I should have been clear that I didn't post that to make those Republicans look "bad" (this is America; people can believe pretty much whatever dumbassed thing want, and I suspect it wouldn't be too hard to dig up a similarly weird/depressing survey of Democrats from five years ranting about all kinds of nutzoid things regarding Bush). The point is that--as Obama kind of got at in the discussion with the House Rs on Friday--there's no political room for accommodation when an elected official's base more or less believes the guy their rep might be compromising ("governing") with is pretty much the devil.

The other, related thing is that I don't think anyone has the first idea about how to disabuse people of some of these notions. That ACORN stole the 2008 election is a wilder claim by several orders of magnitude than that, say, JFK was killed by the CIA or that the moon landing was a fake. But (I guess as with those things too) enough people *want* to believe it that logical arguments to the contrary are totally powerless.

So here's one piece of data that could throw the whole Kos/Research2000 poll into question. They found this:

Should openly gay men and women be allowed to serve in the military?

Yes 26
No 55
Not Sure 19

But that conflicts with this one, done by Gallup last May:



I should add, given how much depressing shit we've seen in our politics lately, that this is very encouraging if true.

dajafi wrote:I should have been clear that I didn't post that to make those Republicans look "bad" (this is America; people can believe pretty much whatever dumbassed thing want, and I suspect it wouldn't be too hard to dig up a similarly weird/depressing survey of Democrats from five years ranting about all kinds of nutzoid things regarding Bush). The point is that--as Obama kind of got at in the discussion with the House Rs on Friday--there's no political room for accommodation when an elected official's base more or less believes the guy their rep might be compromising ("governing") with is pretty much the devil.

The other, related thing is that I don't think anyone has the first idea about how to disabuse people of some of these notions. That ACORN stole the 2008 election is a wilder claim by several orders of magnitude than that, say, JFK was killed by the CIA or that the moon landing was a fake. But (I guess as with those things too) enough people *want* to believe it that logical arguments to the contrary are totally powerless.

Well, if a politician's job is to continue to stay in office -- what if they actually had some principles and did the people's work. Made some tough decisions and rather than use the sound bytes and propaganda to their advantage or simply let mis-information go unchallenged, they told the truth. They stood up to extremists who don't want to be disabused of crazy beliefs -- and said, "look, I'm a conservative, but that's just crazy talk".

The system is only as good as those who run it and run in it.

The airwaves are filled with crazy talk. How do we reign it in? It's one thing to have free speech, its another to foment disinformation on a mass scale.

Philly the Kid wrote:

dajafi wrote:I should have been clear that I didn't post that to make those Republicans look "bad" (this is America; people can believe pretty much whatever dumbassed thing want, and I suspect it wouldn't be too hard to dig up a similarly weird/depressing survey of Democrats from five years ranting about all kinds of nutzoid things regarding Bush). The point is that--as Obama kind of got at in the discussion with the House Rs on Friday--there's no political room for accommodation when an elected official's base more or less believes the guy their rep might be compromising ("governing") with is pretty much the devil.

The other, related thing is that I don't think anyone has the first idea about how to disabuse people of some of these notions. That ACORN stole the 2008 election is a wilder claim by several orders of magnitude than that, say, JFK was killed by the CIA or that the moon landing was a fake. But (I guess as with those things too) enough people *want* to believe it that logical arguments to the contrary are totally powerless.

Well, if a politician's job is to continue to stay in office -- what if they actually had some principles and did the people's work. Made some tough decisions and rather than use the sound bytes and propaganda to their advantage or simply let mis-information go unchallenged, they told the truth. They stood up to extremists who don't want to be disabused of crazy beliefs -- and said, "look, I'm a conservative, but that's just crazy talk".

The system is only as good as those who run it and run in it.

The airwaves are filled with crazy talk. How do we reign it in? It's one thing to have free speech, its another to foment disinformation on a mass scale.

chavez appears to have the answer about how to deal with the problem of "disinformation". i believe state run media is the only viable solution to your problem, please reference nazi germany, fascist italy, the former ussr, and present day china and iran.

jerseyhoya wrote:You're misreading the immigration question, and I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of these people don't know what contraceptives are. That's a big word. The one that jumped off the page for me was only like seven or eight percent said it was OK for a teacher to be openly gay.

I think one of the major problems with this, besides religion, is these people think that they somehow don't know gays and view them as an 'other', when in reality they likely know, interact with and like many gay people. They just don't know it. There must be this perception that being 'openly gay' somehow equates to wearing pink shorts, wearing a sign that says 'I'm gay fellas!!!!' (and only fellas, cause chicks is cool, he he), and they are also going to want to touch kiddies. Because child rapists are obviously gay.

I'm openly straight, I don't go around bangin' chicks on the bus. Then again, they won't let me.


Very sad numbers on that thing.

dajafi wrote:So, uh, about that bipartisanship...

• "Do you believe Barack Obama wants the terrorists to win?" Yes 24%, No 43%, Not Sure 33%.

Oh jeez. Why not just ask "Is Barack Obama a terrorist" or "Do you believe Barack Obama hates America" or "Do you think Barack Obama wipes his butt with the flag"...

traderdave wrote:

pacino wrote:people are voting against their own co-sponsors. this is beyond politics. im not sure what this is, frankly, but it's absurd

Maddow actually did a nice piece at the beginning of her show last night highlighting this phenomemon. To even a layperson like me it is so obvious that Obama can say the sky is blue until he is literally blue in the face and the GOP will argue that it is pink. Do Republicans (other than the ones here) really think so little of the electorate?

I'll have to look that up. There's this tendency to write off Maddow along with Olbermann, when I think Maddow is quite fair and never really goes off the rails. She just takes people's votes, statements, and actions and runs with them.

It's interesting to see people suddenly against proposals which they themselves were offering months and years earlier.

pacino wrote:I'm openly straight, I don't go around bangin' chicks on the bus.

Soooo, you were never a touring musician...

pacino wrote:Then again, they won't let me.

Oh... drummer or bassist?

Illinois primary election results coming in. Kirk walking it over a bunch of more conservative folks. Seems we picked the rich conservative guy to be the gubernatorial nominee.

The Dem races are more interesting. Pat Quinn, Hoya/current Gov since Blago has left, is leading State Comptroller Dan Hynes by 20k votes. State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias leading David Hoffman by a similar margin for the President's senate seat. Almost 60% in. Both really close and could go either way.

And in non-election news, Rep. Murtha is apparently in really bad shape. I hope he gets better and doesn't run for reelection.

Edit: So the GOP gov and Dem gov races are completely going down to the wire. Dems nominated Alexi of the Rezko/bad banking ties, to be their Senate nominee.

Governor - Dem Primary
Illinois - 10906 of 11215 Precincts Reporting - 97%
Name Party Votes Vote %
Quinn , Pat (i) Dem 432,730 50%
Hynes , Daniel Dem 427,831 50%


Governor - GOP Primary
Illinois - 10906 of 11215 Precincts Reporting - 97%
Name Party Votes Vote %
Brady , Bill GOP 152,802 21%
Dillard , Kirk GOP 150,472 20%
McKenna , Andy GOP 140,632 19%
Ryan , Jim GOP 125,543 17%
Andrzejewski , Adam GOP 107,570 15%
Proft , Dan GOP 57,228 8%
Schillerstrom , Bob GOP 7,121 1%

This is edge of your seat stuff people

I know no one cares, but this is absurdly close. Going to bed, but Brady has a 1500 vote lead on Dillard. Dillard is moderate, and filmed a commercial endorsing Obama for the Iowa Caucuses. Brady is a conservative state sen from downstate. All the votes left to be counted are from Chicago and suburban Cook County. Dillard will win them, but I don't think there are quite enough to get him over the hump. Probably lose by around 500 votes. There's no mandatory recount in IL, so I have no idea what the next step is. If Dillard was to eek out a win, it would be somewhat amusing that the same day the GOP was revealed to be evil and intolerant in a Kos push poll they nominated two of the more moderate candidates to run statewide as GOPers anywhere in the country for a long damn time (yes only a 20% plurality...still Kirk did pretty well against the many conservative candidates he was facing).

Well it didn't take Dana Redd long to make the state's decision to give control back to Camden look questionable:

From Courier-Post:
Mayor Dana Redd wants to increase salary ranges for three city positions, a move that would allow her aides to potentially earn almost $50,000 more than her. The salary limit for mayoral aides would be $150,000 a year, up from the current maximum of $71,200, under a proposal presented to city council at a work session Tuesday.

The proposal also would set a maximum salary of $130,000 for the city attorney, up from $100,000, and $105,000 for the mayor's counsel, instead of $93,700. Redd earns $102,000 a year as mayor. That amount -- along with salary caps for city council and municipal department heads -- would remain the same, according to another proposed ordinance on the agenda for next week's meeting.

I get (although do not 100% agree with) the argument that to get qualified people you have to pay them but do you really need to more than DOUBLE the salary to get them? Gee, I wonder if Redd knows anybody who can refer her a few good people for those higher salaried positions - wink, wink.

http://www.courierpostonline.com/articl ... e-salaries

In Arkansas, there are at last count 10 Republicans vying to face Lincoln. Are these massive primaries happening all over the place? (Though none seem to want to be governor.)

If so, does it reflect a major difference within the Republican party?

I think it has mostly to do with the fact that the last two election cycles were terrible so people passed up races, and Blanche Lincoln has a 27% approval rating so any Republican with a heartbeat is going to beat her.

Across the country there are a lot of Republicans piling into what appear to be very favorable races, but the Arkansas example is a bit extreme.

TenuredVulture wrote:In Arkansas, there are at last count 10 Republicans vying to face Lincoln. Are these massive primaries happening all over the place? (Though none seem to want to be governor.)

If so, does it reflect a major difference within the Republican party?

i believe it is a combination of factors, but right now it is timing more than anything. republicans saw what happened in the new jersey gubernatorial election and actually believe if they can come out of the primary they have a legit chance to win, in a red state.

in traditional blue states or districts, with a democratic congressman or woman up for reelection you will continue to see this played out all over the US.

i believe there is also a bush backlash within the party that once considered moderate republican shoo-ins for coming out of a primary, not up for reelection, are no longer considered, such as is the case with crist in florida.

i just wish my choices in arizona were not limited to mc cain and hayworth for senate. it's pretty much a lose, lose proposition. i hate casting a vote for the lesser of two evils.

jerseyhoya wrote:I think it has mostly to do with the fact that the last two election cycles were terrible so people passed up races, and Blanche Lincoln has a 27% approval rating so any Republican with a heartbeat is going to beat her.

Across the country there are a lot of Republicans piling into what appear to be very favorable races, but the Arkansas example is a bit extreme.

I think Lincoln is in trouble, but there are Republicans with heartbeats who would lose to here. And, with 10 in the race, who knows how it will play out. Presumably, some will drop out.

Ezra Klein interviews Paul Ryan

It's very gratifying to see a Republican seriously grappling with some big questions and putting stuff on the table. Ryan's budget proposal is pretty admirable as an intellectual exercise too (I don't agree with it, but I give him big props for putting it out there and I think it could be part of a conversation)--but the problem is captured in this exchange:

Klein: Well, let’s talk about Wyden-Bennett for a second. We’ve seen this health-care reform debate wear on. Putting aside whether the Democrats have a good plan, it’s certainly been good for Republicans to make it into a bad plan. Wyden-Bennett, which is more disruptive, never went anywhere. It becomes very difficult to see how anything big enough to work is safe enough to propose.

Ryan: You’re so right about that. I did some thinking when I first put this out in 2008. I decided that if the people of southern Wisconsin sent me here to represent them, I need to be part of the solution. I feel obligated to put big ideas on the table and break up the status quo and this awful inertia we have out here. We shoot at anyone who pops their head above the foxhole and proposes anything big. This fiscal situation will destroy us if we don’t start stepping up. I don’t have all the answers. I put out a real, credible plan in the hopes that other members of Congress will do the same, and we can get on with the business of hashing out how to fix the problem.

...which gets us back to the larger dynamic in which each side demonizes the other and political bravery doesn't just go unrewarded but is actively punished while rank hypocrisy (e.g. voting against measures you co-sponsor) gets the opposite treatment.

Demand Question Time petition

You know anything signed by Grover Norquist, Katrina vanden Heuvel, Nate Silver and Patrick Ruffini is gonna be interesting at least. My usual resistance to any internet joining activity notwithstanding, I signed it.

Hey, Ana Marie Cox is on there too!

The leading (or at least in the top two ro three) Republican contender for the AR Senate seat is current Rep. John Boozman. Now, like any successful Southern politician, he's been a champion of bringing pork back to the district. We Southerners do love our pork, and when you represent the district that is the home of the Razorbacks, well, woo pig sooiee.

But I digress. This is causing a little problem for Rep. Boozman in some quarters. I have no idea if this helps Lincoln at all--there's no doubt that Lincoln and Boozman have championed many of the same earmarks. But if the Republican runs on a no earmark type platform, it may put him in an awkward position. We want our roads, we want our rural hospitals, and we want windmills (well, we want to build the blades for windmills.).

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yo7HiQRM7BA[/youtube]



Wow, epic fail on this one