patrick.net

bgamall4 says

WW1 and WW2 were defensive wars.

WW1 was not a defensive war! We went to war to defend and expand British ans French colonial expansion and to keep Eastern Europe as part of the USSR.

zzyzzx, just when I think you couldn't possible be any more of an idiot, you go and surprise me.

It was not 71% of Obama voters, it was 71% of THOSE WHO SAID THEY WOULDN'T VOTE FOR OBAMA IF THE ELECTION WERE HELD AGAIN.

Here is the question from the actual poll, not a 3rd hand source as you quoted:

4. Regret Obama vote
Do you regret voting for Barack Obama?
Asked of those who reported voting for Barack Obama in 2012 but would vote for someone else if the election were held again

So how many said they wouldn't vote for Obama if the election were held again? Only 10%.

3. Still vote for Obama
If the election was held again, would you still vote for Barack Obama?
Asked of those who voted for Barack Obama in 2012

Yes 79%
No 10%
Not sure 11%

http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/ge25jg66q8/tabs_OPI_romney_documentary_20140210.pdf

It didn't strike you as odd that you were claiming 100% of Hispanics regretted voting for Obama? 100%?

The stupid. It burns!

Still, given the choice of Obama versus Romney, Obama supporters said they would stick with their guy, 79 percent to 10 percent for Romney.

That 20 percent swing would be all the difference in the world.
And is the only thing standing between you and mandated Mormon underwear.

I'm not convinced the parties are really that different. I think we are meant to see them as fundamentally different, which is a divisive tactic. It's like a football game; everyone gets all riled up over THEIR team, they get in fights with strangers and even their own friends over it, some people even get hospitalized over the fights over their teams at games they paid triple digits to see. Why? Because the teams are REALLY that different? No, they are just drafted guys who could easily be drafted to the opposing team the following year. The players follow the money. When you rally for your team you get a hit of serotonin, when you rally with others that hit is greater, it's a dopamine hit. It's rally mentality, and the spin doctors use people's love of pointless rallying to get you to instill loyalty. If you really think about how odd it is that the majority of people in this country will pay hundreds to see a football game live, and will fight with their best friend over it, you will understand what strings the people in power are pulling to get the masses to react the way they need. The two political parties are not fundamentally any more different from each other than two football teams are. Essentially, we are putting tons of energy and money into something as trivial as a football game. It doesn't really matter who wins or loses. It's like how liberals are meant to believe that there is a conservative media, and conservatives are meant to believe there is a liberal media. No, there is corporate media convincing the liberals that NBC is fair, while they convince conservatives that FOX is fair. They are both filtered propaganda controlled by a limited few with the intention of distracting the American people from the truth by dividing them and instilling fear, while making them falsely believe that their "team" media is on their side. We are all coming to the political bowl and defending and cheering on our team, but in reality the two parties are outside the stadium doing their dirty work together, hand in hand, while our eyes are still fixed on the meaningless game inside.

hrhjuliet says

Why? Because the teams are REALLY that different? No, they are just drafted guys
who could easily be drafted to the opposing team the following year.

I think there are differences at lower levels of government, but once they get to the top echelons of power, many of them on both sides are 1 percenters so chances are out of "rational self interest" they will vote for policies or enforce/look other way regarding legislation that is of benefit to the interest of the 1%.

CaptainShuddup says

Still, given the choice of Obama versus Romney, Obama supporters said they would stick with their guy, 79 percent to 10 percent for Romney.

That's just stupid. Romney never became president. The "support" of his voters is based only on his campaign promises, since he never had the opportunity to break them. Believe me, if Romney had won, struck down ACA, gave tax breaks to the rich, and then said, "Oh, you can't get health insurance? Well here's a useless 'voucher'." he would be about as popular as a root canal.

Yes selecting the president process has diluted to the point that by time November rolls around. The issues are all reduced to two political parties talking points, and all thought into who will be the president is as apathetic as to who will win the next super bowl.

Most people never cared for either team playing but they'll spend hundreds on food and beer, or thousands on televisions and toys, to mark the occasion as they root for a team that they have absolutely no vested emotional interest in, other than to see the commercials, and hear Jimmy Kimal quip

Homeboy says

CaptainShuddup says

Still, given the choice of Obama versus Romney, Obama supporters said they would stick with their guy, 79 percent to 10 percent for Romney.

That was a quote from the article.

Homeboy says

That's just stupid. Romney never became president.

Exactly.

90% would vote for Romney again? So they continue to pick losers?

Homeboy says

That's just stupid. Romney never became president. The "support" of his voters is based only on his campaign promises, since he never had the opportunity to break them. Believe me, if Romney had won, struck down ACA, gave tax breaks to the rich, and then said, "Oh, you can't get health insurance? Well here's a useless 'voucher'." he would be about as popular as a root canal.

I don't think Healthcare would have been a big concern had he also kept his other promise to create jobs with adult sized wages.

Of course this is all just speculation, you know, not any different than when you guys said that Obama would be better.
But at least Romney hasn't proved it yet.

CaptainShuddup says

I don't think Healthcare would have been a big concern had he also kept his other promise to create jobs with adult sized wages.

By throwing money at the top 1%? Yeah, that works...

Most people who voted for Obama, myself included, are of the opinion that he's a bit of a disappointment. But almost EVERYONE who voted for Obama are quite sure Romney would have been worse.

Homeboy says

opinion

And you quite free to shit out of your opinion.

I don't think there's a lot of difference between the two parties now. The only reason democrats are winning is because we don't want EVEN MORE of our money thrown at the banksters, and we don't want a federal law banning abortion and gay marriage.

Oh, and we don't want our schoolkids being fed Fritos and Ding Dongs for lunch, and counting them as vegetables.

CaptainShuddup says

And you quite free to shit out of your opinion.

I'll be sure to note your disagreement with my "opinion" that Obama is a disappointment. LOL.

Homeboy says

Oh, and we don't want our schoolkids being fed Fritos and Ding Dongs for lunch

Can't have eating touching the murch.

Dealers can't be users and if they are going to be part time minimum wage purveyors of Frito and whoppers, then it's probably a good call.

zzyzzx says

55% Democrats 'regret' voting for his re-election

I call bullshit. Many Democrats and independents voted for Obama, not because they liked him, but because he was the lesser of the two evils. There is no way that 55% of Democrats now consider Romney and Ryan to be the lesser of the two evils and wish they had voted for those two numbnuts.

Furthermore, a link in the original article takes you to a article in which the site claims the #1 campaign donor is "unions".

Unions is not an organization; it is a term that applies to tens of thousands of organizations. If we're playing that game, the #1 campaign donor is "corporations" and the #2 is "people". Less than ten seconds on washingtonexaminer.com makes me conclude it's a right-wing propaganda machine.

hrhjuliet says

I'm not convinced the parties are really that different.

Their stances that they show to the public are night and day. The GOP has been using Nixon's Southern Strategy for the better part of 45 years and counting. The Democrats used to be that party. The Democrats have been fairly consistent with their message of government playing a more active role via social programs and legislation that benefits the working and middle classes. They have also favored environmental and workplace regulations

The GOP has been consistent on having limited government, minus military spending, having very little social programs and a financial agenda that favors more wealthy Americans at the disadvantage of the working and middle classes. They have also consistently disfavored environmental and workplace regulations.

The GOP at one time was the party of the educated and social elite. They did a 360 as soon as Nixon enacted the Southern Strategy. The Democrats are now ironically more akin to the old GOP.

rooemoore says

Homeboy says

That's just stupid. Romney never became president.

Exactly.

And that's a pity since we would have gotten rid of the mortgage tax deduction and other "special" bullshit deductions if Mittens had become president.

mell says

And that's a pity since we would have gotten rid of the mortgage tax
deduction and other "special" bullshit deductions if Mittens had become
president.

Check out whats happening in NC today and watch what happens in the next five years to see what the country would have been like under a Romney Presidency.

control point says

mell says

And that's a pity since we would have gotten rid of the mortgage tax

deduction and other "special" bullshit deductions if Mittens had become

president.

Check out whats happening in NC today and watch what happens in the next five years to see what the country would have been like under a Romney Presidency.

If you are referring to the duke clusterfuck, it has nothing to do with Romney, so that's irrelevant. I'm somehow confident Mittens could swing in whatever way the public opinion evolves on coal ;)

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/oct/16/barack-obama/obama-says-romney-once-said-coal-burning-plant-kil/

mell says

rooemoore says

Homeboy says

That's just stupid. Romney never became president.

Exactly.

And that's a pity since we would have gotten rid of the mortgage tax deduction and other "special" bullshit deductions if Mittens had become president.

It remains to be seen how seriously mr bain would have pursued MID removal. Also, if he were to combine it with reducing tax burden on passive income investment ballers, it would have been rightly perceived as a class warfare attack against the middle class.

Comparing the OP headline from the Moonie Examiner to the headline from those who conducted the poll, and the actual poll results, reminds me of an adage from when I studied stastics: “Some people,” said Andrew Lang, “use statistics as a drunk man uses lamp-posts—for support rather than for illumination.”

From the linked article:

After Secrets first published their poll, YouGov.com noted that the sample for the question was small and recharacterized the sample as "those who reported voting for Barack Obama in 2012 but would vote for someone else if the election were held again" from "those who voted for Barack Obama in 2012."

Still, given the choice of Obama versus Romney, Obama supporters said they would stick with their guy, 79 percent to 10 percent for Romney.

If you want to understand how small the sample was, consider the "100% of Hispanics" factoid was based on four Hispanic voters. Not four thousand, not even four hundred, just plain four! The poll was reportedly commissioned to see if Romney should try again in 2016, and the answer was basically no.

dublin hillz says

It remains to be seen how seriously mr bain would have pursued MID removal. Also, if he were to combine it with reducing tax burden on passive income investment ballers, it would have been rightly perceived as a class warfare attack against the middle class.

True, it's not unusual that they don't keep their promises, but you have to look whatever they are proposing, that's better than nothing. Regarding the capital gains tax, I don't think he would have lowered it, but probably kept it where it was before Obama increased it. I can see both sides of the arguments on the capital gains tax, but as long as special deductions remain, I am categorically against tax hikes. I'm sure people would like to have a car interest deduction (even if they don't use it for business), after all it's more useful than a house, you can sleep in it AND go from A to B. Or how about a brokerage interest deduction so that people can fire up their trading and get leveraged to the hilt like with their house?

zzyzzx says

“Do you regret voting for Barack Obama?”

Overall, 71 percent said yes, 26 percent no.

That's cause the other monkey isn't around anymore.

Dan8267 says

Furthermore, a link in the original article takes you to a article in which the site claims the #1 campaign donor is "unions".

Unions is not an organization; it is a term that applies to tens of thousands of organizations. If we're playing that game, the #1 campaign donor is "corporations" and the #2 is "people". Less than ten seconds on washingtonexaminer.com makes me conclude it's a right-wing propaganda machine.

Love how you have to twist yourself in knots to downplay the fact that Democrats are the biggest recipients of outside money in our politics.

What is even more corrupt is that much of that union money going straight to Democrats is our TAX DOLLARS from government workers!

http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php

Last time I checked, unions weren't even in the top 100 campaign donors in Washington.

Dan8267 says

I call bullshit.

Article already debunked.

http://patrick.net/?p=1238546&c=1053808#comment-1053808

Heraclitusstudent says

zzyzzx says

“Do you regret voting for Barack Obama?”

Overall, 71 percent said yes, 26 percent no.

That's cause the other monkey isn't around anymore.

No, it's because the statement is untrue. Already debunked:

http://patrick.net/?p=1238546&c=1053808#comment-1053808

I looked at http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php

Unions are the top 7 to 14 for donors, and I include the American Federation of Teachers.

Also city and county workers are at #2.

I don't see George Soros on list but I suspect he gives to a lot of the top 10 groups like Act Blue.

Koch Brother are not even in the top 25 !

zzyzzx says

80 percent of whites said yes, 61 percent of blacks said no and 100 percent of Hispanics said yes.

This is very twisted reporting, especially when they reversed the yes response for blacks to a no response?

If reported with clarity, Obama's approval rating today would read as follows:

0% for Hispanics, 20% for Whites and 39% for Blacks.

That jells with his overall approval rating of 29% nationwide.

Nothing surprising here, except for the 0% among Hispanics, if that can be validated?

socal2 says

Love how you have to twist yourself in knots to downplay the fact that Democrats are the biggest recipients of outside money in our politics.

What is even more corrupt is that much of that union money going straight to Democrats is our TAX DOLLARS from government workers!

Don't me us laugh. You want to talk about outside money influencing politics the GOP has this down to a perfected science. The Tea Party is nothing more than a astroturf organization founded, organized, and funded by a orchestrated collection of industry and lobby groups organized under patriotic-sounding organizations, which are themselves also astroturf organizations and then pooled under the guise of this co-called "Party" and in turn used to tell the constituency that its totally real, front candidates and politicians who promote their interests, and as seen have succeeded in getting people elected to congress who in turn most recently planted the seed of shutting down the government. So don't give me that line about Democrats. Sure- the dems also accept outside contributions and its no secret that unions are contributers. But at least those unions aren't hiding behind make-believe fake astroturf movements...

socal2 says

Dan8267 says

Furthermore, a link in the original article takes you to a article in which the site claims the #1 campaign donor is "unions".

Unions is not an organization; it is a term that applies to tens of thousands of organizations. If we're playing that game, the #1 campaign donor is "corporations" and the #2 is "people". Less than ten seconds on washingtonexaminer.com makes me conclude it's a right-wing propaganda machine.

Love how you have to twist yourself in knots to downplay the fact that Democrats are the biggest recipients of outside money in our politics.

Total bullshit. It is you who is going through contortions to misrepresent reality.

There were 14.5 million U.S. workers in unions in 2013 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. These 14.5 million workers are spread across over 25,000 unions of varying sizes across a multitude of industries.

To lump 25,000 independent organizations composed of 14.5 million people as a single donor and to call it the largest donor is a lie beyond ridiculousness.

The question is, are you man enough to admit you're completely wrong?

Remind me again, who put out mock websites full of "truthy" facts against whom?

http://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2014/02/under-fire-gop-adjusts-fake-democratic-campaign-sites/78974/

What's wrong with that?

They are just proof, that the LIberal's voting base, Vote based on the pretty pictures, and the blubs in the Captions, and the quotes taken out of context. They don't actually READ what's in the fucking thing.

The GOP did not place any lies on their site. They simply used images and snazzy captions, that one with out further reading would construe as a Liberal web site. It would be like a Democrat candidate putting up a website with pictures of NASCAR events, and Hog kills, with "Let's Git'er Done!" in the head of the page.

Anyone would send in money to a candidate, with out actually reading who that person really is, or send money to a PAC with out fully understanding how they would benefit your Vote. Deserves to have their Life savings absconded away, by the Prince of Nigeria.

For THEY are an impediment to Democracy.

Dan8267 says

Total bullshit. It is you who is going through contortions to misrepresent
reality.

There were 14.5
million U.S. workers in unions in 2013 according to the Bureau of Labor
Statistics. These 14.5 million workers are spread across over
25,000 unions of varying sizes across a multitude of industries.

To lump 25,000 independent organizations composed of 14.5 million people as a
single donor and to call it the largest donor is a lie beyond
ridiculousness.

The question is, are you man enough to admit you're completely wrong?

Dude - I don't even know what you are trying to argue.

Are you disputing the data from Open Secrets that show unions are the top financial contributors to politics and their money goes almost exclusively to Democrats?

socal2 says

Dude - I don't even know what you are trying to argue

And that is exactly why you are poorly arguing against it. It turns out that the key to winning a debate is to address the other side's points, all of them, and the only way to do that is to first know what the hell they are.

The original article made the false claim that unions -- those damn unions, everything's their fault including cancer -- are the #1 lobbyists in terms of dollars. In contrast, the poor little Koch brothers are hardly a fly.

There are over 25,000 unions in the United States representing over 14.5 million Americans of varying professions across all 50 states and most demographics. "Unions" is hardly a single contributor. In contrast, the Koch brothers are.

The article falsely equates these two things to misrepresent how much power and influence unions have in contrast to poor little multi-billionaires. It is disingenuous and obviously a lie.

Next time you want to ague against a point, I'd recommend understand what the point is.

Dan - are you disputing the Open Secrets list of campaign contributors or not?

Unions dominate the list and many are public sector unions taking MY tax money and funneling it almost exclusively to Democrats to support big government. It is totally corrupt.

It is funny how you can say unions represent millions of people, but Corporations only represent a few fat cats like the Koch bros.

As if Corporations don't support and employ millions and millions of people like me who want to see less government in our lives.

Shit - next thing you will say is that the Teachers Unions in California don't have any poltical power.

socal2 says

Dan - are you disputing the Open Secrets list of campaign contributors or not?

No, but I reserve the right to do so. However, not once did I mention that. I only posted the article was bullshit regarding unions being the largest contributors of campaign funds.

socal2 says

Unions dominate the list and many are public sector unions taking MY tax money and funneling it almost exclusively to Democrats to support big government. It is totally corrupt.

It is funny how you can say unions represent millions of people, but Corporations only represent a few fat cats like the Koch bros.

The entire point of Citizens United was to prevent YOU and everyone else from knowing where campaign contributions come from and go to. If you want honest, accurate reporting of lobbying dollars, Citizens United must be overturned.

Oh, and guess who supports Citizens United? Republicans and rich parasites.

If you think the big bad unions are ruining elections with their big bag dollars that come from minimum wage workers, then the solution is simple: public funding of campaigns and no private contributions of any kind. Try getting that accepted by the GOP or Tea Party.

Whether you think it's money from greedy, corrupt corporations or money from greedy, corrupt unions that's ruining elections, the solution is the same. All elections are 100% funded by the public; no candidate gets any money directly; all ad time is paid by the public and each candidate gets equal time. In other words, socialize elections. The free market should not determine who wins; the popular vote should. And the popular vote, unlike the free market, is based on one vote per person, not one vote per dollar.

socal2 says

Shit - next thing you will say is that the Teachers Unions in California don't have any poltical power.

When America invades a country because the teacher's unions in California want it to, I'll concede that those teacher unions have as much power as big oil.