The subject of his sex life wouldn't be on the agenda for a national security briefing. The way people knew, and the flow of information, had to do with the way it was reported, who told who. It didn't follow protocol up the chain of command. That's more closely the job of the CIA director. The Prez relies on his staff to bring him the best evidence of what's going on in the world, dontcha think? Investigating the CIA director is necessarily small and quiet if it's done properly. I suppose Petraeus had a hand in the drone strike that killed the Libyan Al-Qaeda leader, which fomented the reprisal at Benghazi. But I doubt that the Ambassador went to the CIA asking for protection. And he seems to have been implementing his own security protocol by being in the facility that was attacked.
And when you consider the massive voter suppression effort waged by the losing side, voter suppression (last minute voter roll purges, polling intimidation, 8 hour waiting lines, inconsistent voting rules, voting misinformation by Republican officials e.g. giving people incorrect voting times, and the hundreds of millions of special interest money spent by Republicans disseminating misinformation), it wasn't close at all. As you point out, President Obama won 332 out of 538 electoral votes. That is not close.
Getting back to your OP, I thought I would take the liberty of updating this. It's such a relief to know that some of them are waking up after so long asleep at the wheel. More and more they will be shaken, shocked and shoved closer and closer to that point of accepting reality. The ones in office, the lame ducks, and the party leaders and gophers are now forced to take a stand with or against the nut jobs who are continuing to dig deeper and deeper holes for themselves. They have continued to insult voters, they continue to blame the storm, they continue to look like idiots--suggesting secession or impeachment (and now mind control!), they continue to manufacture controversy--Benghazi, Susan Rice etc. They're just looking stupider and stupider in the face of public accountability. What's so pathetic is that they have had four years to pull themselves out of the stupidity of putting nut jobs John McCain and Sarah Palin up against populists, even as the Bushie wrecking ball was still tearing down the economy. After four years all they had to show were nuts like Romney, Ryan, Rick Perry -- all Bozos -- as their answer to public outrage in 2008. They hadn't given up on the stupidity of battling a Supreme Court decision from some 40 years ago, solidly established as a woman's right to choose, and they wasted precious assets harping on it while the economy suffered under their continuing burden of tax cuts for the rich and their constant antagonism against the Fed -- undermining the best efforts by PhD economists to clean up their mess. And so on. These are just a few examples of the suicidal tactics Republicans have as their showing of leadership during the past 4 years. I've had occasion to ask this same question to nay-sayers, online and in real life. They respond like a deer in headlights. They are simply incapable of processing truth: you pay taxes; you know our taxes haven't gone up; therefore you are lying when you claim Obama has raised taxes. What a crock. Since you posted it: they blame the hurricane, they blame Obama for giving "gifts" to constituents (translated: he did for voters what he promised to do!), and they blame conspiracy, as always, merging the Birther view with a manufactured scandal over Benghazi, merged with the whining and pouting over secession and impeachment and even mind-control. They've got a hell of a long way to go to return to even he unappealing position of mainstream Conservatism. I think we're seeing a meltdown. Who knows what kind of monstrosity will rear its ugly head from their asses ashes.
Hear! Hear! And the election campaign has also proven beyond doubt that RELIGION is no proof against LYING and TREASONOUS ACTIONS by those who cry RELIGION and PATRIOTISM just because it's good 'cover' for their maniacal/mercenary conning attempts trying to hoodwink the populace. The religious and mercenary hypocrites have no shame. They pretend that they did nothing wrong. The electorate thankfully saw through them in enough numbers and places to put the lie to their scam trying to get back into govt after the damage and divide and conquer tactics they have perpetrated. If I was religious, I would say something like: A SPECIAL "HELL" is waiting for many of these repub/conserve/tea-party financial/political/religious miscreants who abuse religion and patriotism and the economy for their nefarious personal agendas. Good riddance.
I think despite all this gloating now, in 2 years the republicans will have put together something and win back seats, that and democrats fail to turn out for mid term elections.
If they continue the obstructionist behavior they will disappear en masse in the midterms. It's not gloating it's a realization that the obstructionist ideologues are going to finally face the music. Dance or die.
That is quite true Brucep. Things are different this time around. In 2008 and 2010 Republicans bet the farm on obstructionism, extremism and anti-Obamacare. They had some success with that strategy in 2010 due to the effects of The Great Recession and the Obamacare lies (e.g. death panels, large tax increases, etc.). Fear worked for Republicans in 2010. But that dog doesn’t hunt anymore. The economy is in recovery, and has been for some time. The Republican predicted Armageddon related to Obamcare will be shown to be yet another big lie. Republican fear mongering has put a huge hole in their credibility. Republicans have damaged their brand, the full affect of that damaged has not yet been realized. They waged everything on killing Obamacare, and the failed. How Republicans fare in 2014 will depend on how they behave. This is a severely damaged party. How are Republicans going to explain away their lies and fear mongering related to Obamacare? They can’t. They made a Hail Mary pass in 2010 and it failed. A lot is resting on how Republicans handle the fiscal cliff. I think most of them understand, especially the leadership that the extremism of the past is not going to be a winning strategy from them going forward. If they blow the fiscal cliff as they did with the debt ceiling last year, it’s curtains for the Republican Party in 2014. If Republicans stick to the extremism gig, voter demographics are against them. We are a multicultural society, and there are only so many white males in this country. Romney made that comment about not caring for 47% of Americans. For three weeks Romney characterized those comments as “inartful” , finally just before the election Romney stated his comments about the 47% were wrong. Now after the election is over, Romney is doubling down on his original 47% comments, alleging that 47% didn't vote for him because President Obama gave them gifts. It’s difficult to lead a nation when off the top you are writing off half the population. Romney’s frequent Etch-a-Sketch moments (i.e. flip-flops) have done nothing to bolster Republican credibility. And you are right, an honest discussion is not gloating. Some people think when discussing politics one must always balance the scales even if one has to put one’s hands on the scale to do the balancing or load up the scales with rocks to bring the other side into balance. Life is not always balanced.
If the economy goes south again then obama and the democrats might get the blame, its a gamble. Though I would hope the people would blame obstructionism, the people are remarkably stupid, case in point they elected bush, twice... or once, what ever he got enough votes, if people were just a little smarter he would have lost handedly, in fact McCain would have won the primaries in 2000 not bush. Anyways I don't try to assume rational thought with the American people so anything possible in 2014. Another question: do people remember there own false predictions, if say a republican believe obama will end the world by 2010 and nothing like that happened, do they go "gee I was wrong!", I doubt it. Also voting demographics are barely against them, minorities are only now starting to represent big enough voting blocks to counter the slight pro-republican average of white males, and that is assuming high turn out, as we saw in 2010 minorities did not turn out and the white male won big.
Here is what the real Rep would be candidates thought (Jeb Bush, Christy,Jindal), when they decided NOT to run about a year ago: 1. The economy is most likely still be in the shitters for years, so let someone else get the blame for it. If it is Obama, my chances are going to be much better in 2016. 2. It is hard to knock off a sitting president, specially when he did relatively good in his term. 3. Romney is going to run, and he can have big pockets, there is no point in fighting him and burn up money and support. So after a rleative objective evaluation, none of the would be good candidates ran, leaving us with the clusterfuck of morons like Perry and Mr. 999, not to mention Bachman....
Jeb Bush? he a "good" candidate, even today half of Americans blame the former bush for the economy, I can't imagine they will elect another one! Bobby Jindahl and Chris Christie are more likely, as well as man of the other republican governors who appear to be per-pre-campaigning for 2016... is there anything like that happening on the democrat side, where is Hilary?
Depending on what decisions are made by the Republican Party over the course of the next few years, I think the Republicans could have a respectable and formidable line up in 2016. There are some good potential candidates on the Republican side, but if those potential candidates have to do the crazy talk and crazy dance in order to win primaries as is currently the case, they are going to continue to sit on the sidelines, because they don’t want to damage their personal brands and rightly so. They don’t want to be associated with the Republican clown brigades we saw in such excruciating detail this election cycle.
Yes many of them are reasonable moderates, as long as they can stay that way they have a more then 50% chance of winning 2016 as president (one of them that is), they will need to be pro-healthcare, pro-immigration and at least open to high taxes to win, no of this "no tax increase ever" pledging make the immigrants "self-deport", etc, etc, they will need to make statement to the opposite and consistently so, they may need to disparage Bush in order to finally clean the party of that mark. Anyways if a canidate like that wins I could live with it. As for the democrats they don't seem to have nearly as good of a line up. Hillary and Biden are too old, Elizabeth Warren is a fiery liberal who could likely be misquoted (she spawned the ancestor of the "You did not build it" speech) and will have only 4 years of senate experience backing her by 2016, Obama at least had 10 years of elected service behind him, and for some reason Americans think such experience is important even though it isn't. Andrew Cuomo is old money political family, that not going to go well with self starter persona people like these days. Unless the economy is doing awesome in 4 years and obama approval rating is like >80% I don't see them elected another black man from chicago like Deval Patrick.
The growing trend towards accessing/storing news and historical information on the internet means that all the repub/conserve/tea-party lies and lunacy will be available to 'mine' almost immediately any future republican candidate pretends to be what he is not in order to hoodwink future electorates. Comedians will be only to happy to compare the future lies to their past lies for a good laugh. And the democrats have an almost inexhaustible record of republican tactics and craziness which they can point to which will make it almost impossible for future repubs to depend on the ignorance and bigotry of old to get them in office again. Ah the internet, what a wonderful thing, even the least politically minded citizen can now be entertained with an endless string of video/articles showing what the future repub candidates of today were all about: lies, ignorance, fear mongering and divisiveness and sabotage of national economy/security for selfish political/religious/mercenary ends. There is nowhere to run and hide from the record for future republicans/conserves, they must think and act better or become irrelevant laughing stocks. Their choice; and the internet waits for them in 2016!
Yeap see your forgot 2014! That when they will win backs seats because without the publicity of a presidential race no one cares, aah the internet where cat videos are more important then your local senate race!
Not at all. The leadup to any election from now on will be all over the internet more than ever (as current trends/studies show). And the copious 'copy' amassed and cached from the leadup to the recent election will be a boon for the masses as well as the comedians and chat shows. All those 'cat videos' will be displaced by 'polly videos' showing the HILARIOUS antics of the last crop of republican/conserve/teaparty lunies and liars and crooks. Cat videos will be 'so yesterday' when the full cache of 'comedy gold' is trotted out in the leadup to any future election involving repubs/conserves/teaparty wannabes at any level! lol. The internet awaits them all, and they better have a good sense of history because it will come back to bite them on the internet since even people who 'don't care' will not be able to avoid the 'polly videos' and the hearty laughs they will give everyone even if they aren't politically minded or don't care otherwise. But you're right, of course; the internet has its inane moments....be it cats or pollys, eh? Cheers.
Comparing 2012's county by county election map: Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! With 1932's map: Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! It could be worse. But it is interesting how the two images seem like the same picture inverted.
He speaks Spanish, his son is half Latino, was liked as a governor. He is not responsible for W' stupidity...
Yes and no. A lot has changed since 1932. Populations, in number, distribution, races. Parties have changed a lot too. A cartogram of 1932 is a lot different, both in the number of votes (many had none), and how much of an influence there was on the EV from each county, since the proportions were different. Not necessarily apples and oranges, it's useful to compare, but it's not equal.
But his name is "Bush"! "Clinton" ended with very high approval and she could not even win a primary, the last Bush ended with approval in the ~20%, and we have already had two of them! Asking for a third is like asking for a dynasty of progressively worse kings! Not even: parties have changed so much in the last 80+ years they resemble their opposing party more now then they do their past party. Like two wrestlers circling a ring only the ring is a political opinion plane, they have literally done a 180 turn since the time of Lincoln.
