The GOP's Death Wish: Why Republicans Can't Stop Pissing Off Hispanics, Women, and Young People

The entire "voter fraud" epidemic is a fraud in and of itself. No one can cite statistics to show it being anything but an extremely rare event.



Comparing it to airline security is silly because most of airport security is useless and silly.



However, comparing it to cashing checks is interesting though. I've never had to show ID to cash a check. It's because I go to the same bank (just as I go to the same polling place every election) and they know me. Similarly, the people who work the polls aren't brand new every couple months. They are usually neighbors and know who's who. They check signatures if they've never seen you before. And that is a significant reason why voter fraud is so rare and so incredibly difficult to execute (except for things like the older Diebold voting machines which were very easy to rig and forge results).
About Republicans
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

The Economic Impact of Raising Taxes on High-Income Households

Comparing people like Krugman to rove is so beyond facetious, your credentials as a propagandist are laid bare.



Toss out rove as some red herring to make you sound like you're "balanced" in your guilt-by-association shotgun attack on content that I presume disagrees with whatever your economic religion is. Since you name only people who espouse salt water economics, then you are probably one of the many freshwater adherents who are enraged by the fact that all data effectively invalidates its randian, trickle-up dogma.



When one has absolutely nothing empirical to support an opinion, attack all the opposing empirical data and accuse their sources and messengers of fraud or some other baseless charge. That may be a great way for professional republican operatives to make a living, but that doesn't mean it's honest or credible.



In other words, it looks very much like you have nothing to contribute other than withering and groundless accusations.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Why Anyone Should Care That Bill O'Reilly Calls Me a Communist

Funny how you guys have gotten it totally backwards.



For the last 30 years, the conservative policies of the government, through tax cuts, capital gains tax cuts, and regulatory clear-cutting have directly resulted in a massive redistribution of wealth into the hands of a very small number of people. The decisions of an activist, conservative supreme court have given the wealthy and stateless, unpatriotic corporations the ability to use that power to influence elections as never before in history.



So as you appear to support more cuts and less regulation - putting more power into the hands of people and entities who aren't accountable to anyone and with the ability to place emplace their agents at will inside the shell of an "official" government - you are clearly and categorically a radical Stalinist. And if you are in that 0.10% group, then you are part of the Proletariat.



Why you prefer to put power and trust into the hands of entities who'd do anything for money speaks volumes of your runaway n@1vety and detachment from reality. But for grins, please provide a list of current countries with no governmental control of the nation's economic infrastructure which is doing well today.
About Bill O'Reilly
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Pennsylvania Primary: Blue Dog Democrats Lose Seats

The gap is not widening.



The claim to "Blue Dog" status is a purely marketing-engineered ruse to pretend to be a "centrist" and appeal to republican voters. They play intricate games with their votes, public statements, and campaigning to carefully coiffe their image.



In other words, they have no values, no principles, and no causes - other than to get re-elected. They are playing a game. They are portraying a character while simultaneously devoid of "character."



There is no place for politicians of this stripe.



That said, the game blue dogs play is made possible by republican leaders and Dem leaders who are equally devoted to playing similarly destructive campaign games. The divide is all part of a game that focuses on image with no substance. The first side to produce substance will crush the other. Producing substance supporting republican policies is impossible. Mountains of data support implementation of Dem policies, but virtually no Dem has the courage to use it as the weapon it is.



The President could start by obliterating issa for the unsubstantiated slander he unleashed earlier. Obama would rather not engage honestly because it's easier to say "look how bad the other guy is" than to educate. He's so afraid of making a mistake and looking bad than to confront those with whom he disagrees or who have attacked him personally. So, on goes the game...
About Elections 2012
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Scott Walker Talks Praying, Family Getting Attacked

You attacked thousands of families in Wisconsin and now you're paying the price. It's "Cause and effect" - which I know it's hard to fathom when you are a republican politician because it's basic science.



It's like some schoolyard 6th grade bully pushing 4th graders down until one of the abused kids breaks the bully's nose. And now we have to listen to the bully whine and cry about the wretched 4th graders who won't tell him that they're praying for him.



I'm praying for you, walker. I really am. Praying for you to grow up and at least try for once to conduct yourself like a human being. But that would mean you'd drop the superiority complex, and I'm sure that's not about to happen.



So until then, we all have to fight back nausea whenever the media subjects us to another dose of your nonsense.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama: Foreign Policy President?

My words weren't very precise. I didn't mean to imply that you were OK with Iraq. I meant that there were people OK with Iraq simply because they played mental games to trick themselves into believing "there must be something really dangerous - because otherwise those people are the lowest form of semi-human life in existence."



Maybe you're not that extreme in working facts to meet your optimistic view of the President. I've read the Suskind book and the Taibbi book and several others. If you allow yourself to go down any of those roads and get a real close-up look at how Obama has presided, your optimism would be seriously - and suitably - degraded.



Maybe he's better than McCain would have been. I don't know. The unfortunate fact is that the President is a boy in a man's job. I hoped for better. But from the first administration and Cabinet picks, to the selection of a bigoted pastor to perform the invocation at the inauguration, Obama's horribly, tragically misguided obsession with bipartisanship and his personal propensity for analysis paralysis has encouraged and rewarded the unruly vicissitudes of the republican party.
About Foreign Policy
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama: Foreign Policy President?

"Here are the five things Obama could say to confound his right-wing critics and his liberal debunkers to prove that he has effectively promoted progressive causes ..."



First, rightwing critics are NEVER confounded. They pick through Dem words, twist them, and crank up propaganda bursts. And when there aren't enough good words to sift through, they make stuff up.



Second, "liberal debunkers" (I assume this means, 'liberals who disapprove of the very poor performance of President Obama) are where we/they are primarily because we're tired of words. For example, dubya set the schedule for leaving Iraq - as much as I don't like to admit it - so that accomplishment is really nothing. "Talking tough" on Syria does nothing more than slightly elevate the air temperature around the President's mouth.



Worse, saying you stopped the global slide is practically a lie - AND it represents another example that proves Obama has maintained dubya's policies. Stimulus was better than nothing, but nowhere near enough.



The American taxpayer (and very few others outside of this nation) are on the hook for $ trillions in loans the Fed made to foreign banks and entities [whilst 'saving' capitalism]. These may or may not blow up. But with Ireland having recently backslide into recession and most of Europe (and Obama) aflutter over "austerity" programs proved to further wreck economies, pessimism is the most reasonable attitude to take on the prospects of recovering the money.



Both of your goals are misplaced and unachievable.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama: Foreign Policy President?

You can't see the forest for the trees if you're worried about foreign invaders going house to house in the US. That is expensive, dangerous, and extremely difficult.



The "taking" is typically out the side door of the Fed and at the point of US military weapons and CIA hijinx as we invade countries to install leaders more suitable to the plundering that is covertly done by and for the enrichment of global corporations. It's not foreign governments. And it's certainly not specific religions.



It's about the same exact thing it's been about for thousands of years: global conquest orchestrated by the wealthiest. For example, the main reason we're still in Afghanistan is to ensure the Chinese don't get their mineral reserves. That's what our military personnel's lives are being sacrificed for... look at the big picture.
About Foreign Policy
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Five Hypocrites and One Bad Plan

Here's the reason why any assertion of that type fails on face:



You can't count votes UNTIL THERE IS A VOTE CAST.



It's one of the things about Congress in general that sends me over the edge. They slink around playing games within their caucuses, trading votes for YOUR earmark if you vote for this for me... It's all disgraceful.



Write the bill, run it thru committee, and then hold a vote for it. Why is that so hard? When it's over, we can see very clearly how the vote turned out. Until you hold an actual vote, there is nothing but hearsay and gamesmanship to rely upon from reporters and party officials.



Politicians play little games for their constituents, tut-tutting this or "we have to look very seriously at the implications of" that prior to voting on a bill. They're sending pointed messages, but not to us.



They look at watches and wait for the lobbyists to come in drop some duckets into a certain PAC.... And then games go on and on.



So if you put any stock in that slop, then you will buy anything. "Votes" in Congress are the pump that brings in campaign funds. And when 'tough' votes can be deliberately avoided (such as the one you want to cite) then Congresscritters can actually get money from BOTH sides of the issue. A bonus for maintaining pure dishonesty.



Obama knows how it works. But he plays along.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Lemmings

Except that Ireland and Spain were not deficit spending when the financial companies tanked - and are now devastated economies running deficits... and doing so for the reasons described above.



Sorry, but empirical evidence proves you wrong immediately.



We should learn from countries that are devastating themselves by desperately clinging to failed, disproved "free market" ideologies - that is true. We have to see once and for all how clearly bad the policies are and take steps that have succeeded in the past.



Oh, by the way, sovereign countries don't have credit cards. It doesn't work anything like that - especially in a liquidity trap.



You have a lot of learning and clue-purchasing to do to catch up... get on with it.
About GOP
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Trayvon Martin, America's Black President, & (Racial) Politics

"I've got to be careful about my statements to make sure that we're not impairing any investigation that's taking place right now."



I've seen other infuriating quotes like this from the President in other contexts. It says two things boldly to anyone with the interest in listening rather than adoring:



1. "I recognize that my words have tremendous power."

2. "I'm really scared to use my power."



"Obama's statement is indicative of the tone of his presidency -- one that characterizes him as a politician quite comfortable being positioned in the "middle.""



Exactly right.



Why wouldn't he be comfortable there? The middle is neutral. The middle requires nothing - no fight, no stand, no sacrifice, and most of all, no courage.



A President with no courage to use his power - regardless of whether or not the Trayvon Martin situation is one of the right times to use it - is intensely sad and demoralizing.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost