TenuredVulture wrote:Impeaching a President worked out really well for the Republicans last time they tried it.

Per the Chait piece, they think it did! They seem to believe it helped lose the election for Gore.

(Personally, I don't believe that he needed any help or "lost" the election, in the sense that fewer people voted for him in Florida than the other guy. But that's me. If they think it worked out well for them, it's more likely they'll go again.)

dajafi wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:Impeaching a President worked out really well for the Republicans last time they tried it.

Per the Chait piece, they think it did! They seem to believe it helped lose the election for Gore.

(Personally, I don't believe that he needed any help or "lost" the election, in the sense that fewer people voted for him in Florida than the other guy. But that's me. If they think it worked out well for them, it's more likely they'll go again.)

I suppose you could with the convoluted "the impeachment convinced Gore not to involve Clinton in the campaign and had Clinton campaigned for Gore in Florida Gore would have probably won that state by a substantial margin so there."

Anyway, I read that the Obama people think Huckabee's the most likely Republican nominee for President in 2012. I disagree--Huckabee will be vulnerable on immigration and taxes. I think if the Republicans decide to actually win, they'll go with Jindal or someone like Jindal. If they decide to go full retard, they'll rush right past Palin and go for Michelle Bachmann.

Guess I won't be inviting this guy to my next seder:

An election year already notable for its menagerie of extreme and unusual candidates can add another one: Rich Iott, the Republican nominee for Congress from Ohio's 9th District, and a Tea Party favorite, who for years donned a German Waffen SS uniform and participated in Nazi re-enactments.

Iott, whose district lies in Northwest Ohio, was involved with a group that calls itself Wiking, whose members are devoted to re-enacting the exploits of an actual Nazi division, the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking, which fought mainly on the Eastern Front during World War II. Iott's participation in the Wiking group is not mentioned on his campaign's website, and his name and photographs were removed from the Wiking website....

The website makes scant mention of the atrocities committed by the Waffen SS, and includes only a glancing reference to the "twisted" nature of Nazism. Instead, it emphasizes how the Wiking unit fought Bolshevist Communism....

When and why did he join, you ask?

Iott says he does not recall exactly when he joined the Wiking group (his name appears on a unit roster as far back as 2003), but did so with his son "as a father-son bonding thing."

The article provides some more detail and the uber-creepy Wiking recruitment video (if it doesn't work, you can see it here.)

dajafi wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:Impeaching a President worked out really well for the Republicans last time they tried it.

Per the Chait piece, they think it did! They seem to believe it helped lose the election for Gore.

(Personally, I don't believe that he needed any help or "lost" the election, in the sense that fewer people voted for him in Florida than the other guy. But that's me. If they think it worked out well for them, it's more likely they'll go again.)

I think there's a decent chance it's John Thune. He beat Daschle, so he has the giant-slayer thing going. He's telegenic. And he's seriously "conservative" (by which I mean right-wing) without coming off as a rageaholic nutcase.

CNN carrying the O'Donnell/Coons debate - all 90 minutes of it

and on a night when there's no baseball

suffice to say it's on in a distant room

Oh dear, big mistake

I walked in & overheard Ms O'Donnell attempting to grapple with what federal programs she would vote to cut as a US Senator, & took in about 2 minutes of her digression on general macroeconomic forces

she could prepare for the next 5 years and she wouldn't be ready for a debate like this

Listening to her try to rationalize her personal financial problems is humorous.

So was Paladino set up by Rabbi Levin? I mean, the rabbi's denunciation of Paladino's about-face is right out of the Marx Brothers:

New York Times wrote:“I was in the middle of eating a kosher pastrami sandwich,” Rabbi Levin said. "While I was eating it, they come running and they say, ‘Paladino became gay!’ I said, ‘What?’ And then they showed me the statement. I almost choked on the kosher salami.”

TenuredVulture wrote:

dajafi wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:Impeaching a President worked out really well for the Republicans last time they tried it.

Per the Chait piece, they think it did! They seem to believe it helped lose the election for Gore.

(Personally, I don't believe that he needed any help or "lost" the election, in the sense that fewer people voted for him in Florida than the other guy. But that's me. If they think it worked out well for them, it's more likely they'll go again.)

I suppose you could with the convoluted "the impeachment convinced Gore not to involve Clinton in the campaign and had Clinton campaigned for Gore in Florida Gore would have probably won that state by a substantial margin so there."

Anyway, I read that the Obama people think Huckabee's the most likely Republican nominee for President in 2012. I disagree--Huckabee will be vulnerable on immigration and taxes. I think if the Republicans decide to actually win, they'll go with Jindal or someone like Jindal. If they decide to go full retard, they'll rush right past Palin and go for Michelle Bachmann.

Huckabee's got that clemency issue with the guy who then killed those cops in Seattle, right?

dajafi wrote:

dajafi wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:Impeaching a President worked out really well for the Republicans last time they tried it.

Per the Chait piece, they think it did! They seem to believe it helped lose the election for Gore.

(Personally, I don't believe that he needed any help or "lost" the election, in the sense that fewer people voted for him in Florida than the other guy. But that's me. If they think it worked out well for them, it's more likely they'll go again.)

I think there's a decent chance it's John Thune. He beat Daschle, so he has the giant-slayer thing going. He's telegenic. And he's seriously "conservative" (by which I mean right-wing) without coming off as a rageaholic nutcase.

I originally thought Rubio would be the guy, partly to try to win over Latino voters, but he has had trouble in Florida (saved by Crist) and is at odds with Latinos on some important issues. Plus, would americans trust a cuban?

Did anyone else see the 3-part interview with Cantor on the Daily Show? It's a shame you have to turn on Comedy Central to find interesting political discourse.

Here it is at Talking Points Memo. I tried to find it on the Comedy Central website, but they only seemed to have two of the parts.

Stewart interviews Cantor

Monkeyboy wrote:

dajafi wrote:

dajafi wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:Impeaching a President worked out really well for the Republicans last time they tried it.

Per the Chait piece, they think it did! They seem to believe it helped lose the election for Gore.

(Personally, I don't believe that he needed any help or "lost" the election, in the sense that fewer people voted for him in Florida than the other guy. But that's me. If they think it worked out well for them, it's more likely they'll go again.)

I think there's a decent chance it's John Thune. He beat Daschle, so he has the giant-slayer thing going. He's telegenic. And he's seriously "conservative" (by which I mean right-wing) without coming off as a rageaholic nutcase.

I originally thought Rubio would be the guy, partly to try to win over Latino voters, but he has had trouble in Florida (saved by Crist) and is at odds with Latinos on some important issues. Plus, would americans trust a cuban?

What do you mean saved by Crist? If Crist had just lost in the Rep. primary like a normal person, Rubio wouldn't be in a competitive race with Meek. But 2012 is too soon for him. I think a big part of any successful GOP campaign against Obama is he wasn't experienced enough to handle the job.

jerseyhoya wrote:

Monkeyboy wrote:

dajafi wrote:

dajafi wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:Impeaching a President worked out really well for the Republicans last time they tried it.

Per the Chait piece, they think it did! They seem to believe it helped lose the election for Gore.

(Personally, I don't believe that he needed any help or "lost" the election, in the sense that fewer people voted for him in Florida than the other guy. But that's me. If they think it worked out well for them, it's more likely they'll go again.)

I think there's a decent chance it's John Thune. He beat Daschle, so he has the giant-slayer thing going. He's telegenic. And he's seriously "conservative" (by which I mean right-wing) without coming off as a rageaholic nutcase.

I originally thought Rubio would be the guy, partly to try to win over Latino voters, but he has had trouble in Florida (saved by Crist) and is at odds with Latinos on some important issues. Plus, would americans trust a cuban?

What do you mean saved by Crist? If Crist had just lost in the Rep. primary like a normal person, Rubio wouldn't be in a competitive race with Meek. But 2012 is too soon for him. I think a big part of any successful GOP campaign against Obama is he wasn't experienced enough to handle the job.

I thought crist was pulling a lot of independents and dems from Meek, but I bow to your knowledge on this. You're the poll hound.

You're right that Crist is pulling a lot of Dem/Indy voters from Meek's column, and if Crist was to drop out of the race, Meek would be the primary beneficiary...but the current poll average is 45/29/21 Rubio/Crist/Meek. Even if 3/4 of Crist voters went to Meek, he'd be losing by 10 points in a head to head race.

PPP put out a poll today actually that would have the race tied if Crist was running as an independent with no Democrat in the race. That's sort of a too good to be true scenario though. He wins indy voters 2/1, and is able to still hold 70% of Dems. I dunno if he does that well among independents in real life if for months he's a de facto Democrat. Furthermore, I think that indy appeal is something that Meek (or any real Democrat in 2010) would have had a tough time replicating against Rubio.

So allow me to vent for a moment. I can't find the education thread, so I'll put it here.

I sponsor the science club at my school along with an 8th grade teacher. We are building rockets out of soda bottles and one of the tasks is to cut a cardboard piece that fits snugly over the bottle. She was telling them to cut the piece by eye and just keep shaping it as needed. I thought it was a bad idea because the board was hard to cut and it would be better to only have to cut once. The bottom of the bottles are uneven, so you can't just measure the diameter across the bottom. I suggested that they use a tape measure to measure the circumference and then derive the radius using the formula for circumference. Reasonable idea, I think.

Her reaction was to mock me in front of the students, saying that only a "nerd" would do it that way. Then she said something (I missed part of it because she wasn't facing me when she said it) about it being better to cut it twice that resort to math ("math" was said mockingly). I thought for a second she was just making an inappropriate joke, but that wasn't it.

Anyway, wtf? It was all I could do not to lay into her.

1) It was a great opportunity to practice/review a concept they had learned the previous year.
2) It was an opportunity to show that the stuff the students say they will never use actually has practical applications.
3) Real rocket scientists use math when engineering, so it would have given students a greater taste of what being scientist is like. Real scientists don't use their gut to measure things.
4) Telling a 12 year old that doing math makes you a nerd is akin to telling that kid to not do math. It's a terrible message.
5) This is the least important one, but how can you talk to another teacher that way in front of students? Professionalism?

She's a ridiculous, hateful person who hates kids and has no business being there. All she does is complain about how lazy and dumb they are. 5 of her kids came to me in the last two weeks (they had me last year) asking for tutoring because they don't understand her. I want to wack her upside the head.

Rant over. I feel better now. Sorry to hijack the thread.

jerseyhoya wrote:You're right that Crist is pulling a lot of Dem/Indy voters from Meek's column, and if Crist was to drop out of the race, Meek would be the primary beneficiary...but the current poll average is 45/29/21 Rubio/Crist/Meek. Even if 3/4 of Crist voters went to Meek, he'd be losing by 10 points in a head to head race.

PPP put out a poll today actually that would have the race tied if Crist was running as an independent with no Democrat in the race. That's sort of a too good to be true scenario though. He wins indy voters 2/1, and is able to still hold 70% of Dems. I dunno if he does that well among independents in real life if for months he's a de facto Democrat. Furthermore, I think that indy appeal is something that Meek (or any real Democrat in 2010) would have had a tough time replicating against Rubio.

OK, the part I didn't know was how lopsided the polling had gotten. I knew Rubio was winning comfortably, but I didn't realize it had gotten that bad.

mb, how old is she? (reply in Random Thoughts so we do not further jack this beautiful fred)

Bill O'Reilly is on The View right now and said on live TV that Muslims killed us on 9/11. Whoopi replies "THAT IS SUCH BULLSH*T", then she and Joy walked off the stage. O'Reilly corrected himself by saying "Muslim extremists" and assumed they knew the difference...

With all the Dems who've come out and said they won't vote for Pelosi, it seems like even if they hold the House, they're going to be in the market for a new speaker.

A friend had an interesting idea for Pelosi to say she's standing aside on Dec. 31 in the next week or so to allow the Democratic caucus to pick a new leader in the next Congress. I dunno if that helps any of these close races, but it's hard to see how it makes things worse.

BigEd76 wrote:Bill O'Reilly is on The View right now and said on live TV that Muslims killed us on 9/11. Whoopi replies "THAT IS SUCH BULLSH*T", then she and Joy walked off the stage. O'Reilly corrected himself by saying "Muslim extremists" and assumed they knew the difference...

Let's go to the video:

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/ ... -the-view/