Glenn Reynolds @ USA Today:
Last week, I speculated that we may be seeing a “preference cascade,” as people who previously supported Obama now feel safe about publicly changing their minds. It seems that we’re seeing more of that this week as word of the Benghazi debacle spreads. The Obama campaign no doubt hopes you’ll be distracted from this by hurricane news, but that’s probably a vain hope on its part.
On the left, the defections are mounting. Last week, I spoke to Camille Paglia about her new book on art history, but she also stopped to explain why she wasn’t voting for Obama this time: basically, disappointment. She said he ran as a moderate, but has been “one of the most racially divisive and polarizing figures ever. I think it’s going to take years to undo the damage to relationships between the races.”
She was also unhappy with the Libya intervention — which admittedly hasn’t turned out well — and with the ongoing drone attacks, as well as the way ObamaCare turned out. She says she’ll vote for Green Party candidate Jill Stein, whom I interviewed here a while back, instead.
Others on the “progressive” side are coming out, too. In Salon.com, longtime netroots activist Matt Stoller makes “the progressive case against Obama.” Stoller’s case is largely economic. He writes of the new ordering created by the Obama administration’s interventions: “The bailouts and the associated Federal Reserve actions were not primarily shifts of funds to bankers; they were a guarantee that property rights for a certain class of creditors were immune from challenge or market forces.” He’s right, and there are some Chrysler bondholders, and non-UAW pensionholders who can attest to that firsthand.
In The Atlantic, Conor Friedersdorf writes “Why I Refuse To Vote For Barack Obama.” “I’d have thought more people on the left would regard a sustained assault on civil liberties and the ongoing, needless killing of innocent kids as deal-breakers.” Well, lefties complained more under Bush, but some are unhappy.
All rats, attention on deck:
It is time to leave the ship.
She is stove in, taking water rapidly, and going underneath the waves.
Stay on board at your personal peril.
LAST WARNING!
This notice is directed to kool-aid drinking, big government believing, demonRATS.
If you voted for Hussein in 2008, time to bail out.
You will have good company.
The Liberals merely know that President Barack Hussein Obama has destroyed the image of the Democratic Party, and it will take many years (Many, many, I hope) for them to recover from this administration’s insanity.
So, yeah, they’re a little miffed.
Too bad.
Everyone I personally know who voted for Obama in 2008 is voting for Obama again in 2012. Most of them, like myself, have already cast their 2012 ballot.
As of today, 17,060,908 U.S. voters have already cast their ballot.
@Greg:
So you surround yourself with stupid people, eh?
Thanks for letting us know.
Petercat Don’t you worry about the Party of Roosevelt, Kennedy and Clinton. Better you should worry that far right extremists will relegate the Repub. Party to an also ran status.
One of my daughters, only one of 3 that voted for Obama in 2008 has said she will NOT vote for Obama again.
I asked her why and our discussion quickly went to a discussion of the bad Obama economy.
It is as plain as the nose on your face; our economy is in the pits. With Mitt Romney’s qualifications and the air of freshness, newness, we can all take genuine hope that the worst will be over as soon as Obama is defeated on November 6th, 2012. And, it looks as though that is exactly what is going to happen.
@Aye, #4:
I live in Indiana. I’ve split my ticket in past elections, voting for republican Senator Dick Lugar in every election since 1976. I would have done this year again, except for the fact that local right-wing extremists backed by out-of-state PAC money replaced that option with Richard Mourdock, a guy who believes that rape is part of God’s plan. We now have a close election for Lugar’s former seat, and Mourdock is a millstone around Romney’s neck.
So tell me again who’s stupid.
@Greg:
Greg, you’re a lying liar and not a very good one either.
@Aye, #8:
Read the guy’s own words. Like Todd Aiken, the man is a total idiot. Even in heavily republican Indiana, Mourdock is running 3 points behind Joe Donnelly in the polls.
The right is totally fixated on their own Benghazi propaganda effort. They seem to have forgotten that half of the country doesn’t buy their bull, and are looking at other important issues. Abortion rights being an important one, among women voters. When you get down to brass tacks, the Republican Party is the one that wants to force women to bear their rapists’ babies. This is not an especially strong selling point for many ladies.
Even though CA will most likely go Obama, his lead has shrunk even here.
Obama won CA with a 24 point lead in 2008.
Right now it is down to 14 points with loads of people saying they will stay home rather than vote for either one of them.
New Jersey went for Obama by 10 points in 2008.
Now his lead is down to 4 points and shrinking.
Could there be time for Romney to take New Jersey???
That would be a WOW!
Here’s Richard Mourdock’s comment, during the Indiana senate debate.
My comment to the effect that Mourdock is a total idiot was uncalled for, and I do apologize for that. I’m afraid the way he displaced Richard Lugar on the ballot still makes me angry.
No doubt he is sincere in his personal religious beliefs. But he DOES want to force restrictions stemming from those beliefs on everyone else in the state of Indiana, and immediately segues to the topic of religious freedom, as if his desire to do so were somehow an expression of religious freedom.
@Greg:
I already know what Mourdock said.
Perhaps you could point out to me where he said: “[he] believes that rape is part of God’s plan.”
Until you can to that you remain a lying liar.
AdrianS You sure you got enough “Vote For The White Guys” tees to outfit the whole family?lol
Aye It’s guys like Mourdock and that clown in Mizzou that put a black eye on the Repub. face.
Nan G says “Obama will likely win Cal” Ya think
BHO will win N.J. Election will be decided in Ohio.
Romney could win Popular vote and narrowly lose E.C. and the Presidency.
@Richard Wheeler:
Hey, you’re the fella whose party thinks it’s hunky dory to scrape an unborn child from it’s mother’s womb.
Hell, your first lady campaigned on behalf of her husband saying that partial birth abortion was a legitimate medical procedure.
Your very own Barbara Boxer said that the right to kill the unborn exists as long as even a toe is inside the mother’s body.
There are even those on your side of the aisle who say that a child can be “aborted” up until the time they are 18 months old. And that person served as one of your Precedent’s close advisers.
You’re hardly the person who needs to be pointing out whose party has black eyes. For all it’s faults, at least our side doesn’t have over 73,000,000 (that’s seventy-three MILLION) dead babies hanging round its’ neck, eh?
At least I’ll cancel out Greg’s vote for Donnelly, who is an even bigger liar than Greg claims Mourdock is. Donnelly claims, in ads, to be “common sense middle”, but when you look at his House voting record, he voted with Pelosi practically every damn time he voted. And definitely voted with Pelosi on the big stuff. Like Obamacare. Like the Stimulus. Like the Omnibus Appropriation bill. Donnelly is a big reason that Obama was able to add $6 Trillion in new debt during his term. Thanks, but no thanks. I’ll stick with the guy that runs conservative.
@Aye, #12:
I think the meaning of what Richard Mourdock says during the brief video clip is totally clear. I don’t see how his words could be taken in any other way.
Donnelly, btw, is also a pro-life candidate. The main difference between them on the issue is that Donnelly believes that abortion should be available both to save the mother’s life, AND in cases of rape.
Aye I stand for Roe v Wade which is against 3rd tri-mester abortions.
Do you feel abortion O.K. in cases of rape and incest?Is it O.K.to save the mother’s life? Just askin
I believe strongly in making it easier to adopt
You always had cognitive comprehension problems Greg but most of FA get a daily dose of your stupidity daily.
You make it about Murdock. The rest of us will focus on the real issues at hand.
@Richard Wheeler:
No. No. And no.
I believe that the unborn have a right to life always. Period.
Anyone who makes no distinction between a fertilized egg and a full grown chicken walking around the barnyard can’t be playing with a full deck.
Anyone who can’t figure out a human starts as a fertilized egg is missing a brain.
It’s a strange nation we live in.
31 States Allow Rapists Custody and Visitation Rights
And this has to do with Obama’s failures and how progressives and some of the press are no longer supporting him?
And thanks for not adding context to the law of various States or actually list them via questionable obsecure link.
Rape is not condoned in Conservative circles and in certain groups of thought the rapist should be given capital punishment for the horrid act. So far only Liberal society and lawmakers advocate mercy and legal regress to Rapists, case in point how Liberals are fighting for Roman Polanski and the liberal attempt to rewrite what rape “is” so this disgusting Piece of crap can live free with what he has done.
The two GOP’s lawmakers comment were made in poorly formed ways and taken well out of context by liberals that forget that there was a Conservative backlash against the likes of Murdock.
Again this issue you drag up Greg is a Red Herring to detract off of Obama and his political base leaving him in chunks.
This has to do with the observation made in post #9:
This is why a majority of all women voters will not be jumping ship and voting for Mitt Romney. With liberal women voters, the number who will be doing so is so small as to be totally irrelevant.
Do people really think that obvious republican intentions concerning abortion rights have gone unnoticed, or aren’t considered important? Do they believe Mitt Romney’s contradictory statements regarding the issue have actually fooled anyone?
The next president will appoint Supreme Court judges who will determine the future of Roe vs. Wade. Everybody knows this.
No Greg, if you think we are going to force women to bare the burden of being a victim then you are indeed a raving dumbshit. Give me one Red State that bans rape victims the ability to abort?
And have you paid attention lately? Undecided women voters have started to slant towards Romney.. But hey you want to bury your head in the sand and spew about issues not relevant to The erosion to Obama’s political base then keep at it. Stupid git.
@Mr. Irons, #25:
None, because they CANNOT DO THAT at present. That’s the entire point. If a personhood bill were passed—exactly of the sort that Paul Ryan has already sponsored in the House, and of the sort Mitt Romney has said he would happily sign if it came to his desk as president—individual states WOULD be able to do that. If Romney changed the balance in the Supreme Court—which the next president will almost certainly be in a position to do—there would be ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to stop them.
There’s a reason these two characters’ national campaign strategy has involved shutting up about their previously stated positions, and being as evasive as possible whenever they’re questioned about them. The same strategy has been applied to virtually every important national issue.
And we don’t plan on ever banning it you moron. Did you even read the Personhood bill? It didn’t make the Senate smell test and frankly no State Government is going to violate the Roe Vs Wade ruling. Are you seriously this dense and dumb?
@Greg:
Greg, watch this 1 minute video.
Retired Air Force Col. Martha McSally, running as a Republican in Arizona’s 2nd Congressional District, put the Democrats’ “war on women” message into perspective at a campaign event last week. The nation’s first female combat fighter pilot, McSally hasn’t taken kindly to being cast as part of Republicans’ alleged “war on women,” especially when Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s PAC decided to go after her with a kitchen-themed attack ad she called “overtly sexist.”
There really is a ”war on women.”
She gets it, Dems do not.
Listen and you’ll agree.
@Mr. Irons, #27:
I’m certainly not as dumb as you probably wish I were. Nor are women voters.
The recent House republican majority have a clear record in connection with their intentions.
The same can be said for republican statehouse majorities across the nation. There’s nothing hypothetical about what they’ve been trying to do—and actually doing.
Ok then provide the votes of the bill in the Senate since you didn’t read correctly, and even then it would not survive a surpreme court hearing. And check again stupid and stop living in paranoia.
Yes you are dumb; you fail at understanding the current voting environment, shown ignorance in military actions happening currently and have a very weak and pathetic grasp on sciences (such as your faith in the global warmin alarmist theories and your rewriting attempts at what the scientific method is) while posing yourself as some sort of expert on the matters here. Your posts are a testament to your ignorance with many of the users pointing out your failure to grasp what is really going on and your constant attempts if using Red Herrings to derail a topic point such as in reality there is no strong support for Obama in women voting blocks right now and is it exactly why many left slanted blogs and media circles are going in full melt down.
The Benghazi event is another issue because someone within the White House issued a Stand Down order as detailed in recent unclassified emails dumped to public consumption and if that order was followed far more Americans would have died on Sept 11, 2012 along with the outmanned and outgunned Libyan security presence T the Consulate.
But no, you bring up a frivolous issue that is not an actual election issue and twist with it like a wind sock on an air field in Kansas winds.
You’re a disgusting and bigoted person Greg. You can try to lie to us all day and think you’re smart but in the end of the day you have to deal with yourself as you watch the Liberal politics self implode on the Hill.
@Richard Wheeler: #5
I wouldn’t know. I haven’t heard from any of them. They seem to be keeping pretty quiet lately.
But I will tell you this much, Richard. Those of us on the Conservative side do not let Liberals define us. Those I see here, and on most conservative websites, are simply Conservative.
I wish that you would define for me exactly what a “hard right extremist” stands for?
I would assume, from Liberal comments that I have read in the past, that a “hard right extremist” would be in favor of:
Allowing children to starve
Allowing old people to die in unheated homes without any health care at all
Shooting anyone who looks like they might be an immigrant (legal or otherwise)
Arresting people solely because of their skin color
A return to slavery
A return to child labor
Allowing the homeless to starve/freeze
Forcing women to be baby machine kitchen slaves
Well, Richard, if that’s what a “hard right extremist” is, as defined by the Left, no worries. There are not enough of them to make a difference in the Conservative movement.
There sure are a lot of those “left wing extremists”, if the attendance figures, number of supporters, crime figures and cleanup costs associated with the Occupy Movement are any indication.
@Petercat:
Pater, that accurately depicts how liberals think of conservatives.
BUT how do liberals paint themselves to one another?
New York Times, Ross Douthat, writes about Obama’s view of women as….
Rather than getting out of women’s bedrooms, these liberals aspire to be in them as their dream lovers.
Fantasy.
Not much of an agenda.
No way to govern.
@AdrianS: #6
My niece, who is married to a small businessman, voted for President Barack Hussein Obama because, as struggling small business owners, they could not afford health insurance.
Now she’s voting for Governor Romney because they cannot afford the healthcare taxes.
*sniff* My little baby girl is growing up! *sniff*
Took her twenty-four da_ned years…
@Greg: #9
C’mon, Greg, you know better. We (except for a few nut cases that we ignore) don’t want to force anyone to have an unwanted child. We just don’t want our tax dollars to pay for the abortion or birth control.
Although I would willingly chip in to help anyone who was raped and pregnant pay for an abortion. At least that way, every cent out of my pocket would go for the benefit of the receiver, unlike the money taken out of my pocket to pay for Government programs.
@Greg: #11
Apology accepted. Thank you.
What I understood from Mourdock’s statement was that he was talking about his personal belief, and not about using the power of the government to ban all abortions. His statement seemed to be more about not allowing the government to force any institution to provide services contrary to that institution’s moral foundation.
If women cannot get abortions at a Catholic hospital, they are not blocked from getting an abortion. They have many other providers available.
@Petercat, #34:
Oh, really? And why should anyone believe that? There’s the record of extensive anti-abortion legislative efforts over the past 2 years in the republican House. There are the clear statements made by Paul Ryan concerning his attitude about exceptions, and the personhood bill that he himself sponsored. There’s Romney’s statement that he would happily sign such a bill, along with his endorsement of Richard Mourdock. And there’s the flood of anti-abortion legislation and regulation over the past 2 years by numerous republican-controlled state legislatures.
It’s entirely clear what these people want to do—and will do, if they get a chance. Denying it a week before national elections that could make all of that possible for them is ridiculous. They’re simply trying to triangulate in on whatever magic words they have to say to get themselves elected. Truth is not a consideration.
From the Washington Post:
The same lie–totally discredited last week–began running in Romney radio ads in Ohio today.
Truth is not a consideration.
@Greg:
Discredited by whom, Greg? Other Obama water carriers hiding their heavy bias behind the shield of journalism?
Not a surprise that you’d believe them. Not one bit.
But what’s the real story?
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2012-10-21/fiat-says-china-may-build-all-jeep-models-as-suv-demand-climbs.html
From Bloomberg, no less. And that was on Oct. 22.
Truth? You wouldn’t know the truth if it bit you in the ass. Not that it would ever get close enough, considering how far up Obama’s behind you seem to be.
At worst, Romney could be accused of embellishment. Nothing more.
@Petercat, #35:
If he wins a seat in the Senate, I certainly hope your interpretation proves to be the correct one.
I know there are some widely differing opinions about abortion rights. To my way of thinking, that very fact argues for leaving the matter to the conscience and understanding of each individual. The thought that the state could remove half of the population’s sovereignty over their own bodies gives me a shudder.
I can’t think of many things more fascist then telling the victim of a rape, you will carry this child to term. Or a women for whom a pregnancy is a life sentence, too bad. “18 month abortion”, what nonsense. What about the morning after pill, which so many conservatives equate to abortion even though it prevents pregnancy, not ends it? What about fighting against access or funding for birth control? I wonder how that affects abortion rates.
This is all about a religious attempt to control women by controlling their bodies and reproductive choices, forcing them into traditional roles. It’s treating women like livestock, like merely vessels instead of people. What’s really amazing to me is that the same people who would force a woman to die in childbirth, ostensibly because they care so much for a child’s life, don’t lose a moments sleep over 7 million children without healthcare, millions in poverty, and actually fight against government attempts to remedy it. Giving a child health care is Big Government run amock, but government controlling a woman’s body after she’s raped isn’t?
@johngalt, #37:
Discredited by GM.
Apparently you missed the 5th paragraph of the Bloomberg story:
They’re talking about the possibility of building Jeeps in China for sale in the Chinese market.
@Greg:
No problem with that. Maybe we can leave the financial aspect of that matter to each individual as well.
Funny, though, that you support the state (federal government) can, and should, remove the entire population’s sovereignty over their wallets. Especially as it concerns paying for sovereignty over their bodies.
Your double standards are piling up daily, Greg. I cannot wait to see what tomorrow brings.
@Greg:
Yes, and I understand that, Greg. You, however, wish everyone to believe that Romney somehow pulled his statement out of thin air with nothing of substance to back it up.
Hell, as Dr. J showed here,
, The Washington Post and Huffpo admitted that the ad being run by Romney, relating to this, fell “within the boundaries of truth”.
But whatever, Greg. Believe what you want, I guess.
@Greg:
Greggie, I assume you are aware that the number of abortions performed due to rape/incest represent less than 1% of all abortion? That is according to the Guttmacher Institute, an arm of Planned Parenthood. And I guess you are aware that when raped, women can be treated immediately with medical procedures that eliminate the requirement of bearing a child to full term. So, if a raped woman gets medical treatment, which she does if she reports the rape, including Plan B medications, why would women worry about having to bear a child resulting from rape?
The other 99+% of women who get abortions do so for purely selfish reasons. And the choice they made was made prior to conception, as in the choice to have unprotected sex that resulted in a pregnancy.
Your arguement is old, and tired, and false. But what I find ironic is the disdain liberals have for women thinking that women are nothing more than their reproductive organs. News flash, Greggie; women’s brains are NOT located in their vaginas. So you go ahead and continue to believe that when a woman fills up her gas tank at prices that are double what they were four years ago, they are thinking about their vaginas. Or when a woman is in the grocery store, trying to make her food dollars stretch because groceries are higher, much higher, than they were four years ago, her concern is not the cost of feeding herself and her family, she is worrying about her vagina. Or as she loses her job because companies are downsizing just to stay competitive, the biggest worry she has is how is she going to buy birth control pills that allows her to think with her vagina.
Yeah, you’re a dimwit.
@Tom:
If a woman is pregnant, and not due to rape, it is because she already exercised control over her body. You don’t get pregnant without deciding what you are going to do with your body just as you don’t get a hangover without deciding you are going to drink to excess.
@Greg: #38
I am in full agreement with you here. While I believe that life begins at conception, and would make every effort to persuade anyone who is contemplating an abortion to choose life instead, the key word is “persuade”. I do not want the government to force anyone to carry a child that they do not want.
While I believe that my first duty as a man is to protect from harm those that cannot protect themselves, I must as a patriot choose personal freedom over the intrusion of one person’s beliefs into the life of another. It is a difficult, even agonizing decision for me to come to, but in any situation that is even slightly ambiguous, I must default to personal freedom.
@Greg: #36
“There’s the record of extensive anti-abortion legislative efforts over the past 2 years in the republican House.”
Could you provide some references, please? Looks like I might need to learn a little more on the subject.
If I’m wrong, I don’t want to stay that way.
@retire05, #43:
I believe you’re correct, but you might want to check with Todd Akin to get an authoritative opinion.
@Greg: A quote from a former Obama voter, donor, and campaign volunteer:
“He just didn’t do all the things he said he was gonna do. I’m not voting for him this year.”
My household represents two of those many thousand mail in ballots, and they are both for Romney. Are you sure the mail-in gift basket reference isn’t proof that people can’t wait to get Obama out? From what I hear, that’s about the size of it . . .
@Petercat, #36:
H.R. 3—“This bill would make permanent and expand the Hyde amendment restrictions on the use of federal funds for abortions. It seeks to prohibit even indirect funding streams that may potentially come in contact with abortion services. For example, it would deny tax credits to companies that offer health plans that cover abortions and it would block anybody with insurance that covers abortions from receiving federal subsidies or medical cost tax deductions, even if the abortion portion is paid separately with personal funds. Women who use tax-free Medical Savings Accounts would have to pay taxes on the costs of abortions.”
Passed – May 04, 2011
—
H.R. 358—“Amends the new health care law so that no federal money could be applied to health insurance plans that cover elective abortions, even if the abortion coverage is paid for entirely with private funds. It also states that a federal agency can not force a health care provider that accepts Medicare or Medicaid to provide abortion services, even in cases when the mother’s life is endangered.”
Passed – October 13, 2011
—
H.R. 212—The Sanctity of Life Act
Declares that:
(1) the right to life guaranteed by the Constitution is vested in each human and is the person’s paramount and most fundamental right;
(2) each human life begins with fertilization, cloning, or its functional equivalent, at which time every human has all legal and constitutional attributes and privileges of personhood; and
(3) Congress, each state, the District of Columbia, and all U.S. territories have the authority to protect all human lives.
(It’s interesting that this bill, introduced January 6, 2011 and sponsored by Paul Ryan, could criminalize the in vitro fertilization process whereby Mitt Romney’s son Tag and his wife were able to have their most recent twins. It would be interesting to know Mr. Romney’s thoughts about that.)
Presently assigned to committee.
—
Sorry, but I quickly got weary of looking for references. These are just the first items that came up. I suppose there are lists compiled somewhere, if anyone wants to really dig into the topic.
So Greg you’re advocating that your mother should have aborted you all those years ago and not have a right to your current life and you shouldn’t have been protected to a right to exist?