the most important election of your lifetime: 2012 american general election thread

democrats of course think that might be kinda over doing it

The Corner has pretty much said that McCaskill winning now would be a legitimate rape of Akin.

uh where?

i def. missed that

no longer giving The Corner the benefit of linking to them.

must have been a columnist, or a commenter because i don't see it. or maybe you made it up?

http://swampland.time.com/2009/06/12/moving-day

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

campaign season with no questions:

Mitt Romney has long been enveloped in “the Mittness Protection Program” and it has been difficult for reporters following him to even ask a question (both in the United States and at “Polish holy sites”) However, Barack Obama hasn’t been much better.

The President hasn’t taken questions from the White House press corps in nearly two months. Instead, he has done local interviews where he has gotten softball questions, complied here by Buzzfeed, including “If you had a superpower, what would it be.”

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2012_08/a_scrutiny_free_campaign039308.php

tbf a not insignificant portion of the electorate is comprised of which superpower single issue voters

I don't see anything in libertarian belief that dictates that life starts at fertilization, so pro choice libertarians should be out there, right?

― hipsters in black metal drag- next, on burzum buddies (Hunt3r), Monday, August 20, 2012 9:51 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

for sure. my dad is a hardline libertarian (and a physician) and is very much pro-choice

idk what the numbers would be on this but i feel like the old-right libertarians are kind of running the show at the moment. (tho i would say that...)

i think the hip idea in libertarianism these days is that social conservatism shouldn't be enforced, but it's just natural. ie w/o an overweening state with its tentacles everywhere, you couldn't have lazy teen moms, gays enforcing their normality, liberal arts grads, sad 30ish professional women sans child, various loser groups with specious 'rights' claims etc. everyone would have to be an industrious sober nuclear family or die. let a thousand petty authoritarianisms bloom...

can't even disguise my glee at this akin situation now tbph

president scott brown wants him to step aside, claire mccaskill wants him to stick around! this is once in a lifetime stuff. clemenza, back me up here

I googled it, and all I could come up with was Michael Sarne during the making of Myra Breckinridge--the entire cast wanted him fired, all the competing studio heads wanted him to stay on.

delrayser ‏@delrayser
From NBC's 1st Read: "Even if Akin was ready to get out, his wife would never let him quit. 'She makes him seem like the reasonable one.'"

uh oh

?! i must know more of this woman then

he won't drop the Senate bid

Once the crime has occurred the woman can't be un-raped. She's a crime victim, not a lottery winner.

Here it is, right HERE, where you get an unobstructed view of the mindset that's so alien to me -- to this writer, it makes sense to imagine a woman responding to being raped with a joyous "whee, I hit the jackpot and now I can get the abortion I've always wanted"

nothing these people say is that weird if you keep in mind that they believe the moment of conception inaugurates a full individual person vested with all the same rights as any other flesh-and-blood child. like schlump says, everything flows from that. liberals constantly forget this, or pretend to forget it.

But I think it's a pretty small proportion of anti-abortion voters who really believe this (who, e.g, think that abortion should be prosecuted as murder, who bury miscarriages in the cemetery, etc.) There are some who do but I think it's clear that the vast majority hold some kind of intermediate "Fetuses are things other than people but are enough like people that you should be prohibited from killing them" view, whether or not they articulate it this way

like schlump says, everything flows from that.

actually everything flows from the idea that non-procreative sex is wrong. close tho.

xp How is it clear?

i'm not sure about that. i think a lot of ppl believe personhood starts at moment of conception xxp

opposition to abortion tends to warp other ideas around it. it has already softened theological differences between christianities that would make our grandparents do a spit-take. honestly i think it's that simple: if abortion is evil and rape is evil then a rape-necessitating-abortion has to be impossible. if a ludicrous idea boxes that in and explains it away, you'll find people believing it.

note also that these folks have a melodramatic villain-in-the-bushes image of rape, too. just as pernicious imo.

this is a theological breakdown in seriously addressing 'bad things happen to good ppl' paradox. a lack of intellectual sophistication tbh.

TPM Editor’s Blog
Ready to Rumble
Josh Marshall August 20, 2012, 1:51 PM 38

Shorter Cornyn: Carefully consider your future, Todd, and then decide to resign.

Family Research Council: We “enthusiastically” back Todd Akin.

lack of intellectual sophistication

said like it's a bad thing!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/20/obama-todd-akin-rape_n_1812140.html?

in for the kill

gop needs to find a new candidate who can run an impromptu campaign but also has acceptable positions on rape to satisfy the base

good luck usa

Theology really has nothing to do with this, and if you are blaming it on Christianity you are pretty much in the same boat as people using Christianity to defend it.

^^^

? nobody itt did that

i blame xtian theology

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/08/mitt-romney-would-pay-082-percent-in-taxes-under-paul-ryans-plan/261027/#.UDKnDVtU5QM.facebook

http://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_m8zfxq0pAS1qc9wrn.png

ha. Honestly, the Romney logo is terrible because, depending on the background and where it sits in the frame, the stylized R kind of disappears from view - - just feels like a little decoration, a flag-wavin' Wing Ding. So it looks like we're voting for OMNEY, which, unhelpfully, just sounds like the name of a faceless robot corporation.

Judging by creepy Erick Erickson on CNN this afternoon, saying that Akin is doomed, and by reading that Hannity was pleading with him on-air to withdraw, I would assume that he will. If he doesn't do it by tomorrow midnight, it will cost him money to do so later.

In contrast:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2012/08/seen_this_movie_many_times_before.php?ref=fpblg

https://twitter.com/DLoesch

Loesch, in particular, seems...odd.

A new roffle -- Akin was allegedly supposed to go on Piers Morgan:

Akin a "no show" on CNN -- Piers Morgan calls Akin a "gutless little twerp"

Hope he had something good and provocative on standby.

http://www.zuguide.com/images/11513/11513.0.219.138.jpg

So it looks like we're voting for OMNEY, which, unhelpfully, just sounds like the name of a faceless robot corporation.

An anagram for money that sounds like omni. Totally one of those things you'd hate if some dystopian post-Vonnegut satirist threw out there, as too obvious or lame or whatever.

Read in the papers that O and R and pretty much neck-and-neck, which is a whole universe of sad.

nah

Republican convention starts Monday. Except for the debates, this will be the last chance for Romney to work his magic and make the country fall head over heels in love with him. Maybe a separate thread?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5udCibD5poM

Forget that, it's all about Akin deadline hour by hour countdown today!

Haha I hope this is true:

HALPERIN: “The national Republicans are feeling a little frustrated. not only do they not have any persuasive arguments that have worked so far but they’re having trouble finding him or reaching him. They’re not in dialogue with him as they might be with a normal party nominee. For a lot of them, the key is Mike Huckabee. Huckabee’s endorsement probably did a fair amount to get him the nomination in that three-way fight and he’s seen as a possible bridge, if he’s willing to, to go to the Congressman and say, look, you got to get off this. It’s increasingly likely, despite, Joe, your prediction and mine from earlier, that they’re not going to get him out today. He’s got a poll that he’s touting to people that shows the race is still close. he wants to put this new ad on the air that shows him apologizing profusely. And so, they can’t reach him, they don’t have any good arguments, and he’s determined to fight on.

BRZEZINSKI: Is he campaigning?

SCARBOROUGH: Will he listen, if Mike can get in touch with him, Governor Huckabee, will he listen to him?

HALPERIN: Well, that’s the hope of national Republicans who, again, are having trouble even getting him on the phone, let alone being able to make the case. Huckabee’s support was so important to him, their hope is that he can make the case for the good of the party, as you said, thinking about the Supreme Court, thinking about the Senate seat, and the impact it can have on other candidates to get him out. I don’t know that they know that Huckabee will do it. I don’t know that they know that Huckabee will be persuasive. But it shows the extent to which they’re grasping in the establishment to find someone somewhat outside the establishment like Mike Huckabee, who could be an ambassador to him, to try to get him to see that this is not going to work if he goes forward.

"Where's that candidate guy deal."

"Fuck if I know."

"SEND THE HUCK."

wait, Mike Huckabee is outside of the establishment now?

also lol @ "they're having trouble finding him"

Have you looked under the dining room table?

xpost -- Well he said things like how there should be nutrition standards and that poor people should be helped and Ayn Rand came back from the dead and smote him before going "Oh fuck, I thought there was no afterlife" and then birthed Paul Ryan.