Tuesday Open Thread

46
  by: Colorado Pols Tue September 18, 2012 at 3:15 PM MDT

“Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.”

–Bertrand Russell


Full story: Tuesday Open Thread

46 Community Comments, Facebook Comments

  1. MADCO says:
    Tue September 18, 2012 at 3:28 PM MDT

    http://elections.huffingtonpos…

    Probably not.

    Meanwhile- the way to spell consistently amazing football is Payton.  Peyton is the QB – and all 3 of those 1Q picks were on him.  One was a great defensive play – but still.

    • dwyer says:
      Tue September 18, 2012 at 3:48 PM MDT

      This is how coordination works.  People are calling in describing all the deadbeats they know that are part of Romney’s 47% percent.  His base is engaged and enraged.  

      I am, again, urging dems not to become overconfident.

      Romney is the last week has “pleased” the far right.  The MSM has taken him to task and some of the Republican Establishment has also.  But underneath, like a vast fungus growth…silent and underground…..he is making points.  

      The polls showing Obama nationally ahead are all within the margin of error.  The swing states look better…but you notice that MSNBC is only highlighting Ohio, VA, Florida and PA….not Colorado, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan.

      I have not followed through with my plan to show a daily comparison between 2008 and today…mainly because it has been too difficult to access archives with that specific kind of data.

      Romney is 65.  Is he on Medicare?  I am on social security and have a shrinking IRA.  I pay taxes on my social security  and I pay also on money distributed from the IRA….which has already been taxed.  I am not sure who are the 47% who do not pay federal income taxes…..

      Again, does anyone know the breakout of that number?

      • Diogenesdemar says:
        Tue September 18, 2012 at 5:25 PM MDT

        that the release of the Mother Jones videos was really some sort of cunning October-surprise (and here it’s still September . . . Surprise!)  plot by Team Willard to rejuvenate their old, angry, straight, white-guy base? . . . those devious SOBs?  

        I guess Obama’s only small hope now is for all of us — everyone . . . no slackers (MADCO) — to start listening to massive amounts of right-wing nitwit radio?? . . . wait, that might be part of Team Willard’s even more nefarious winning plan?? . . . oh, woe, is there anyway to stop these cunning and calculating overlords??  Doom.  Doom.  Doom.

        There.  I hope I just did enough for my part for team D.  

      • AristotleAristotle says:
        Tue September 18, 2012 at 5:32 PM MDT

        It likely includes children and spouses who are homemakers. Notice that they say “47% of Americans,” not “47% of households.” (A possible insight to how Romney and his ilk regard child labor laws?)

        Second, and I copied a comment from anther blog to the other diary, “not paying income tax” does not mean “not paying tax.” Those who are too poor to pay income tax are much more likely to be paying a higher percentage of their income on taxes, direct and indirect, than any of the millionaire Mitt was addressing. That covers everything from sales tax (the poster child of regressive taxes) to property tax (passed along to the poor in the rents they pay) to expired tabs tickets and court costs.

        Romney and the very wealthy truly believe the bullshit that they, and they alone, are responsible for the wealth they have. They don’t regard the workers in their employ as anything more than an inconvenient cost to be reigned in and cut to the bone. They really believe that everyone who wasn’t blessed enough to be born at least upper middle class (as even virtually every “self made” millionaire and billionaire was) is somehow to blame for that. The old Puritan spirit is alive and well, just as it was almost 400 years ago.

        There are enough people who buy that bullshit, but the number of the compassionate is still greater. Yes, this has helped inflame the base…. for now. But has it won over anyone in the middle? Watch his press conference and note the look in his eyes and on his face.

        My bold prediction: The base will not remain energized for long – if the comments you’re hearing on the radio are, in fact, evidence of such a thing. It won’t be long before they remember who Mitt Romney is – the flip-flopping moderate who brought Romneycare to Massachusetts and was once pro-choice. They’ve never trusted this guy, and only rally around him because they have no choice. As 2004 shows, strong dislike for the incumbent isn’t enough for the opposition to win.

        You’re absolutely right, though, that we shouldn’t be complacent. Presidential elections are won, not ceded. (Most of the time, anyway.)

        • AristotleAristotle says:
          Tue September 18, 2012 at 5:35 PM MDT

          Apparently the 47% figure DOES apply to households, per dwyer’s link below. (It wasn’t up when I started writing this comment.) But it also shows that those 47% pay plenty of other taxes, which still demolishes Mitt’s “freeloader” talking point.

        • dwyer says:
          Tue September 18, 2012 at 5:37 PM MDT

          What is happening is that the right wing radio is not defining the 47%.  What I heard was people calling in and complaining about the “kid in the basement playing video games” and the “drunk uncle on food stamps” and people they know and “hate” and then assuming that those personal examples are typical of all the 47%.

          They, of course, are not.  But this is a very effective way to develop stereotypes which is, of course, a prelude to scapegoating…

          • AristotleAristotle says:
            Tue September 18, 2012 at 5:50 PM MDT

            They have existed since the Puritans landed in America.

            They can try to scapegoat, but things are not dire enough for it to work. When I recall successful scapegoating by various politicians around the world and in America, things were typically pretty bad. The German people only listened to the Nazis when they were in a terrible crisis (they waned in popularity after the Dawes Plan and other measures stabilized their currency and economy, and only waxed again with the onset of the Great Depression).

            We shouldn’t be complacent, but we shouldn’t panic either.

          • AristotleAristotle says:
            Tue September 18, 2012 at 5:56 PM MDT

            Sure, Romney might be preaching to his base with this speech. But he’s also riling up the left (at least if my anecdotal experience of Facebook posts and blog stories is equal to your talk radio listening).

            Hey, anyone still talking about “you didn’t build that” right now?

      • MADCO says:
        Thu September 20, 2012 at 2:28 AM MDT

        I’m doing what I think needs doing, as I’m sure you are.

    • dwyer says:
      Tue September 18, 2012 at 3:50 PM MDT

      It is so hard to give up the glory days.  John Elway and Payton Manning should be showing up at MacDconald’s for the morning coffee club…..

    • Diogenesdemar says:
      Tue September 18, 2012 at 5:29 PM MDT

      there’s still a few opportunities to watch the Rockies play baseball this season . . .  

    • Barron X says:
      Tue September 18, 2012 at 8:08 PM MDT

      the reason to watch Broncos football this year has nothing to do with the score, or the plays.

      People watch this year so that, in case it happens, they can say:

      “I was watching live when Peyton’s head snapped off and rolled across the goal line.”  

      It’s like NASCAR, waiting to see a train wreck.  whatever.  

  2. allyncooper says:
    Tue September 18, 2012 at 4:20 PM MDT

    Larimer County voter registration growth Dec. 6 to Sett. 5

    Unaffiliated: 6,816

    Republican: 2,291

    Democrat: 1,995

    Other: 592

    Larimer County voter registration growth Aug. 1 to Sept. 5

    Unaffiliated: 2,307

    Democrat: 997

    Republican: 502

    Other: 175

    Voters are registering as unaffiliated in far greater numbers than Democrat, Republican, and other parties combined.  

  3. JADoddjadodd says:
    Tue September 18, 2012 at 4:27 PM MDT

    I call it lying like a rug, but there is an entire academic discipline devoted to how we get led down the garden path.

    Agnotology (formerly agnatology) is the study of the culturally induced ignorance or doubt, particularly the publication of inaccurate or misleading scientific data. The neologism was coined by Robert N. Proctor, a Stanford University professor specializing in the history of science and technology. . . . More generally, the term also highlights the increasingly common condition where more knowledge of a subject leaves one more uncertain than before.

    A prime example of the deliberate production of ignorance cited by Proctor is the tobacco industry’s conspiracy to manufacture doubt about the cancer risks of tobacco use. Under the banner of science, the industry produced research about everything except tobacco hazards to exploit public uncertainty. Some of the root causes for culturally induced ignorance are media neglect, corporate or governmental secrecy and suppression, document destruction, and myriad forms of inherent or avoidable culturopolitical selectivity, inattention, and forgetfulness.

    Agnotology also focuses on how and why diverse forms of knowledge do not “come to be,” or are ignored or delayed. For example, knowledge about plate tectonics was censored and delayed for at least a decade because key evidence was classified military information related to underseas warfare.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A…

    • Phoenix RisingPhoenix Rising says:
      Tue September 18, 2012 at 5:37 PM MDT

      I especially like the points at the bottom where Reagan and then the Republican head of the House Ways and Means Committee during the Gingrich years talk about how important it was to cut all of those low-income people out from having to pay any taxes.

      How far we’ve come since St. Reagan. And not in a good way.

  6. Gadfly says:
    Tue September 18, 2012 at 6:10 PM MDT

    http://blogs.denverpost.com/th…

    Are AFSCME, SEIU or House Majority PAC running ads attacking Coffman or Tipton?  Judging by the amount of outside money being spent Ed Perlmutter is the most endangered Colorado Congressman.  

  9. Phoenix RisingPhoenix Rising says:
    Tue September 18, 2012 at 10:01 PM MDT

    The PA Supreme Court today vacated a judge’s ruling upholding the state’s “guaranteed to win the state for Romney” voter ID law and sent it back to the lower court with the instruction that “if you have any doubts about the state’s ability to get everyone an ID by November, you must suspend the law”.

    The lower court judge had upheld the voter ID law based on an old and prejudiced ruling that created a two-tier standard for city vs. rural voter requirements.  Today’s decision effectively means that the law is suspended, because the state itself admits that it will not complete all IDs by November. It would take a very partisan judge to rule in favor of the law taking effect this year.

  10. Gray in Mountains says:
    Tue September 18, 2012 at 10:09 PM MDT

    Barron,

    What did you finally decide about Virgil Goode? I’m sure you also considered Gary Johnson?

    • CaninesCanines says:
      Tue September 18, 2012 at 10:38 PM MDT

      http://abcnews.go.com/Politics…

      Romney will need every bit of momentum he can get in Virginia. The last major pollster to survey Virginia, CBS/New York Times/Quinnipiac, found Obama ahead by 4 percentage points in early August. That poll did not include Goode.

      Given his 12-year career represening southern/central Virginia in the House, and his 24 years in the Virginia state Senate before that, Goode would appear to have a conservative base on his home turf…

      Virginia’s 13 Electoral College votes aren’t nothing: if Obama wins Virginia and a larger swing state like Ohio or Florida, Romney will need to win virtually every other swing state in play.

    • Barron X says:
      Wed September 19, 2012 at 8:12 AM MDT

      I need to look closer at Goode’s position on immigration; that’s the one area I diverge the most from the Party Platform.   He worries that the Jihadis could take over our government through elections.  huh ?

      But right now, I think I could vote for him.  

      He spent more time in public office than even Doug Lamborn.  Career politician.  But he never put party above the nation, as most pols do.  

      I have a Paul-supporting son who says I need to look at Johnson closer.  

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