Posts from — November 2012

Via skippy you will discover a Driftglass response to a Kevin Drum post.

First off I would like to commend Kevin for knowing the difference between ‘rein’ and ‘reign’ and using the proper word. Then I would make a minor correction to his numbers – Zero received 51% of the popular vote, Rmoney received 48%, and other candidates received 1%.

First off the popular vote totals are not relevant to the election of the President. Zero received 62% of the 538 electors who actually get to vote for President, while Rmoney only received 38%. Winning the popular vote looks good on your resume, but isn’t a requirement to become President.

Apparently Kevin thinks that winning the election makes this an ideal time to surrender to the Republicans, rather than pushing Democratic programs.

The problems facing the US are all solved if you get people back to work. Tax revenue increases and the cost of support systems like unemployment insurance and food stamps go down when people have jobs and paychecks. Government is the only entity that can kick start the system, and strengthening and rebuilding the infrastructure is the fastest way of getting the economy moving again.

People didn’t vote to continue the charade of the ‘Grand Bargain’, and if that is all the Democrats offer them, don’t expect them to vote for Democrats again. The Democrats will lose seats in Congress and the Senate in 2014 if they don’t do something in the next year. The ‘Grand Bargain’ and austerity will push the US back into recession, just as has happened in Europe. This is no time to play nice with the whackoes.

At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918 the guns fell silent. The Great War, The War to End All Wars, was over…for a couple of decades.

The red poppies of Flanders fields became a symbol of that war and the veterans that returned from it. Known as Remembrance Day in much of the world, the poppies will be in evidence. Remembrance Day observances have more in common with the American Memorial Day as a day to honor those who have died in war.

First called Armistice Day in the United States, the name was changed to Veterans Day, and its purpose changed to honoring those who are serving, or have served in the military. The change was made to avoid a conflict with the existing Memorial Day observance that goes back to the Civil War era.

A heart felt salute to everyone who managed to survive basic training. We can hope that sooner, rather than later, there will be no need for another generation to put on uniforms.

Rook [AKA Guy Andrew Hall] has moved to new digs and a new platform: http://www.guyandrewhall.com/wordpress/

He’s has changed the name, but it’s the same old Rook, well, not quite, the text is a very readable black on white and he has flowers in the header.

The votes hadn’t even been counted when Florida’s junior Senator, Marco Rubio scheduled a trip to Iowa next week.

The political parties have a rule that if you schedule a primary earlier than the rules allow, you lose at least half your delegates. They should expand the rule to say that if you start campaigning for President more than two years before the election, you lose half of your delegates.

Marco Rubio can’t ‘save’ the Republican Party. It is the policies and platform of the Party that caused some Cuban voters to go for Zero, not the ethnicity of the candidate, and if Rubio couldn’t even deliver the entire Cuban community for the Republican Party, how is he going to convince the rest of the Spanish-speaking voters?

The GOP problem is their policies, not the people they run for office.

Final Update: Zero was announced as the Official unofficial winner of the Florida election by the Secretary of State. The official results can’t be announced until after the 16^th, the deadline for foreign absentee ballots.

Still checking in with the Florida results because turning the ballot into a novella was a really bad idea that slows everything up.

As of the close of business on Friday Zero is 64K ahead of Money Boo Hoo, and that difference is growing the more votes that get counted.

Allen West has filed suit to get two counties, St Lucie and Palm Beach, recounted. Palm Beach will definitely get a recount because there is only an 11 vote difference between West and Murphy with nearly 124K votes cast, but St Lucie isn’t even close with a 13K Murphy advantage. The other thing is that West won a higher percentage of votes than Connie Mack, the Republican Senate candidate, and almost the same percentage as Rmoney. The numbers look normal. Unless something is found, Allen West is going to get the bill for the St Lucie recount.

Saturday Update: the current count, which is probably close to the final, shows that Zero actually polled a majority of votes cast, not simply the most, but a real majority of 50.01%. He leads Money Boo Hoo by almost 74K votes. There are provisional ballots to be judged and the foreign absentee ballots can keep coming until the 16^th, but the provisionals are probably Democrats and there can’t be that many more absentee ballots to arrive.

CNN reports that CIA Director, David Petraeus has resigned. Petraeus said he is resigning because he had an extra-marital affair. Were that the real reason, I wouldn’t bother commenting, but the real reason is that he doesn’t know what he is doing.

First off, everyone is reporting that the FBI was investigating Petraeus, which isn’t exactly true. Because of the War on Terror™ the government is scanning e-mails from all over looking for certain patterns that someone thinks is sort of the kind of e-mails that ‘terrorists’ would send to each other. We now know that the search criteria also fit people having extra-marital affairs.

The head of America’s lead espionage agency doesn’t know how to establish a private communication system with his girlfriend that doesn’t attract attention. Think about that.

It is no surprise that when the FBI finds suspicious e-mails being exchanged between the Director of the CIA and another person, they are going to want to know what is going on. They are responsible for counter-espionage within the US.

Update: It has been suggested that the timing of the FBI investigation makes the Congressional insistence on an investigation into government leaking as the possible root cause. The assumed ‘other woman’ is tied to journalism, and her communications with government officials may have been targeted.

Wow, the Republicans really don’t want to admit that the majority of voters don’t like what they are selling.

The pundits are saying that the Rmoney GOTV effort wasn’t good enough. Just over 70% of registered voters in my county voted. With 75K registered Republicans in the county, Money Boo Boo received 70K votes – more that 90% of the total registered Republicans. They voted, but there just aren’t enough of them.

Then they say they didn’t get their message out. Hey, I have a decently-sized mailbox, and it was constantly filled with ‘their message’. They filled the answering machine on my land line with their robo-calls. I listened to a stream of complaints from my Mother over all of the ads being run on TV for months. The problem was that their message did get out, and a majority of voters didn’t like it. It turns out that the normally reliably Republican Cubans, are no longer reliable, because of those who voted on election day, a majority voted for Zero.

The majority of voters in the US are women, and have been for some time. Latinos are the fastest growing demographic in the US. When your “message” specifically attacks women and Latinos you are going to lose a national election. You can’t attack the majority of voters and expect them to support you.

Mustang Bobby found this piece of Republican ‘brain power’ on Tumblr:

Kristen Neel – “I’m moving to Australia, because their president is a Christian and actually supports what he says.”

The Australian prime minister, Julia Gillard, is an atheist who does back most of the goals of the left-wing Labor Party that she leads. She also ‘lives in sin’, and can get worked up over misogyny.

If Ms Neel wishes to go to Australia, she should feel free, but I would warn her that the animal life of the Land Down Under is not very forgiving of people who refuse to accept reality and live in a cloud of ignorance.

Dampener of Doom

Is it loaded?

[Editor: The blue and white kitten isn’t happy about the Super Soaker as it was used to remove her from under the car.]

Friday Ark

Susie Madrak located the video of an October, 2011 talk at a TEDx conference in Bermuda given by Dr. Jeff Masters. He gives his qualifications and then talked about upcoming threats.

When he gets to the threat of a major hurricane in New York pay attention to the details and the maps. He was describing Hurricane Sandy.

Some might quibble that he was talking about a Category 3 or 4 hurricane, while Sandy was only a Category 1. Before it slammed into the Gulf Coast of the Florida peninsula in 2004, Hurricane Charley had 145 mph winds and a pressure of 947 mb. Sandy came ashore with a pressure of 946 mb, up from 940 mb just off the coast. Sandy was many times larger than Charley and had higher storm surge. It isn’t the wind, it’s the water.

Dr. Masters points out that warmer sea surface temperatures produces more powerful hurricanes.

Bronco Bama has increased his lead over Money Boo Boo to over 55K this morning, but absentee ballots are still being counted.

Allen West has requested a recount in one of the counties in his loss to Patrick Murphy in District 18. More money wasted, because he has to pay for it.

Oh, people need to stop comparing the loser in Ohio, Secretary of State Jon Husted, to Katherine Harris. Ms Harris succeeded in stealing Florida, while Husted totally failed in Ohio. Given the shoddy treatment that poor Kate received after accomplishing her mission, I don’t think Karl Rove is going to be very nice to Husted in the aftermath of his failure.

Update: It looks like it will be tomorrow before this is finished as Broward, Duval, and Palm Beach counties still haven’t finished counting absentee ballots. Zero is now 59K ahead of Rmoney.

The absentee ballots still haven’t been counted in Miami-Dade, Broward, or Duval counties, so Florida still doesn’t know who won. Bronco Bama has been leading Money Boo Boo by 50K all day, which is good because it is outside of the automatic recount limit. If the difference drops to .5% or less, there is an automatic recount, and no one is interested in that expense.

Carlos Gimenez, the Republican mayor of Maimi-Dade has announced that he intends to ask the Fraudster-in-chief and legislature to extend the early voting hours in the next session in hopes to avoid being tarred-and-feathered by his constituents. If there are any real politicians in Tallahassee it will be the first bill taken up and passed in the next session because if it isn’t done, it will be a major issue at the next election, and not just in Miami.

This might be over tomorrow with initial totals finalized, but I wouldn’t bet on it. The much reduced staff of the Supervisor of Elections in Miami-Dade has to be exhausted tonight. Fortunately Florida is irrelevant this year or too many of us would be having flashbacks from 2000.

Nate Silver just crunches the numbers. He doesn’t create them. but weighs them based on past performance and puts them out there. The election shows that Nate Silver’s conclusions were correct, and the talking heads in the media were just making shit up to justify their spot in front of the microphone. I’m sure all of the apologies from the pundits will be appearing in print and on the talk shows real soon now [yeah, right].

The numbers say that people didn’t want to vote for Money Boo Boo. All of the voter suppression crap piled on by the Republicans in states like Florida and Ohio didn’t help Rmoney, and may have helped to motivate Democrats. Given the real effects of voter ID laws, a lot of Republican voters can’t fulfill the requirements without a lot of hassle, so they may stay at home and not bother.

Via Ellroon, my favorite existentialist tuxedo talks politics: Henri – Politique.

Update: Jams O’Donnell and Comrade Misfit have good ones too.

It looks like Elizabeth Warren is the new Senator from Massachusetts, and a familiar face will be returning as a Congressman from Florida – Alan Grayson. Being bullish on popcorn futures seems like a safe bet.

In addition to the Florida results I’m following the Okaloosa County results.

Frankly, with 60% of all registered voters registered as Republicans, I’m surprised at how few of the Amendments are reaching the 60% threshold in the county. I can’t see any of the ‘social issue’ Amendments passing state-wide if they can’t get more support than this in Fundistan.

Update: it looks like Gary Johnson running as the Libertarian candidate will get the blame for Money Boo Boo’s problems in Florida. I don’t think it would make much difference because the heavily Democratic parts of the state are slow to report.

On the Amendment front, only three Amendments have a majority and they also have the required 60%. Amendments 2, 9, and 11 give extra property tax exemptions to disabled veterans, the surviving spouses of deceased veterans and first responders, and disabled seniors. The voters just told the legislature to ‘stuff-it’ on the social issue crap on ‘Obamacare’ and abortion funding.

The Florida Supreme Court justices are currently enjoying a two to one advantage for retention, another ‘stuff-it’ for the legislature.

What is truly weird is that the same voters return the same legislature to power. If they aren’t doing what you want, fire them and get someone new.

I arrived at 11:15AM CST and it took me almost 15 minutes to get out, which is 50% longer than usual, and there was actually someone else voting at the same time, which is a 100% increase from normal.

It wasn’t just the 4 sides of the ballot, to cut costs they only had one set of workers for the two precincts that vote at my town hall. The majority of voters in the precincts use absentee ballots, although I saw a few people also used early voting. I had done that before, but there is only one location open in the south county, and the road is under construction, so it is a real pain to get in and out of there.

Of course, just because I voted doesn’t mean it will get counted, so I’ll be checking to see the reporting. My votes are rather obvious in South Fundistan.

The polls finally close in Florida at 7PM CST, not 7PM EST.

I am still getting robo-calls.

Update: Here’s the official unofficial Florida results from the Florida Department of State. They don’t become official until everything is certified after all of the challenges and court cases are resolved.