Symmetry required it: 2012 american general election thread #2

mitt oughta get himself introduced by earnest byner next

Well, I’m just throwing it out there. I mean it’s the way the media might analyze this. I’m just trying to prepare you for what might come of this. It’s the way they connect the dots,” he said, laughing, according to the transcript. “I know it sounds ridiculous.”

that's odd. it's like for a brief moment a semi-rational part of rush's brain emerged and challenged the whole premise of his argument, and then the quote above is where he defended himself against that tiny rational part of himself, out loud.

if you're at a cocktail party that quote is usually followed with something like "I may have had too many, ha ha!" and then you politely listen and smile along with whatever anyone else says directly after that, hoping that it's on a totally different topic

the Balloon Juice folks destroyed Conor Friedersdorf last week for his Obama indictment.

[...]

― the ones that I'm near most: fellow outcasts and ilxors (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 2 October 2012

the embarrassing no-mark at balloon juice called him a "republican operative" with a "sudden raging stiffy for jill stein" who would prefer that johnson's name not be mentioned in public. friedersdorf of course endorsed johnson in the very piece that got him so upset.

uh oh, #drudgetape!

he's not an operative for republicans, he's a blogger who went for easy page views

xp

Thanks, Joe!

http://www.mercurynews.com/presidentelect/ci_21680497/biden-blasts-romney-tax-plans-during-stop-nc

(I know--one-day story.)

i am not a political operative but i feel like REMEMBER THIS GUY reverendwright.jpg siren.gif reflects in-party despair over romney more than it says anything about the democrats

he's been writing about those issues for some time.

ya the atlantic does this stuff all the time

balloon juice is a fuckin joke but it's funny when they get endorsed by very serious ppl like brad "gizza job" delong http://delong.tumblr.com/post/32569882411/curse-your-sudden-but-inevitable-betrayal-please

delong is aight but he does go for a lot of that pop-internet-democrat shit

he uploaded a big hobsbawm book review yesterday that was really interesting fyi

ugh, fuck a delong

the 'all libertarians are closet GOP operatives' meme is an extremely stupid one

er, "posted". i said uploaded cos it was hueg and from 97 or something, lol

xp well, most libertarians lean right, it's not 100% stupid.

http://youtu.be/LFTTZ9E_e2Y

a little late to the party with this

fucked that up

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFTTZ9E_e2Y

he uploaded a big hobsbawm book review yesterday that was really interesting fyi

― goole, Tuesday, October 2, 2012 6:45 PM (5 minutes ago) B

co-sign

he 'all libertarians are closet GOP operatives' meme is an extremely stupid one

http://wac.0873.edgecastcdn.net/800873/blog/wp-content/uploads/201209_blog_kirby272.jpg

As close to a Chomsky endorsement for Obama as we're likely to hear:

"Between the two choices that are presented, there is I think some significant differences," he said. "If I were a person in a swing state, I’d vote against Romney-Ryan, which means voting for Obama because there is no other choice. I happen to be in a non-swing state, so I can either not vote or - as a probably will - vote for [Green Party candidate] Jill Stein."

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/10/01/noam-chomsky-if-i-were-in-a-swing-state-id-vote-for-obama/

― o. nate, Tuesday, October 2, 2012 1:37 PM (5 hours ago)

this has basically been my position

it's pretty stupid goole. it doesn't get much more stupid than a republican operative endorsing the Libertarian candidate on stated policy grounds.

chomsky says that every election, he's a reformist

http://www.clker.com/cliparts/3/1/c/0/12161806162067503767ben_R_formes_chloroforme_%28Reforms_chloroform%29.svg.med.png

Meanwhile the candidates may be nervous but not as nervous as debate moderators.

libertarians are the closest thing america has to intelligent right wingers

That's terrifying.

chomsky calls himself a 'left-libertarian' doesn't he?

libertarians are the closest thing america has to intelligent right wingers

except when they pontificate on the gold standard

i'll take paleo-cons over libertarians tbh

because there are fewer of them?

neocons also can be intelligent, but along w/ paleo-cons i don't think either intellectual movements are particularly vibrant right wing forces in american life today

ahem, "intelligent"

yeah he does jd, libertarian is a word stolen from the anarchist strains of the left for its weird US re-branding

larison is smart about foreign policy mostly but paleocons are probably the worst ppl on the internet.

larison's positions seem very close to the anti-obama left

I don't at all mind reading Larison, especially since he never offers the GOP any advice.

there has been a lot of talk for awhile (since supreme court took the case and sent it back to lower courts) that PA voter ID law would be struck down (or postponed till next election) but it's good to see it official.

i'm not sure i can think of any area of american politics where libertarians have actually had any influence where that influence has been positive - deregulation, privatization, treating any govt attempt at addressing a societal problem or injustice as crypto-stalinism, convincing america's youth to read awful narcissism encouraging literature, general rolling back of 20th century, originalist constitution fetish. maybe if some state actually manages to legalize weed we can credit them w/ that.

neocons decidedly alive and well. eg. romney's foreign policy. also: whoever the gop candidate in 2016's foreign policy.

(Aaaand here comes what Breibart was so excited about on his last day...)

libertarians are fulfilling the function of conservatives since Burke: calling attention to contradictions and paradoxes in liberalism and the radical revolutionary party known as the GOP. I don't want them making policy -- I want them to support my points of view.

i do wonder what this race would look like if romney had embraced a paleo-con or vaguely libertarian foreign policy, esp considering how much of obama's initial support was based on his being 'right' on iraq while hillary was 'wrong'. i don't think all the applause eastwood got for 'why not bring em back from afghanistant tomorrow?' was purely ppl applauding any time he paused. also wonder what this race looks like if obama ignores petraeus and doesn't see if a surge can salvage afghanistan mission the way it salvaged iraq or what this race looks like if obama drastically speeds up drawdown timetable after bin laden raid.

is there anything else in this video other than Obama giving Jeremiah Wright a shout out?

THE ACCENT

the version I'm watching is 9 minutes long and I keep waiting for him to say something interesting

i've always maintained ron paul was a useful guy to have around in congress because you could invariably expect him to vote the right way on civil liberties stuff (except he voted yes on the flag-burning amendment i think) and on anything else he usually just voted 'no' anyway. became a problem once he decided to run for pres and try to turn millions of college kids into goldbug loons.

OMG HE TALKS ABOUT HEALTH CARE REFORM

wow hadn't looked at drudgereport in forever. it wasn't always this blatantly a party mouth piece (was once at least as nearly interested in getting a 'scoop', real or not). we shall see but if this: "BAMA DECLARES HOW POOR PEOPLE: 'Need help with basic skills, how to shop, how to show up for work on time, how to wear the right clothes, how to act appropriately in an office'... Developing..." is the scare quote i'm not sure this is gonna have the impact of the 47% clip. esp since he's been telling black youth to pull up their pants for as long as he's been a national figure and 'help poor ppl develop basic job skills' has been dem policy goal for a while. if anything at first glance this looks like what is referred to as a 'sister souljah moment'.

I adore how so much of this speech is a sensible appeal for health care reform, way to dig up the dirt RNC

lol at 'stephanopoulos is a DEM' gotcha - NO SHIT REALLY? also 8 of last 9 debates is obama beat mccain, biden beat palin, kerry beat bush, cheney beat edwards ie conventional wisdom not crazy leftie bias.