Bastion of Democracy

Finally, this past Saturday, four whole days after the election, Florida was called for Obama.

This is, of course, after waiting nine hours to vote, some voters finally leaving the polls at 1:00 in the morning.

Say nothing of over 340,000 ballots yet to be counted in Arizona, of course (unsurprisingly, many of those votes were cast in infamous Maricopa County).

This is in addition to instances of voter suppression and intimidation, from voter i.d. laws that had to be struck down to SCOTUS poised to possibly strike-down the heart of the Voting Rights Act.

An Oregon poll worker was fired for allegedly changing ballots, filling-in blanks with Republican candidates.

In some areas, Dems were told to vote in the wrong place.

Voting machines switched votes, as voters watched, from Obama votes to Romney.

Flyers were mailed to Ohio voters, giving not only the wrong precinct information (do people not proofread???), but the wrong election date.

I could go on, but the point is made.  For all of our bluster about freedom and democracy, we're not that good at running elections.  Waiting in line until 1:00 in the morning is not something a Secretary of State should be proud of.  The fact that votes were being counted almost a week or more than a week after the election is something to be ashamed of.  I hate to quote Aaron Sorkin, but he's right in this fictitious TV speech:

And with a straight face, you're going to tell students that America's so starspangled awesome that we're the only ones in the world who have freedom? Canada has freedom, Japan has freedom, the UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Australia, Belgium has freedom. Two hundred seven sovereign states in the world, like 180 of them have freedom.

Until we get our shit together as "the world's foremost democracy" maybe we should STFU about it.  I understand a little mayhem; it's one day where all of a sudden a bazillon people all show up to do the same thing.  But my heavens, some of this shit is orchestrated.

I submit to you, in case you forgot, PA House Majority Leader Michael Turzai:


Let's get our shit together and have serious conversations about how we get people to vote, about how we encourage people to vote, about non-partisan redistricting, about voter registration.

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Numbers

XKCD, FTW

Also, thanks to everyone who came over last night.  Smitty's Pub converted to a fine election night war room, and the beer was passable.

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Tracking the Election Results.

If you are a complete mathematical and political nerd and want to track and predict the election results faster than anyone else in your house, visit Sam Wang's helpful guide to political geekdom.

Complete with graphs!

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Vote!

Get off your dead ass and go vote.  Now!

While I clearly endorse Obama, those readers in Michigan should vote NO, actually vote HELL NO, on Proposal 5 and 6.  Do NOT turn us into CA with restrictions on raising taxes and please don't preserve a billionaire's bridge monopoly.

Go now.



Still here? 



Go vote.

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Political Nerdly Goodness

Here at ATK we haven’t been posting much election stuff this year, which is a shame because during Presidential elections we typically have great traffic and a good time ridiculing conservatives.

It’s also a shame because of the target-rich environment this election offers. Between various nutty rape-obsessed freaks on the right, to the asshole, sociopathic, blue-blooded liar that IS Mitt Romney, it would have been such a great summer to mock and laugh at their expense.

Since we are pretty uncreative this year, I offer some great political nerdiness. Below you will find three great election prediction websites to indulge those political geeks, who also love science and mathematics. The following statisticians, neuroscientists and Poly Sci Professors will make you wonder why the hell we are spending $2 billion on an election when they predicted the likely outcome in June.

Take a look:

Nate Silver is the most well-known election predictor, having appear on the Daily Show and NPR. Silver is a former baseball statistician and FiveThirtyEight.com creator, who last year imported his blog over to the New York Times.

     Check out FiveThirtyEight.

Prof. Sam Wang's academic specialties are biophysics and neuroscience. The Princeton University Professor has been predicting elections longer than Silver, and with equal accuracy.

     Check out the Princeton Election Consortium.

Drew Linzer is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Emory University. His site, called Votamatic is less frequently updated, but interesting nonetheless.

     Take a look at Votamatic.

Utah Valley State University’s Political Science and History department have their own model.

     Check out Jay DeSart at the DeSart and Holbrook Election Forecast.

UPDATE 1:

Here is a fifth source:
Wesley N. Colley is a senior research scientist at the Center for Modeling, Simulation and Analysis at the University of Alabama in Huntsville who has joined with J. Richard Gott, III, a professor of Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University.  The run various sports and election predictions.

     Go to Gott and Colley's Median Poll Statistics.

UPDATE 2:

For those pissing their pants over this single poll or that single poll, I recommend you look at these sites, which better look at various soruces of data.  Some rely on state-wide polls only (Wang and Linzer); weight and agregate national polls with state polls, along with econmic data (Silver); or weitake the median of the state polls (Colley).

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Obama Brew!

In the most imporant news of the day, it has been reported that the White House now brews its own beer!

According to the DesMoines Register, not only does the White Brew two varieties of beer, they carry it with them on the Presidential tour bus.

Maybe you think Obama is the 2nd coming of Christ, who saved the world from economic collapse and brought honor back to America.  Maybe you think he is the illegitimately-elected Kenyan usurper of the Constitution. 

Not matter your political affiliation, I think we at ATK have to say that this action alone warrants an endorsement from our editorial board.  What say you ATKers?

UPDATE:  In a related article from CBS News:

"...the White House's own brew, made with equipment the Obamas bought with their own money -- the first beer ever made at the White House, according to historians.


It is White House Honey Ale."

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They're Short.

Moments ago, Mitt Rmoney (R-Flip flopper) just chose Congressman Paul Ryan (R-Tea Party) as his running mate.  So, can a Presidential candidate pick a running mate who wants to turn Medicare into a voucher program and not lose senior votes?  Is Florida now an easier win for Obama?

This just reeks of a campaign that cannot shore up the support of its base.

Let's kick off this campaign season a bit late and let me know your thoughts.

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Quiz of the Day

What is wrong with this statement and who is the moron who said it?

“This week, President Obama will release a budget that won’t take any meaningful steps toward solving our entitlement crisis. The president has failed to offer a single serious idea to save Social Security and is the only president in modern history to cut Medicare benefits for seniors.”

Answer here:

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Fun with Graphs - Job Growth

It took three years to stop the slide and make up the lost ground, but unemployment is finally back to where  it was when Obama took office.

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Playing with Fire?

Some time ago, I predicted an Obama landslide if Newt Gingrich were to be picked as the Republican nominee.  Is it just my bias playing games with me?   Would Gingrich be more formidable than I predict?

Today is the S. Carolina primary.  If FiveThirtyEight is correct, it seems Gingrich's embrace of the southern strategy is propelling him to victory there.

Am I crazy to hope for a Gingrich primary victory or am I playing with fire?

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Iowa Caucus Prediction

Very non-scientific prediction:

Iowa Caucus:

1) Ron Paul
2) Mitt Romney
3) Rick Santorum
4) Newters Gingrich

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Results of a Obama Vs. Gingrich general election?

I am just throwing this out there.  It is not real sciencey.

I looked at the 2008 states that were close, but went for McCain, plus added in S. Carolina, where recent polling shows a possible upset.  Yes, it is early, but I love maps and its just fun to speculate.

Electoral College Results: 
Obama: 381
Gingrich: 157

Source:  270towin.

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Fun with Rick Perry

The Rick Perry Scary:



The Heathen Response:

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'bout Time.

Washington Post:  "Obama attacks Republican economic theory: ‘It’s never worked’"

...Obama delivered a searing indictment of Republican economic theory, setting the stage for the coming presidential campaign. Summoning the image of a populist Theodore Roosevelt — in the same town (Osawatomie) where Roosevelt delivered a famous speech on economic fairness in 1910 — Obama deployed the language of right and wrong, fairness and unfairness, in a lengthy address that aides said he largely wrote himself.

The theory of “trickle down economics,” which holds that greater wealth at the top generates jobs and income for the masses below, drew some of Obama’s harshest criticism.

Link to WaPo.

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H. Clinton in 2012? Why?

I don’t normally like linking to the Huffington Post, whose articles and guest columns, often drafted by celebrities, seem to just promote knee-jerk stereotypical opinions of the left. I saw this article linked by a bookface friend and had to make fun of the content.

It seems that Hillary Clinton supporters (AKA a cult.) are donating $20.12 to her to get her to run for president against President Obama.

Hey HCR-lovers: She lost!

Why would any legitimate progressive want her to run anyway? Because Obama is less progressive? I don’t think so.

Maybe it is not fair to judge HRC by her husband's policies, but it is a measure we cannot ignore. Let me remind her supporters that her husband (and HCR) was unable to get health care reform done. BC signed the repeal of the Glass–Steagall Act, which partially led to the banking crisis of today. He also promoted the anti-government policies of the Republicans, signed onto their welfare reform proposals and bought into the foolish, Wall Street-driven trade policies that have helped decimate the middle class. He also signed the “Defense of Marriage Act.”

As I have posted before, I cannot think of a single progressive policy he accomplished.

Let us also remind everyone that as it started to become clear she would likely lose the primary election, she started running the “white people will vote for me” campaign as a last ditch effort to pull it out.  Why the hell is she even Secretary of State?

If I want another Clinton in office, I will vote for Romney.

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If He Would Ask Me...

If I were Obama's speech writier, my outline below would be my first draft of a speech on a jobs agenda, without going too much into the details of the plan itlself. If he asked you, what would you tell Obama to say tonight Thursday night?

Set the stage without saying the name “Bush”.
• Remind everyone what brought us here. Years of deregulation, tax cuts on the wealthy and corporation’s left us with a 2007 recession and a 2008 banking collapse that lead to the worst economic conditions since the great depression.

Remind everyone what has worked, but let everyone know how dissatisfied you are with the slow recovery.
• In 2009 we stopped the slide and created 3.7 million jobs after passage of a jobs stimulus package of investments, a third of which was targeted tax cuts and incentives.

• The stock market has recovered nearly all of the losses following the 2008 bank collapse.

• Corporations are profitable.
• The federal government is being paid back from our loans that saved the auto industry.
• We reformed the financial industry so a bank collapse won’t happen again.
• Interest rates and taxes are both historically low.
• Despite all this, jobs aren’t being created fast enough.
• When the jobs stimulus ended, growth slowed.
• We cannot be satisfied with the pace of this recovery.

Talk tough.

• Remind everyone that your will do your part, but you cannot not accept solutions languishing in Congress.

• The transportation infrastructure bills and jobs packages have not moved in Congress.

• The recent brinksmanship over the debt ceiling did not put a single person back to work, but it damaged the country’s credit, credibility and the economic recovery.

• Partisanship, inaction or returning to the failed policies of the past will not create a single job. It is time to put country ahead of party and ideology and do something.

Remind everyone that we will never get a handle on the debt without creating jobs.

• Everytime they talk about debt, say the debt will be reduced through job creation. (Polling shows people are not real concerned about the debt, but the R's have neutered any effective job creation due to a focus on the debt.)
• The best thing for reducing our debt is to promote jobs and create long term plan for growth.

• Create a near-term jobs package and a 10-year plan to balance the budget.
• Your proposed jobs package will build on what has worked and strengthen the recovery.

Announce the package without validating failed Republican policies.
• Nobody will votes for a fake Republican when they can vote for the real thing.
• Investments in schools, roads and the infrastructure the Greatest Generation built that have powered our national economy for 50 years.
• Targeted tax incentives that promote investments in some of the industries that create American jobs, such as home building and more.

Package the message.
• Repeat it. Over and over again.
• It’s a jobs package, not a stimulus.

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Bill?

As the economy grows slowly and Obama's approval numbers decline, I have read Democrats wistfully dream of days gone by and the Presidency of Bill Clinton. Some have wondered out loud what the hell Obama has accomplished as they look back at the good ‘ol days of Bill.

It got me thinking. The economy sure rocked during the 90’s, which led to balanced budgets. There was cheap gas, SUV’s everywhere and tech stocks were rising. Yeah, the economy was great, but what else did Bill accomplish? Social Security wasn’t shored up, health care wasn’t reformed and the environment wasn't protected. What the hell did Bill accomplish other than get reelected? Maybe I have a short-term memory, but I cannot think of anything.

Can you?

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Tea Party less popular than...gasp...atheists!

I reprint this from the NY Times in case their pay wall won't let you through the link. Emphasis mine.

Polls show that disapproval of the Tea Party is climbing. In April 2010, a New York Times/CBS News survey found that 18 percent of Americans had an unfavorable opinion of it, 21 percent had a favorable opinion and 46 percent had not heard enough. Now, 14 months later, Tea Party supporters have slipped to 20 percent, while their opponents have more than doubled, to 40 percent.

Of course, politicians of all stripes are not faring well among the public these days. But in data we have recently collected, the Tea Party ranks lower than any of the 23 other groups we asked about — lower than both Republicans and Democrats. It is even less popular than much maligned groups like “atheists” and “Muslims.” Interestingly, one group that approaches it in unpopularity is the Christian Right.

So if atheists and Muslims begin to be just as loud and obnoxious as the Tea Party asses, do you think one of the two main partys will give them as much respect in the primaries?

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Tinker Belle for President

While I only digested the low lights of the Republican Presidential debate held last week, it got me thinking about their belief systems. What can we say about people who support, believe and worship the following concepts?

• Supply-side economics
• Creationism
• Tax cuts as government revenue generators
• Being gay is a choice
• Cutting spending as economic stimulus

It seems that every one of the Republican Presidential candidates has based their campaigns on various forms of fantasy.

Surely they are appealing to primary voters, so I must ask these voters: How can one go through life when everything you believe in has been shown through math, economics and science to be pure fiction? Is there comfort in blissful stupidity?

While all the above points to the GOP teahadists/diehards/candidates as being loony, it also demonstrates an electoral strength not held by the Democrats. When your supporters back you due to some sort of “faith” (economic or otherwise) it’s pretty hard for your opponents to shake their dedication at the polls.

Why do I try to understand these people?

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Made in the USA

I really did not think Obama or his campaign would have the balls to do it, but they are actually “selling” t-shirts making a funny out of the whole birth certificate nonsense.

Openly mocking Trump and the rest of the birther/truther/tenther fanatics is the best way to handle them. The next thing is to openly ridicule all those who made up the death panel and other health care reform lies.

Donate $25 to get your t-shirt here.

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