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August 20, 2012 03:19 PM UTC

Monday Open Thread

  • 41 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“Insanity is knowing that what you’re doing is completely idiotic, but still, somehow, you just can’t stop it.”

–Elizabeth Wurtzel

Comments

41 thoughts on “Monday Open Thread

  1. Intensity of support or opposition can have an impact on campaigns. Currently, 24% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way Obama is performing as president. Forty percent (40%) Strongly Disapprove, giving him a Presidential Approval Index rating of -16

    1. Now you all know I still think the massive campaign buys from Obama-Biden and his Super PACs will swing this election back to Obama. Even Karl Rove was on Sunday shows discussing how Obama can lock up his return to the WH by controlling OH or VA.

      Meanwhile, I’ll enjoy continuing to point out the horrible economic effects and non transparent accountability provided by this administration and it’s failed policies.

      Now soldier on newly branded circle symbol Democrats..

      1. I’m having with Unaffiliated female voters right now, CT. Republican voters are going to be just fine with Ryan’s record, if not downright supportive. It’s the Unaffiliateds that decide this race and women are bone weary of being used as political football over and over again by the Republican Party.

        I know, I know–Republicans just want to talk about the economy and stay on point with the “real” issues. Well, guess what, middle aged white men of the Republican party? My ovaries ARE an issue for me. In fact, they are the deciding factor when I fill out my ballot.

        Good VP pick, Romney. You may have just handed Obama a 2nd term with that choice.  

  2. …sometimes I think that the average Republican’t Party Congressman is so far back in the closet he can see Narnia:

    Account of overseas skinny-dipping fuels clarifications, accusations on Hill

    According to the report, Kansas Rep. Kevin Yoder stripped naked and jumped into the water that night, as several other clothed or partially clothed lawmakers and staff members also went for a dip. For some, Politico reported, alcohol may have been a factor.

    Those who reportedly participated were Florida Rep. Steve Southerland, New York Rep. Tom Reed, California Rep. Jeff Denham and New York Rep. Michael Grimm.

    http://www.foxnews.com/politic

    Ye Gods, when your party’s personal news outlet is reporting on your late-night nekked freak, you know you’ve been caught doing the naughty.

    How much does anyone want to bet that this story will “evolve?”

      1. ….guess there’s something there.

        It seems the only gay deviants are in the Republican’t party, gettin cruisy in bathroom stalls of airports…

          1. Like I said, this story is going to continue to “evolve” has statements are “refined.”

            That’s enough responses to the sockpuppet for one day.

  3. …RomneyBot One was in California yesterday, and he yet again let slip forth another comment that RomneyBot Two will somehow have to turn around and repair.

    When asked directly about his draft-dodging of Vietnam, he said this:


    The Vietnam War came at a time in my life when I had other plans. I knew in my heart of hearts that I would one day serve my nation. That I would one day hold an office that would help not only our nation, but also the world. So I did what I could to make sure that I would be around to serve my nation, as well as serving God by teaching very important religious principles to a broader audience overseas. My father did not want me serving, and he convinced me that yes, I was too important to go to Vietnam. I had a greater purpose in life. I wasn’t neglecting my nation, but rather preparing myself for a future of service.”

    http://www.freewoodpost.com/20

    Huh – while I have SO MUCH to say about this quote, I’ll let a Vietnam Vet (and probably a Repub, since the campaign so very carefuly screens the invitees) answer it for me:

    “Fuck you, Romney! You wouldn’t know service if it bit you on your well manicured ass. You only served yourself, you jackass. You could’ve served your nation even if your draft number wasn’t called… but you didn’t… you chose to serve yourself instead. Thanks for revealing your true colors.”

    Now, Repubs, please explain away this…if Clinton was a scumbag for being a draft dodger while he was in college, what does this make the RomneyBot?

    1. Better ways to say that:

      – my calendar was full

      – you people just need to understand I was busy

      – see, if you had other plans, it wouldda been ok

      – you people  got to go, and for some of you this may have been your only opportunity  to travel overseas

      – if, and i”m just saying IF,  you had a greater purpose in life, well, then you wouldna have had to go either.

      – somewhere out there I know there is someone like me with a greater purpose,  and if elected, when I invade Iran, I will make sure that young man will not have  to go

      – by getting mega rich, and moving money offshore into so many Swiss, and Cayman banks, I am actually helping to build America It’s not really defending a nation as much is it is making America great.

      – thanks for your service, suckers!

      1. Uh, this is from a Onion-esque Political website….


        Free Wood Post is a news and political satire web publication, which may or may not use real names, often in semi-real or mostly fictitious ways. All news articles contained within FreeWoodPost.com are fiction, and presumably fake news.

        Any resemblance to the truth is purely coincidental, except for all references to politicians and/or celebrities, in which case they are based on real people, but still based almost entirely in fiction.

        FreeWoodPost.com is intended for a mature, sophisticated, and discerning audience

        I was trying to post it under ‘tad’s comments, but screwed up since I’ve only had 1 cup of coffee and have not gone on my morning bikeride….

    2. He has five healthy sons. None served.  When he was asked why none of his sons were in uniform, he said that they were serving their country by working in his campaign for his election.

      Why isn’t that a commercial?

    3. they were shelved.  

      I served.

      I didn’t want too, but there is a little thing called: duty, honor, country, that veterans respond to.

        But veterans were reluctant warriors.  Hell,  I’d have preferred to spend those years in France, watching the girls and eating ice cream.

        But that damn duty, country, honor thing.  My brother went, I went.  

        It’s what you do when you’re country calls.

         Unless, of course, you’re too important to risk your sorry ass.

         

      1. maybe that makes a bigger difference than I realize, but I think we were in pretty much the same boat.  

        I figured there was a good chance I’d be dead within a year of signing up.  I didn’t want to go to no stinkin’ war.  But I was also looking for redemption, trying to solve some family problems, and running away from a pretty solid record of failure.  

        The experience left a mark.  I’m more aware of the diversity of ways that people frame and interpret life, and how they form their values.  It’s how I got to understand what “America” is and stands for.  

        If Willard had served, maybe he would have a different understanding of who we Americans are.  and some compassion for little people.  

        …..

        About the term “public service:”

        I have a hard time calling being a powerful government official “service.”  I wouldn’t say that Willard “served” as Governor of the Commonwealth.   I would say he “enjoyed” the elective office he held, or that he exploited that office, but to imply he was intentionally serving the community at large is inaccurate.  He served himself and his contributors.  

        But then, I don’t consider the time GW Bush spent in the Air Force Reserve to be “service,” either.  

        Service means serving, which is related to “servant.”  Rich and powerful people don’t have to serve anyone, and usually don’t.  

        1. But it’s fair to say in that era that the impetus of the draft caused a lot of us to enlist, in the wan hope that we’d have a little control over our future.

  4. I’m so confused. On the one hand, both Romney and Ryan have come out in support of “personhood” laws. On the other hand, in response to the Todd Akin “explosive boner” (as Shawn Mitchell calls it), both Romney and Ryan have said they support abortion in cases of rape.

    Please explain, GOP friends. I don’t understand how there’s not a massive contradiction here.

    1. I’m not a Republican, but hold the position than many GOP embrace, whether for reasons of conviction or expedience.

      me, I oppose all abortions.

      I can see a “Hippocratic Oath” physician making an exception to save the life of the mother, but would not let someone in DaftPunk’s position make that decision.  

      I would not make an exception in the case of rape or incest.

      To me, if a child is conceived in a case like that, the pre-child/ child is a person with a right to live, enjoying the Constitutional Right to Life.  

      What happened to the Mother was awful, so punish the criminal perpetrator, but don’t kill an innocent child.  

      By the time a woman knows she’s pregnant, as I understand it, the “zygote” already has a unique DNA, as well as a discernible nervous system, brain, eyes, even fingerprints.  

      But for being carried to term, this is a human being (to me.)  

      1. But how do you address the fact that there is currently no law obliging any fully born person to give their organs to others, even if it would save lives? I can’t even be compelled by law to donate blood–even if I were somehow the ONLY viable match for someone who would die without it.

        Honestly, I can accept the personhood view completely. I don’t agree with it myself, but I think it’s ideologically consistent and I can respect both the medical and faith-based arguments for it, though not quite as much as I respect the medical and scientific arguments against it. Let’s say it is a person, though. What other person can the force of law compel me to use my own body to support, even if that person would otherwise die?

        Nobody has the right to kill–but if someone had committed to a kidney donation and backed out at the last minute knowing it would cause the recipient to die without the transplant, that would not be considered murder. Under no legal grounds could doctors strap the donor to a gurney and take their kidney anyway, despite the clear and obvious personhood of the patient. If someone had offered to give bone marrow and then refused, the leukemia patient receiving it might die, but the reluctant donor would not be a murderer and would not be legally compelled to give. A nurse caregiver quitting their job is not murder, even if the patient does not hire another caregiver and subsequently expires. All of these acts would be difficult for the person who caused someone else’s death to live with, and they would be frowned on, but they would not be murder.

        So, if someone has–even willingly and knowingly–committed to a pregnancy and is carrying a person in their body, why is withdrawing their support for that person’s life murder? That confers MORE rights on a fetus than those enjoyed by a post-birth infant.  

        1. Sluts who fuck lose their rights.  Sucks to be a girl and all, but that’s just the hand that nature dealt…or not.

          Members of the pro-life community who acknowledge the unique burdens that a fetus places on a pregnant woman nonetheless have a ready answer to the question of how the State can in most cases compel a woman to sustain such an assault on her bodily integrity. Their answer is consent. They contend that by engaging in sexual intercourse, at least when it is consensual, a woman consents to remaining pregnant and thereby sustaining the life of any fetus that results from the sexual contact…

          Returning to the question of whether consensual intercourse represents “consent” to pregnancy, consider the factors identified above. Is an act of consensual sexual intercourse extremely risky with respect to pregnancy?

          http://writ.news.findlaw.com/c

        2. I was to donate bone marrow.  When I was tested, my employer would pay all my expenses, give me time off.

          Later, when I was matched with someone in need, I was self-employed and couldn’t afford it.  I declined.  

          So I acknowledge the question, but don’t have a good answer off the cuff.  

          I think Daft Punk’s tongue-in-cheek post above this is actually fairly close to my church’s position, and I am reluctant to disagree with the church publicly.  

          Anyway, since abortion is all Obama’s got this time around, I know the issue will be up on this site a couple more times before November.  

          I will be thinking about that challenge you pose.  

          1. And I agree with your implication that it would be nice if this whole election didn’t have to be about abortion… sigh.

            Speaking of the church, the Women Religious seem to be revolting against the idea that an appropriate response to women having opinions is to put men in charge of them to tell them what their opinions are. That could get interesting as the year moves on, too.

      2. There is NO biblical support for what is generally found now in Christian religious communities about a sanctity of a fetus.  Not in the Hebrew Bible, not in the New Testament.

        There were no laws against abortion here in the US for most of the years of the republic.  Not that many women got them, but some did.

        The Jews held that life begins with the first breath.  In fact, “breath” and “spirit” are the same word in Hebrew.  

        Nature doesn’t care a whit about anyone’s life, only that of the species.

        Life is “sacred” only because many people want it to be.  It’s an extension of the human ability to empathize, I believe.  And I certainly am perplexed how most anti-abortionists have no problem with not taking care of the living.  Or, the death penalty. If we shouldn’t abort a fetus but it’s OK to execute someone, or kill them in war, it’s totally wrong to proffer that life is sacred.  Totally inconsistent.

        Just like religions, generally.

        1. God said pregnancy would be hard- cause woman was the first sinner.

          So punishing women for eing pregnant, well, God said so.

          And women are for the benefit of men. ANd men have domiinion

        2. .

          I believe the Catholic Bible, and the Jewish Bible before it, clarify a respect for human life more generally.  

          To me, the emphasis on children before birth  came into focus in 1968 with the Papal Encyclical Letter Humanae Vitae.  

          The Church traces this tradition back to Augustine of Hippo (ca. 400 AD) and even Clement of Alexandria (ca. 200 AD.)  

          But NADA in the Bible, as you say.  

          ……….

          Human life is sacred because God made us in His image to love and serve Him.  

          Alternately, if there is no God, perhaps humans are no more special/ sacred than mosquitoes.  

          ………………

          Support for executing convicted criminals strikes me as inconsistent, too.  Either all life is sacred, or its not.  

          But when it comes to a just war, the Catholic Church recognizes that forces of good must destroy forces of evil.  

          But there hasn’t been a just war that involved the USA in quite some time.  

      3. as the result of the most horrific, humiliating, terrifying, painful experience of her life, reminded every minute of every day of that experience by the pregnancy. You certainly expect an extraordinary level of sustained strength and courage from victims as young as 12 in the service of your particular religion’s view of what constitutes a person with a full set of constitutional rights that take precedence over the right of a woman to decline being forced through nine months of pregnancy against her will.

        There is nothing to back up your position in either your bible, which would be irrelevant to the laws of a state forbidden to favor your religious beliefs over the beliefs of anyone else anyway, or in our constitution.  

        In fact our constitution has been interpreted by our Supreme Court as granting women the right to end pregnancies if they so desire. You may not like that, just as I don’t like the Citizens United decision but, with the Court as the ultimate arbiter of these issues, at present the constitutional rights you refer to don’t, in fact, exist.  

  5. Augusta National to Add First Two Female Members

    Augusta National Golf Club, the private club that hosts the Masters and has come under attack over the past decade because of its all-male membership, announced Monday that it had added two female members: Condoleezza Rice, the former secretary of state, and Darla Moore, the South Carolina businesswoman.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08

  6. (Note: not a commercial or a paid promotion, although I do use this company’s services for credit card processing.)

    I got an email today about this service. I thought of you because I believe this is kind of the solution you have been saying is sorely needed to help fix interstate/internet commerce. It’s an interesting start, I think. The phone app that takes payments for you can access a national database to automatically figure sales tax where you are selling at the time!

    http://blog.gopayment.com/how-

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