The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
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    I WISH I KNEW WHAT I KNOW NOW, WHEN I WAS YOUNGER!

    By Richard Day on Fri, 06/07/2013 - 2:46am |

    I WISH I KNEW WHAT I KNOW NOW WHEN I WAS YOUNGER

    Mitt Romney has been determined to resist releasing his tax returns at least since his bid for Massachusetts governor in 2002 and has been confident that he will never be forced to do so, several current and former Bain executives tell The Huffington Post. Had he thought otherwise, say the sources based on their longtime understanding of Romney, he never would have gone forward with his run for president.

    "Well, clearly in a campaign, with hundreds if not thousands of speeches and question-and-answer sessions, now and then you're going to say something that doesn't come out right," Romney told Fox News in October 2012. "In this case, I said something that's just completely wrong."

    Former Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney told CNN he was "very upset" over his infamous comments that "there are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what" because they are "dependent on government" and "believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing."

    And here.

    GALLOP

    The Gallup national tracking poll now shows a very strong lead for Mitt Romney. As of Friday, he was ahead by six points among likely voters, having led by seven points on Thursday.

     

    There is, of course, some variation in the results of national polls that have been released in the past week or two but all of them show the margin between Romney and Obama to be within two or three points one way or the other. All of them with one exception, that is -- the Gallup tracking poll. The Gallup tracking poll alone among national polls, including the usually Republican-leaning Rasmussen poll, shows Mitt Romney with a large lead over Barack Obama among likely voters -- a seven point lead in the results released on October 18 and a six point lead in the results released on October 19.

    WASHINGTON -- Gallup, which has long touted itself as the most trusted survey brand in the world, is facing a crisis. If Barack Obama's reelection in November was widely considered a win for data crunchers, who had predicted the president's victory in the face of skeptical pundits, it was a black mark for Gallup, whose polls leading up to Election Day had given the edge to Republican nominee Mitt Romney.

    Moreover, 26 day-before-election polls in ten potential battleground states (including Michigan and Pennsylvania, which most observers had long conceded to Obama) showed the president overwhelmingly ahead: Obama winning Ohio, a state universally deemed essential to a Romney victory, in four out of five polls (the fifth, reliably Republican Rasmussen showed a tie); Obama taking Virginia in two out of three polls (with only Rasmussen dissenting); and two out of three polls showing Florida, another state deemed essential to a Romney victory, tied, with the third showing him ahead by but a single point.

    Furthermore, four leading poll aggregators, Nate Silver, Fred Wang, Andrew Tanenbaum and Josh Putnam all predicted large electoral vote victories for Obama. Their average forecast was 312 electoral votes for Obama vs. 219 for Romney, which, as it turned out, was too generous to the loser. On election day, Silver, the best known of them, rated Romney's chances of victory at less than 10 per cent.

    FRED BARNES

    In his Oct 23 column, Fred Barnes wrote that Nancy Pelosi "is the most unpopular national politician in America," ignoring recent opinion polls showing that President Bush, his vice president, his defense secretary, and the Republican leaders of both houses of Congress are far less popular than Pelosi...


    The hard part was putting together a coalition, getting 300,000 troops over there and all their equipment and winning. And it gets easier. I mean, setting up a democracy is hard, but it is not as hard as winning a war. The U.S. now has leverage that it didn't have before winning this triumph in Iraq. Look, it is clear what victory in the war is. When you see those statues topple and you know that's victory." [Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume, 4/10/03)

    Enthusiasm. It matters enormously, and it’s disproportionately on the Republican side, in good measure because of an intense desire to defeat President Obama. True, enthusiasm doesn’t guarantee an edge in turnout, but it’s certainly a key indicator. “In these final days, turnout is driven by intensity,” says Republican pollster Ed Goeas.  The nearly half the electorate that strongly disapproves of Obama’s performance in office “will need little else other than the opportunity to vote against President Obama to motivate them to go to their polling place.” Goeas conducts the bipartisan Battleground Poll along with Democrat Celinda Lake.


    In 2008, self-identified Democrats led Republicans in turnout by seven percentage points.  Gallup’s projection is that Republicans will have a 49-46 percent edge this year.  “The political environment and the composition of the likely electorate strongly favor Governor Romney,” Goeas says.  The Battleground Poll’s “vote election model” projects Romney with 51 percent.

    O'REILLY

     

    1) "If I'm the president of the United States, I walk right into Union Square, I set up my little presidential podium, and I say, 'Listen, citizens of San Francisco, if you vote against military recruiting, you're not going to get another nickel in federal funds. Fine. You want to be your own country? Go right ahead. And if Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead.'" --after San Francisco voted to ban military recruiters from city schools, Nov. 8, 2005 (Listen to audio clip) (Source) …

     

    4) "So anyway I'd be rubbing your big boobs and getting your nipples really hard, kinda' kissing your neck from behind...and then I would take the other hand with the falafel thing and I'd just put it on your p***y but you'd have to do it really light, just kind of a tease business..." --as quoted in a sexual harassment suit filed against him by a Fox News producer, 2004 (Source) …

    6) "If the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean, he has nothing, I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush Administration again, all right?" -on finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, March 18, 2003 (Source) (here.)

     

    (I have no idea why I include O'Reilly in all of this except that I am Irish Catholic and I hate this sombitch! Oh and this sombitch never ever apologized to the nation as it were!)

     

    I will follow up on this nothing post but I simply wished to underline the fact that the repubs have absolutely no idea what the future might present.

     

    And to the pundits, it does not matter a whit.

     

    This is the future the pundit says and nothing is revealed!

     

    If I pretend to portend the future, well maybe I make more money or more people are fooled and then we get more votes!

     

     

     

    Comments

    They live in their own little bubble.  They were so sure of themselves that they raided Ann Romney's recipe box and put together a cookbook to be published after she became first lady.  I am not bashing the cookbook.  There is tons of work that goes into one and it requires cooks, editors and photographer to make it happen.  I am sure that she had some really interesting recipes because of her exposure to caterers, chefs and professional help that a wealthy housewife comes in contact with.  She also likes cooking.  My point is they think the country wants their brand of politics or they are over confident that they can pull it off.  They should have come down to Florida and spent some time with us 47% and found out how much determination we had to prove them wrong.  They are still being stupid. Any govenor that forced people to stand in line to vote for hours last year is going down in flames the next election.  Just for spite people will return to vote against them.  The news has been so bad this winter and spring that people are starting to show signs of fatigue.  I am calling it GOP fatigue.  This happened in the early 1930's, people stopped buying newspapers because the news got so bad.  The papers had to run serial quilt and craft patterns to get ladies to buy the papers.  The viewers numbers have dropped off of political cable channels. People are tired of the nasty GOP and don't want to hear about them.  If all they talk about in the next budget crises that they are going to kill the hostages this time, Rachel may have to take up quilting to get the ratings up.


    by trkingmomoe on Fri, 06/07/2013 - 4:23am

    I have not read of this phenomenon before. People stopped reading the news?

    Of course we both know that nowadays folks just stop reading 'news' they do not like. hahahahahah

    I will tell you this.

    Your reports from Florida floor me all the time. ha!

    Like your personal dealings with West.

    I am glad that you have faith in the youngins' ha.

    Every time you write 'skeletor' I laugh. 

    There must be huge numbers of good people in Florida. I mean, Obama won Florida; although it took awhile to get the 'figures' as they say.

    I know I am always doing well when I get a comment from Momoe!


    by Richard Day on Sat, 06/08/2013 - 1:15am

    I just got done digging through pages and pages of comments on Friday's shootings.  The west coast is really rattled and upset.  McTurtle is becoming one of the most hated persons in the Senate.  He gets the blame for no gun regulation.  I think Kentucky Senate race is going to be a nationalized race.  Lots of small donations going to the Democrat that runs against him from all over the country.  2014 election is a ways off but as this kind of bad news stays in the national lime light, it could add up to big losses for the GOP.  This is an issue crosses party lines with the depression going on and the war on women.  GOP is in self destruct mode.   


    by trkingmomoe on Sat, 06/08/2013 - 5:41am

    A Message to a Conservative Friend

    Tom,

    Whenever I send out information it's factual, fully documented, and substantiated. There’s a big difference between throwing spitballs and disseminating facts. So if the facts that I send out reflect negatively on the GOP, it's only because conservatives are engaged in negative activities. What am I suppose to do, ignore the fact that they’re leaving no stone unturned to obstruct voter rights because it casts conservatives in a bad light? I don't think so. The Germans made that mistake with the Nazis.

    On the other hand, the stuff you send me is nothing more than speculation, half-truths, unsubstantiated allegations, and thoroughly debunked theories. They're things that a pouting kid would send out, not something you would expect from an educated adult - and a scientist, no less! You're supposed to be a disciplined thinker.

    Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about. You just sent me a quote and said, "Be prepared, because it's from one of the 85% of Americans with darker skin, who also happens to lean in a conservative manner."

    Now, if 85% of Americans "with darker skin" leaned conservative, where were they during the election? I mean, how could you make a statement like that to me without stopping to ask yourself that question!!?

    So it seems that you, like many other conservatives, just say ANYTHING just because you like the way it sounds coming out of your mouth. You seem to be completely oblivious to the fact that it can be proven untrue with less than two minutes research. It's like all you want to do is luxuriate in the fantasy of what it would feel like if your statements were true, even if it's only for a few seconds.

    But in spite of that, ordinarily I would just say fine, whatever makes Tom feel good is fine with me. But when you try to pull me into your ridiculous fantasy world, I feel like I'm being molested, because you're involving me in a form of intellectual masturbation, and I don't like that. It makes me feel unclean.

    So what I'm saying is, you're free to indulge in all of the conservative fantasies that you like, but don't try to get me to join in, because to me that's the intellectual equivalent of asking me to come over and watch you play with yourself.

    Eric


    by Wattree on Fri, 06/07/2013 - 7:58pm

    You are so much fun!

    You and Artappraiser and Smith and others besides the crew named at the top keep this frickin blog goin!

    hahaahah

    I get stuck with Aquinas and Augustine and a hundred philosophers and that all gets me stuck with the problem of 'truth'.

    Bachmann and Palin just get to say whatever comes into their psychotic heads and regardless of their retorts; it is difficult to find much information of value in their messages.

    And yet, and yet B&P have followings just like beckerhead and rusho and O'Reilly and the rest.

    The interesting perspective from you, that eludes some of your detractors (who really help publish your thoughts) is that members from the 'left' have a lot of fun making money in similar fashion.

    That 'darker skinned' prick running for Lt Gov in Virginia is something else for instance.

    I watch Steele attempting to save face on MSNBC from time to time.

    One might say:

    This is what Lincoln said.

    And then a 'cite' is given. A letter with a date is available for purview or a paragraph from the NYT or...

    I grew up with these requirements having twenty years of schooling and all.

    Senator Sessions just took to the floor of the Senate today spewing out bullshite with no documentation whatsoever. God I hate that guy.

    I don't care if we are speaking of FOX news or MSNBC or whatever, I get few cites.

    If good research were available to news organizations; we would get citations.

    Yes, Senator Sessions lied today. And a lie is an untruth uttered by the utterer or a statement made knowingly by a fellow who should have known better. (There are more certain pronouncements of this theme recorded in the criminal codes, but who cares anymore?)

    Again, I get stuck in the mire of determining what is 'truth', constantly.

    Frank said this.

    Okay, where is the recording or where is the video or who were the witnesses, although we discount the testimony of witnesses these days.

    Who shot whom? And here is the famous video of the idiot who shot the idiot who killed JFK!

    My computer tells me when the sun will rise tomorrow; and yet if one finds himself in the middle of a time zone, that time as listed might be more truer to the point than if the fellow lived on the peripheries of that time zone.

    See

    I get stuck in a validation process.

    And then I read something coming out of the mouths of morons like O'Reilly or semi-conscious politicians and I have no way of evaluating their assertions.

    I am sorry that I must rant on and on. I get lost. 

    I love this letter you wrote.

    I really do.

    You keep on keepin on.

    Sometimes, I feel like just giving up.


    by Richard Day on Sat, 06/08/2013 - 1:46am

    Don’t give up, Richard.

    People like yourself is this country’s most valuable asset. Time and again you’ve stepped up at the last minute to drag this nation back from the brink.

    This is the time to swing into action. I wrote Obama and suggested that he put together a staff dedicated to nothing but rebutting the lies spewed by Republicans and provide the team a space right next door to the Oval Office.

    What the president has to realize is that the GOP is not merely engaged in routine political advocacy anymore. They’ve become the domestic enemy of the United States, and he needs to engage them as such. So he needs to setup the ABT (Anti-Bullshit Team) and have them do absolutely nothing else but research and debunk Republican bullshit on a daily basis.

    They should establish a practice where every time a Republican politician tells a lie on the administration, the entire next day’s news cycle is flooded with facts debunking the lie, and also, previous instances where that particular politician lied or demonstrated hypocrisy - on any issue. If they took that approach a politician would think long and hard before he or she allowed themselves to become the front person for Republican disinformation.

     


    by Wattree on Sun, 06/09/2013 - 1:30am