Fart_Machine: Apparently everything on that list could be solved if we just made more laws restricting a woman's vagina.

At least that's what the opposition party believes.

Makes perfect sense in light of the fact that once you go black, you don't go back.

Expect a lot of this in the coming weeks. This is a "see what sticks" article. The GOP has nothing to go with. Their candidates *snert* are failing, and their media machine is in shambles. They are going into this election with absolutely no positives. The approval for congress is abysmal, and the whole country has seen how the GOP is willing to destroy America in order to recapture power.

This election cycle is going to be absolute insanity from the right.

It will come down to vaginas. Those who have them will mostly vote for him as non of his potential contenders have respect for them

lennavan: IMDWalrus: moralpanic: [img22.imageshack.us image 640x512]

"No such user 'GaryPDX'. Tastes like chicken."

/I kind of miss Gary
//...okay, maybe not

No doubt he's still around, just under a new login.

So a user can just disappear?

He always did say he was going off the grid.

I bet he still gets even less dates than I do :)

TemperedEdge: ultraholland: you're incredibly optimistic

It's part of being liberal: looking forward instead of backward. And hey, let's face it. Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while. See: Pat Robertson and Pot...

Conservatives are fundamentally afraid of the future. They have no way of dealing with it, because they have no idea what determinism and quantum physics is all about. They simultaneously fail to realize the past was a complete frigging nightmare if you really drag it out and examine it. For them it was something to survive, and the best parts will suffice. Typically they were mistreated as children, and the harsher the mistreatment, the more twisted the resultant mind.

Talk about post-traumatic stress disorder.

Dear Jerk: herrDrFarkenstein
Envirodude is gonna flip in 2016 when Obama goes for three

No need. The Republicans have shown they can't hide their contempt for women. They don't even have code in place, like they do for racism. This is good news, for Clinton.

It's not going to be Clinton, and she knows it; she'll be nearly 70 by then. G.W. Bush was most likely the last baby boomer President.

andrewagill: On Obama's watch gas has risen from an average of $1.85 a gallon to near $4 today.

You know, he's on to something, but I'm afraid his numbers are a little off. Look at these prices:

[i158.photobucket.com image 640x477]

And I assure you, this picture was before Obama was elected.

I remember my father biatching when gas went to 25 cents a gallon. On the plus side, when it hit the unthinkable price of 27 cents a gallon in 1969, the stations started giving out free glassware with every fill-up (in addition to checking your oil and tire pressure).

Young folks aren't fired up?

What the heck was Occupy Wall Street?

Do you think that young women aren't keeping a close eye on the current race to the bottom of misogynistic rhetoric?

The list is relatively reasoned, if you have no firm grip on reality. In general terms, gas high, unemployment, war, but then you have to look at the quagmire that Afghanistan was under first AND second term for GW. The tanking economy. The implosion of the markets. The second quagmire that we just got out of, and under great protest by folks who really would like to continue war spending--but without raising taxes, save on the folks who can absorb the hit least, and who actually keep currency circulating, as opposed to heading overseas or locked up in banks--who aren't lending, because everyone is trying to sell thanks to the imploded housing market that came from what again?

It is the sort of list that a first year poli sci student might write, if they had been hit in the head with a ball peen hammer, and didn't actually read newspapers or keep current on events.

Obama might indeed have some trouble this election, but for entirely different reasons than the ones that this piece of the Justification Machine is trying to peddle...

Point-by-point from a rational conservative point of view:

1) The economy is struggling, yes, but even if a conservative economist would say that what he is doing is bad, there's a temporal aspect to the spending. The question isn't if it creates more problems now, but if the problems it causes in the future are worth it. You really gotta hope the payment doesn't come due in a manner that's truly destructive.

Bottom line: Obama did not make the economy worse for the last three years - but that's not a useful narrative for the GOP, and the more sophisticated narrative regarding the future doesn't resonate, even with people who accept the basic assertions.

2) The president has nothing to do with this. Speculation has nothing to do with this. Tensions in the Middle East matter, but not nearly so much as demand.

3) People seem to forget that Afghanistan was a war with proper justification. We got bogged down when we decided to nation-build, and now it's a tar baby that's even stickier than Iraq was. Ultimately, not Obama's fault - the nation-building decision has doomed us, and only a complete "cut-and-run" will result in anything different. But then it will become Taliban all over again, and whatever administration does it will be forever tarred with the results. We're in for the long-run, people.

4) This is pretty accurate: young people are notoriously hard to get motivated to care about politics, and Obama had something special last time. He won't have it this time, and it will narrow the margins. Will it be enough to lose him the election? I doubt it.

5) Maybe a useful observation that ties into #1, but it's not Obama's fault. True Free Market capitalists believe that people will lend if money is there to be made. They don't do it to spite, our avoid it out of fear (at least, not at the marginal rates of fear we're talking about here).

6) Probably not in any meaningful amounts. Let's say he gets 42% this time. That works out to 0.1% difference in the vote. (OK - probably double that because their participation is higher.) But that's really pretty meaningless unless it's 2000 and it's Florida. If it close, if might matter.

7) This is really all about #1 again. The dirty secret, of course, is that even conservative economics believes in unemployment and so on. The particulars matter, but the fact the rolls are longer does not give us enough information about his policies. However, unhappy people tend to "vote the bums out" and this will hurt Obama at least some. (Certainly, you would admit the converse would help him.)

8) This is a real problem. I don't know how to unwind our position, but the numbers are getting to the point that fewer and fewer people can ignore them. We have serious spending problems, and we have to make some very, very, very hard decisions, including about defense.

9) This is a bit of a perplexing evolution. The US will NEVER default on its debt. Not in MY lifetime. It just ain't happening. And when and if it DOES happen, you may as well, in the words of my econ professor, just tear off your shirt and start burning things. So why the downgrade? Were the ratings agencies trying to send a warning? Hard to say exactly. But this problem is a bipartisan one.

10) Seriously, this is just pathetic. I don't even want to start to address this nonsense.

Wow, that article made me dumber just by reading it.

ultraholland: Ricardo Klement: 2) The president has nothing to do with this. Speculation has nothing to do with this. Tensions in the Middle East matter, but not nearly so much as demand.

I must amend this by saying that while current US demand is down (and I don't think the refining capabilities have changed) world demand is still increasing and that ultimately effects the price of crude. On top of that producers will be switching over to summer blends, so expect gas to go higher.

Well, yes, that was my meaning. World demand is the only demand that matters. The US is not a closed system.