BW199148

[Patticus]

The president offers some slightly refreshing candor after a rhetoric-filled few weeks, though it wasn't on the record and he probably won't be too pleased to have it plastered all over the place:

Obama: If I Win, It Will Be Because GOP Alienated Latinos

President Obama said Tuesday that if he is to win a second term, it will be because of support from Latino voters.

In an interview with the Des Moines Register, which was originally conducted off the record but made public Wednesday, Obama said he is "confident" that he can get immigration reform done next year. He credited his strong Latino support in large part due to the Republican missteps.

"Since this is off the record, I will just be very blunt. Should I win a second term, a big reason I will win a second term is because the Republican nominee and the Republican Party have so alienated the fastest-growing demographic group in the country, the Latino community," Obama told the influential Iowa paper.

The president's comments are obvious, but they are notable for their candor.

Obama currently has the support of 70 percent of Latino voters, according to two national polls this week. That's higher than the 67 percent he received in 2008, and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's share is well below Sen. John McCain's support four years ago.

And despite a struggling economy and lack of progress on immigration reform, Democrats and Obama have effectively been able to paint Romney as an unacceptable alternative and have frequently highlighted the GOP's efforts to block immigration reform in Congress.

Obama has long asserted that the Republican Party's move to the right on the issue of immigration would come back to bite them.

"I don't think it requires us to go negative in the sense of us running a bunch of ads that are false, or character assassinations," Obama told Univision News during a roundtable with reporters last year. "It will be based on facts … We may just run clips of the Republican debates verbatim. We won't even comment on them, we'll just run those in a loop on Univision and Telemundo, and people can make up their own minds."

When asked how he would break gridlock on Capitol Hill next year, he said that Republicans would be encouraged to get on board with an immigration bill if Latino voters break significantly away from the party.

"The second thing I'm confident we'll get done next year is immigration reform," he said. "George Bush and Karl Rove were smart enough to understand the changing nature of America. And so I am fairly confident that they're going to have a deep interest in getting that done. And I want to get it done because it's the right thing to do and I've cared about this ever since I ran back in 2008."

Obama told Univision in April that he will "try" to get immigration reform done in the first year of his second term.

But at a Univision-sponsored event last month, he called the lack of progress on comprehensive immigration reform legislation the "biggest failure" of his first term.

"My biggest failure is that we haven't gotten comprehensive immigration reform done … but it's not for lacking of trying or desire," Obama said.

"I haven't gotten everything done that I want to get done," Obama added. "That's why I'm running for a second term."

http://abcnews.go.co...01#.UIgSK8VY3HR

I can't see that having an effect on poll numbers one way or the other, but it's nice to see him acknowledging the changing demographic makeup of this country.

Trump's megaton has turned out not to be the reveal of any divorce papers. It's

Yawn. Non-news. Just Trump being a slab of moldy dick-cheese again.

[PSI Wind]

That's not being racist, is it? I'm not sure but I don't think it is.

[Tornado]

If that's being racist then all demographic information is.

So, no; unless you're crazy.

Edited October 24, 2012 by Tornado

[Patticus]

Stuff in the news right now:

Ann Coulter says words, inevitably insulting someone, somewhere (this time, she targeted the president)... then gets a response from an offended Special Olympics athlete... whom she will probably soon begin insulting.

Link.

Unapologetic Indiana Republican Senate hopeful Richard Mourdock receives continued support from the Romney campaign, even after stating during a debate that rape pregnancies are, to paraphrase, "a gift from god."

Link.

Sarah Palin, upon realizing she's not getting any attention any more, weighs in with some racially charged language, accusing Obama of 'shucking and jiving' during the Libya segment of Monday's Foreign Policy debate. 'Shucking and jiving' is slave-owner terminology, and she just threw it right at a black man.

Link.

tl;dr: Ann Coulter is still being herself, another Republican has set foot in mouth, and Sarah Palin has had another brain fart. It's just another day on Bullshit Mountain.

Edited October 24, 2012 by Patticus

[Tornado]

I'm not up to date on my rich white trash former governor of Alaska slang. What does "shucking and jiving" actually mean?

[Patticus]

I'm not up to date on my rich white trash former governor of Alaska slang. What does "shucking and jiving" actually mean?

According to Urban Dictionary:

To shuck and jive" originally referred to the intentionally misleading words and actions that African-Americans would employ in order to deceive racist Euro-Americans in power, both during the period of slavery and afterwards. The expression was documented as being in wide usage in the 1920s, but may have originated much earlier.

"Shucking and jiving" was a tactic of both survival and resistance. A slave, for instance, could say eagerly, "Oh, yes, Master," and have no real intention to obey. Or an African-American man could pretend to be working hard at a task he was ordered to do, but might put up this pretense only when under observation. Both would be instances of "doin' the old shuck ‘n jive."

Basically, she looked up some slave-owner terminology, and threw at it a black guy. Nice going.

Edit: Barack Obama may be regaining his once-decisive lead, so tragically lost in the first round of the presidential debates, according to this article from The Examiner:

According to a new CBS/Quinnipiac University poll, President Obama is now leading Mitt Romney by five points in Ohio, a state no Republican has lost while winning the presidential election. Ohio's 18 electoral votes will be key, with both candidates spending much time in the Buckeye State. On the question of which candidate "cares about your needs and problems," President Obama leads Mitt Romney by 23 points, 60 to 37 percent.

[...]

... a new poll by Project New America shows President Obama now ahead of Mitt Romney in [Florida], holding on to a 48 to 45 percent advantage. The new Reuters/Ipsos daily tracking poll for Tuesday showed President Obama also leading in Florida, in addition to taking the national lead by one point. Other polls have Mitt Romney in the lead, but while many were quick to put Florida in Romney's column, the race is obviously too close to call.

New Hampshire was another state that team Romney thought they could add to their list following the first debate, but a new poll shows them outside the margin of error. According to a new Granite State Poll by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, President Obama is leading by eight points over Mitt Romney, 49 to 41 percent. The gender gap is proving to hold steady in New Hampshire, as President Obama is leading Romney by 23 points among women, holding a commanding 57 to 34 percent advantage.

Not all is well for the president, however, as Mitt Romney has all but locked up North Carolina's 15 electoral votes and looks to be in the lead for Virginia's 13 electoral votes. During "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell" on MSNBC last week, actor and director Rob Reiner made the statement that President Obama and Mitt Romney were running for "the president of Ohio." Considering the current electoral map, Mr. Reiner couldn't be more right.

http://www.examiner....ey-swing-states

Now obviously it doesn't pay to place too much weight on individual polling numbers, but I'm hoping that these numbers will prove to reflect a general upsurge of good will toward the Obama campaign leading into the end of October and the week of the election. Hopefully that'll produce the conditions for a very favorable election day, and a joint electoral college/popular vote victory somewhere over 290-300 points.

And in another Examiner article, Gloria Allred is rumored to have some dirt on Romney:

Does outspoken Obama supporter Gloria Allred really have an “October surprise” in the works that will sabotage Mitt Romney’s run for the White House, or is the rumor, first published by the Drudge Report, all wet? Inquiring minds want to know.

The story, circulated by RadarOnline.com, contains an Oct. 18 tweet by Matt Drudge reading:

Another website named The Red Side of Life, Conservative Musings from New York is quoted as having written:

Allred has refused to comment on the claim, noting curtly, “I don't discuss meetings with potential clients."

RadarOnline.com previously reported Allred’s putative role in the unseating of Meg Whitman, who ran for governor of California in 2010. Allred represented, a former Whitman housekeeper named Nicky Diaz, who alleged that she was terminated because she was an illegal immigrant. Ultimately the election went to to Democrat Jerry Brown, who has since passed a state version of the DREAM Act.

Allred was a delegate for President Obama at the DNC in North Carolina last summer.

http://www.examiner....gn?CID=obinsite

I have no idea who this woman is, but if she has dirt that could severely hamper the Romney campaign, I'd like to see it come out, and with plenty of fanfare to boot.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

I knew some people were just out of touch, but goddamn this is beyond ridiculous. Ann Coulter's always been a lightning rod, so I always ignore her, but it's like the republican's are really wanting to set things backwards than move forward. They do realize that the trolls in their party aren't helping their cases, right?

Edited October 25, 2012 by ChaosSupremeSonic

[Tornado]

Gloria Allred is still relevant? What the hell year is this, 1997?

[PSI Wind]

Thought so.

[Patticus]

Even if she's a nasty bitch, she can't possibly be worse than Ann Coulter... and isn't anyone the least bit curious about what, if anything, she's dug up on R Money?

Any controversy she can stir up about him now will surely be a blessing for the Obama campaign.

[Tornado]

No, that's not it. She's an ambulance chaser. A prolific, powerful, well-known one, but an ambulance chaser nonetheless. To the extent that her name by itself was a punchline about a decade ago, much like Johnnie Cochran's was 15 years ago (to be fair, she was aware of it and made fun of it herself).

I'm not saying whatever she found won't be a big deal, but it's surprising as hell to know she's still around doing her thing.

Edited October 25, 2012 by Tornado

[SenEDDtor Missile]

No, that's not it. She's an ambulance chaser. A prolific, powerful, well-known one, but an ambulance chaser nonetheless. To the extent that her name by itself was a punchline about a decade ago, much like Johnnie Cochran's was 15 years ago (to be fair, she was aware of it and made fun of it herself).

Ambulance what?

[Patticus]

A lot of the continuing criticism the Romney campaign is leveling against Obama for the size of the US Navy and whatnot baffles me.

The whole nature of naval warfare has changed quite radically since the days of the Dreadnought; entire new classes of ships wielding entirely new weapons (projecting power many times further than ever before) exist now, neither of which were available back then. The roles warships play have diversified, and the structures of fleets themselves are also quite different now as a result of the development of new ship classes and new weapons. Battleships today cost many times more than they used to, thanks to all that. The end result? A smaller navy equaling or exceeding the power of the US Navy as it was then, and easily able to meet the demands of early 21st century warfare.

Obama gets this. Romney and Ryan just don't.

On military matters, Obama's clearly the better candidate.

[Conando]

Ambulance what?

An Amublance Chaser. It's basically a shitfy lawyer. Ever see those commercials where lawyers say they'll get you money for some personal injury or suing the pants off of some drug company for side effects? That's an ambulance chaser in one respect. It also has the dual meaning of an opportunist, someone that chases the easy way to fame or fortune.

Edited October 25, 2012 by King Of Awesome

[Patticus]

Sooo apparently the Gloria Allred stuff has sort of been known about for a couple of days. It's alleged Romney lied under oath in a divorce case about the value of a friend's shares so his wife would get less money:

CANTON, Mass. — A Massachusetts judge will hold another hearing before deciding whether to unseal testimony that GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney gave in the divorce case of Staples founder Tom Stemberg.

Ex-wife Maureen Sullivan Stemberg appeared in court Wednesday with lawyer Gloria Allred. They said they did not object to a Boston Globe motion to lift an impoundment order on Romney's 1991 testimony in the case.

Attorneys said Romney's testimony dealt with financial matters.

Romney lawyer Robert Jones said he does not anticipate objecting but would like time to review the entire transcript. He asked a judge not to delay the hearing beyond one day.

"This is a decades-old divorce case in which Mitt Romney provided testimony as to the value of a company," Jones said. "He has no objection to letting the public see that testimony."

Staples was founded with backing from Romney's firm, Bain Capital. Tom Stemberg has been a surrogate for Romney and spoke on the former Massachusetts governor's behalf at the GOP convention.

In the Globe's motion to unseal Romney's testimony and to modify a court order prohibiting both sides from discussing testimony in the case, the newspaper argues that Stemberg has been a prominent spokesman for Romney's qualifications for the presidency and has cited Romney's role in the success of Staples.

Attorneys for Romney and Staples asked the judge for more time to review two booklets of testimony Allred produced.

Stemberg's lawyer, Brian Leary, said there was nothing salacious in the testimony he had seen, but acknowledged he only had 20 pages. He described the divorce as incredibly contentious.

The hearing was set to resume Thursday.

http://www.huffingto...ont_popular_art

I was hoping it would be something worse than that. Still, lying under oath is perjury... could he still be punished for that?

Also fuck this state:

A new Ohio program intended to make voting easier could keep the presidential election in doubt until late November if the national outcome hinges on the state’s 18 electoral votes.

Under Secretary of State Jon Husted’s initiative to send absentee ballot applications to nearly 7 million registered voters across Ohio, more than 800,000 people so far have asked for but not yet completed an absentee ballot for the Nov. 6 election.

Anyone who does not return an absentee ballot, deciding instead to vote at the polls, will be required to cast a provisional ballot.

That’s so officials may verify that they did not vote absentee and also show up at the polls.

By state law, provisional ballots may not be counted until at least Nov. 17.

That means if Ohio’s electoral votes would be decisive in the race between President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the state could keep the nation in suspense for several weeks after the election.

“That would be called my nightmare scenario,” said Amy Searcy, director of the Hamilton County Board of Elections.

But it is also, election experts warn, a distinctly possible scenario if the vote in Ohio – and nationwide – is close.

“We could easily see a situation in which the nation has to wait for Ohio because of provisionals,” said Ed Foley, an Ohio State University law professor and nationally respected expert on election law. “We ought to start thinking about those what-if scenarios now rather than the Wednesday morning after the election.”

Through Friday, about 1.43 million Ohioans had requested an absentee ballot, but only 618,861 had returned their vote, according to Husted’s office.

Both numbers will grow by Nov. 3, the deadline for most Ohioans to request an absentee ballot.

Another nearly 190,000 people had cast absentee ballots in person at their county boards of elections or designated early voting centers in Ohio’s 88 counties.

Many of the 800,000-plus voters who have not yet returned their completed absentee ballot likely plan to wait until closer to Election Day to do so.

http://news.cincinna...htmare-scenario

[Tornado]

Not a chance. Even if Allred did have completely objective proof of the value of the company at the time (and value of assets/liabilities held by the company isn't necessarily the same thing as actual value of a company, so that would be extremely difficult), she would also need to prove that Romney outried lied about his testimony rather than gave his interpretation of the information available to him (because Romney would be considered an expert in financial proceedings, nevermind for a company which he bankrolled as a startup; which is probably why they allowed him to testify to begin with).

The most she could do is try to demonize him for allegedly backing up his friend in a particularly acrimonious divorce, which would hardly gain her any sympathy (because rich people aren't the only ones who have messy divorces) even if she could prove it in the first place.

Edited October 25, 2012 by Tornado

[Patticus]

Maybe whether Romney lied or not will take a back seat, because according to the Boston Globe's anonymous tipster, in the documents which are now to be made public, there lies juicy information on Romney. Quite what that might entail, I don't know, but that'll be why some Democrats are so pleased with Allred's victory. That said, Romney himself has no objection to everything being made public, so either he has forgotten about any juicy gossip in there that might cast him in a negative light, or there isn't much of anything there after all.

On the Huffington Post, somebody going by the name Maureen Stemberg (it may not be her) said this of Romney:

He had a lot of bodies hidden in his "personal and business life". Will very soon be revealed. When the door opens he and his team will be heading for the hills. Scary group.

Whatever the documents contain, it had better be good, or I'll RAEG SO HARD.

Edit: Looks like I'm not the only one who noticed the good polling numbers for Obama. The New York Times' FiveThirtyEight blog has noticed it too, and has concluded that Romney's much-vaunted momentum appears to have ground to a halt. With no more debates left to be had on the presidential level (state-level debates are ongoing for the moment), Romney doesn't have the kind of national platform which would be best to kickstart that lost "momentum" from. Added to that, in Indiana, the ad showing him personally endorsing much-criticized Richard "rape pregnancies are god's gifts" Mourdock is still airing and will do so until election day, unless Romney u-turns on that too. That, plus whatever the docs Allred has managed to make public, could put Romney in a tight spot and provide Obama with the polling and early voting boost he needs.

[Autosaver]

Obama Is Asked What Donald Trump Has Against Him: “This all dates back to when we were growing up together in Kenya.”

[Linkabel]

Some things that might affect the election in some states, with the first one being "Frankenstorm":

http://news.yahoo.com/noaa-east-beware-coming-frankenstorm-171317994.html

WASHINGTON (AP) — An unusual nasty mix of a hurricane and a winter storm that forecasters are now calling "Frankenstorm" is likely to blast most of the East Coast next week, focusing the worst of its weather mayhem around New York City and New Jersey.

Government forecasters on Thursday upped the odds of a major weather mess, now saying there's a 90 percent chance that the East will get steady gale-force winds, heavy rain, flooding and maybe snow starting Sunday and stretching past Halloween on Wednesday.

Meteorologists say it is likely to cause $1 billion in damage.

It is likely to hit during a full moon when tides are near their highest, increasing coastal flooding potential, NOAA forecasts warn. And with some trees still leafy and the potential for snow, power outages could last to Election Day, some meteorologists fear.

Obviously about the damages is still something that is up to circumstances.

And then we have this story about electronic voting machines and the glitch issue:

http://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-e-voting-puts-vote-accuracy-risk-four-183125308.html

Touch-screen electronic voting machines in at least four states pose a risk to the integrity of the 2012 presidential election, according to a Monitor analysis.

In four key battleground states – Pennsylvania, Virginia, Florida, and Colorado – glitches in e-voting machines could produce incorrect or incomplete tallies that would be difficult to detect and all but impossible to correct because the machines have no paper record for officials to go back and check.

While many state officials laud the accuracy of e-voting machines, mechanical and software failures are not a new problem. What makes the risk more serious this year is that polls project a close election, and e-voting problems in any of the four states in question could affect who wins the presidency.

[Tornado]

One of these times I'm sure they will fix those fucking things.