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

the "misspoke" thing was hilarious primarily because it was apparently also his way of addressing the whole "i believe that if a woman is raped she's less likely to get pregnant" thing. the legitimate/forcible thing reveals his disgusting (but common on the right) beliefs about what constitutes rape, but the belief about someone being less likely to get pregnant is embarrassing on another level: namely, he's a total gullible ignorant idiot. a U.S. senate nominee revealing ignorance on that basic of a level should be scandalous and result in national scandal anyway, regardless of the subject matter.

this is also why i'm scandalized on a daily basis by prominent politicians who don't "believe" in evolution or climate change

:-O << my face all of the time while reading the news

if someone told you that if a woman is raped she's less likely to get pregnant and you believe it, you're not even qualified to run for oui-si club vice-president at your high school

multi-xposts OTM, even if somehow magically the outrage over his rape stance evaporated he would still be the equivalent of the lawmaker who thought the sky was purple and that standing on your head cures cancer. But the thing is we have tons of sitting Senators who think global warming and evolution are cuckoo pretend-ideas that their dumb enemies only claim to believe in as a means to advance their take-everybody's-toys-away agenda. So it turns out not knowing stuff isn't really a problem.

http://desmond.yfrog.com/Himg532/scaled.php?tn=0&server=532&filename=goy.png&xsize=640&ysize=640

now that we know the female body contains a murderous anti-sperm secretion that thwarts the will of god in His mission of creating a new life, certainly the next step is to isolate this secretion and eradicate it before it kills anymore innocent babies.

But the thing is we have tons of sitting Senators who think global warming and evolution are cuckoo pretend-ideas that their dumb enemies only claim to believe in as a means to advance their take-everybody's-toys-away agenda. So it turns out not knowing stuff isn't really a problem.

that's exactly what i mean! the embarrassing ignorance part of his statement has been recognized but pretty much downplayed because that's the norm these days. total failure of representational democracy. 100 people represent about 300 million people - 0.00003% of the U.S. in a political system that was even close to functional, even the worst lawmaker would be a brilliant thinker. instead we get a bunch of ideologues.

Pointing out the devaluation of intelligence, education and basic competency on the right is always my go-to bro-in-law trollage.

these are just regular guys, not some east coast eggheads who think they're better than regular americans

aw man, i'm not trying to be a bro troll! and yeah, breaking news, the political system is broken. but still, how bad does it have to get before people get fed up and replace it? this shit is embarrassing.

Actually, WmC, how IS your bro in law taking all this?

you talk about somebody being a victim of forcible rape, that would be Todd Akin

I don't know, I think at this point he's asking for it. Yes means yes.

Hey, where have John Boehner and Eric Cantor been the past few weeks? They off the grid?

rape jokes aren't funny btw

Ned, total radio silence.

legitimate rape jokes are funny iirc

xpost -- Just send him a recipe for stewing in one's own juices.

He did post this yesterday though:
http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc7/380436_463526083682161_2011165825_n.jpg

makes u think

according to 538, Florida's moved from a 50.5% chance for an Obama win to a ~56% of a Romney win in the last week or so... any chance the Romney/ Ryan move to go on the offensive re Medicare is working?

Ah, RedState, never change:

I’ll be frank: abortion is something I feel very strongly about, yet I do not enjoy talking about. In fact, I’d describe my enthusiasm as I type this post as something approaching tepid at best. Nevertheless, I think I should make some sort of comment on US Senate candidate Todd Akin’s remarks on so-called “legitimate rape” and abortion.

First of all, the remarks demonstrate why I do not care for talking about abortion unless I must: it is incredibly easy to shoot myself in the foot with poorly chosen words. Furthermore, as a man, I must be even more careful because there is a sizable portion of women, particularly those who call themselves “feminists”, who are all too willing to portray my words (or any man’s words), especially when I choose them poorly, as another evil misogynist who wants to enforce his “evil” ideas on women. It’s not right, but it is something that exists. It’s not just the gravity of the issue at hand, but the appearance that I can create while discussing it, that can determine how the message is received.

Second, I’d like to make a quick comment on the “legitimate rape” thing...

according to 538, Florida's moved from a 50.5% chance for an Obama win to a ~56% of a Romney win in the last week or so... any chance the Romney/ Ryan move to go on the offensive re Medicare is working?

― it's smdh time in America (will), Wednesday, 22 August 2012 00:41 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that's because they're refusing to remove a poll they've pointed out is wrong from their model. ( \o_o/ )

Women involved with assholes like that should go full-on Lysistrata (which, incidentally, is a guaranteed way to avoid all pregnancies).

Florida poll: "Will you not not not not not not not not not not not not vote for Romney?"

also vp bounce is not factored in

"feminists"

a-ha. i should probably read (all of) Nate's posts instead of just checking it once a day like a scoreboard.

xposts

but i could totally see the R/R bullshit working, because, well, they're white

(and apparently outright lying doesn't really matter if you're telling the lies old people want to hear. and you're white.)

lying hasn't mattered in a long time. no one gets called out for it anymore. and a portion of the press corps even question whether it should be their function to call out liars, from the arthur brisbane (NYT) 'Truth Vigilante' debacle to more recent debates among journalists.

well sure. it's just it seemed like medicare was the one place where the olds get real sober real fast. AARP was critical of Ryan's plan when it dropped (http://www.aarp.org/about-aarp/press-center/info-04-2011/budget_upend_vital_programs.html), but they've been suspiciously silent since he got the veep nod afaict

Well hey

https://twitter.com/ToddAkin/statuses/238063720683696130?tw_i=238063720683696130&tw_e=details&tw_p=tweetembed

Matthew Funtime ‏@MatthewFuntime

@ToddAkin the liberal media don't know shit about real science Dr. Akin!!

I bet he's lots of fun.

there's some validity to that statement but not in the way i think he means

i want Hannity etc to respond to the allegations that they're the liberal media. just because.

Surprised Akin stuck it out. When I left the house earlier, he'd had his interview with Huckabee, but there was still an hour left and I thought he'd be out by 6:00. CNN had the RNC chairman, Rebus Plurbius, on around 4:30, and he said that it would be difficult for Akin to win without any money. (Curious if they stick to that.) Even the dynamism and persuasive powers of Romney wasn't enough.

yeah i'm also curious about that. i'm not sure that race is over unless the rnc really does cut bait.

so...was this linked?

http://leanforward.msnbc.com/_news/2012/08/21/13400848-new-nbcwsj-poll-shows-zero-percent-support-for-romney-among-african-americans#.UDQ8XrIWWME.twitter

Looking inside the numbers, Obama continues to lead Romney among key parts of his political base, including African Americans (94 percent to 0 percent), Latinos (by a 2-to-1 margin), voters under 35-years-old (52 percent to 41 percent) and women (51 percent to 41 percent).

who do the other 6 percent support?

maybe they're thinking about voting for someone who isn't barack obama or mitt romney

Undecideds, I think.

the other six percent is alan west

rent is too damn high

and women (51 percent to 41 percent)

I've got to believe this will be moving noticably in Obama's direction. (Saw something on TV that said he got 56% last time.)

Well Sullivan unloaded with some interesting details:

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/08/akin-is-the-christianist-mainstream.html

what's the deal with this (from willke, in the sullivan)?

First, let's define the term "rape." When pro-lifers speak of rape pregnancies, we should commonly use the phrase "forcible rape" or "assault rape," for that specifies what we're talking about. Rape can also be statutory. Depending upon your state law, statutory rape can be consensual, but we're not addressing that here.

like, do they actually have some kind of goofy problem with statutory rape, or is this just a red herring to make it look like 'forcible rape' is a thing and not just a way to cast aspersions on the legitimacy of rape reports?

And but of course!

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/08/21/palin_suggests_third_party_candidate_to_stop_akin_in_missouri.html

"Bless his heart, I don't want to pile on Todd Akin, because in some respects I understand what he's trying to say here, and standing on principle, that he doesn't want to be perceived as a quitter. But you got to know when to hold them and know when to fold them," fmr. Gov. Sarah Palin said on FOX News today.

jesus christ she sounds like an onion parody of herself

i'd have expected her to back him, tbh