Those of us who practice that “old-time religion” know that today was named for the Anglo-Saxon god Wōden. He is the pagan god of death, battle, wisdom, discoverer of the runes and leader the Wild Hunt.
Election Results:
Republicans swept contests for governor in New Jersey and Virginia on Tuesday as voters went to the polls filled with economic uncertainty, dealing President Obama a setback and building momentum for a Republican comeback attempt in next year’s midterm Congressional elections.
But it has absolutely nothing to do with Obama’s declining approval rating. In fact, Obama wasn’t even paying attention:
Hours after urging reporters not to draw sweeping conclusions from Tuesday’s gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told POLITICO President Barack Obama wasn’t even keeping an eye on the results.
“He’s not watching returns,” Gibbs said.
Maine pulls a Prop H8:
Voters in Maine repealed a state law legalizing same sex marriage, which backers of the measure said shows “voters don’t want to change what you call marriage.” Advocates of same-sex marriage refused to concede defeat early Wednesday after supporters declared victory.
Democrats won one out west:
Democratic Lt. Gov. John Garamendi is heading to Washington, D.C., today to be sworn into Congress after beating four other candidates in a special election to fill the Congressional seat vacated by Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Walnut Creek.
(If Garamendi had lost what is considered a “safe” seat that would have been shocking)
Four more bodies found at Ohio rapist’s home, police say
(Anyone trying to extract some deeper meaning from this is as crazy as he is)
Obama plays China card, but who holds the ace?
Joanna Krupa: ‘Playboy is a New Form of Feminism’
Pakistan’s military claims Taliban stronghold
Pakistan’s military said Tuesday that its forces have taken over a Taliban stronghold during the ongoing ground offensive in the tribal region of South Waziristan.
Andy Pettitte against Pedro Martinez, with the Yankees one win from ecstasy
(They’re back in the Bronx for Game Six and also Game Seven if Philly wins tonight)
3 North Dakota students found dead; foul play not suspected
The bodies of the three women softball players were found inside a vehicle submerged in a pond.
The voices in your head listen to me
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Filed under: General
Maine also voted to legalize medical marijuana.
Not a fan of drugs or drug use but why don’t they just go ahead and legalize marijuana and sell it over the counter like alchohol. Seems that would solve a bunch of problems associated with growing, transporting, selling and acquiring of the product. Make it legal and the criminals get pushed out of the loop. This means our police can focus on other things which are more important. More destructive drugs, robberies, murder, etc.
People have been voting for legalization with their wallets just as they did during prohibition.
Too bad that common sense is in such short supply here in the U S of A.
Parker, the LGBT woman, won Houston’s mayoral race
http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/elections/local/results?g=housMayCon
Houston Chronicle is reporting there will probably be a runoff race between Parker and Locke, but yes…..Parker had the higher number here. Voted for her yesterday; will vote for her in the runoff.
Gasp! Is it possible that those Southern r@cists who voted for Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama in the primaries might in fact be more open-minded than the liberal “elites” on the East Coast who voted for a Republican governor and a law banning same-sex marriage?!
Good one! And it was not even a closed Democratic primary election either. Says something about our stereotypes doesn’t it. But then, of course, Maine is really not in New England.
from the front page of the Houston Chronicle:
The graphic of Parker and Locke reminded me of Hillary and Obama. Here’s a link for anyone who is curious….
http://www.pressdisplay.com/pressdisplay/viewer.aspx?newspaper=houston+chronicle&cid=1084
Still looking good so far:
“Supporters of gay rights were buoyed by first-day returns that showed Referendum 71 leading by a narrow margin Tuesday evening. … It was winning by nearly 3-to-1 in King County, where about 30 percent of the state’s voters reside, and also doing well in other Puget Sound-area counties. … But fewer votes remained to be counted where it was being rejected than where it was winning approval, according to a Seattle Times analysis.
Among other benefits, the measure would allow domestic partners to take time off to care for a sick partner.”
OMG! Allow someone to take care of a same-gender sick person; horrors!
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2010196421_elexref7104m.html
I agree. Does the FMLA even cover that?
Jake Tapper’s tweet says it all:
“The Biggest Loser” is at the White House tonight. This is not a joke.”
No the biggest losers were the fool politicians who turned their backs on their constituents to serve the one – who:
“wasn’t even keeping an eye on the results.
“He’s not watching returns,”
Beyond appearances, what does he care? He got his.
Right on, Betty. What else did they expect? All they had to do was look at the record. — And where were all those young enthusiastic “first time voters” from the 2008 election? Yawn. Couldn’t be bothered.
they had kegs to tap
But, but, there is HOPE?
No, Bill Clinton was born in the town on Hope, but Hope+Change(TM) is just Axelrove’s rerun of the Deval Patrick campaign.
Last updated on 11/4/2009 12:27 AM
Ref. Measure 71 concerning rights and responsibilities of state-registered domestic partners
Measure Vote Vote %
Approved 509,673 51.10 %
Rejected 487,808 48.90 %
http://vote.wa.gov/Elections/WEI/Results.aspx?RaceTypeCode=M&JurisdictionTypeID=-2&ElectionID=32&ViewMode=Results
BTW Ref 71 also would protect domestic-partner rights of senior-citizen hetero couples who would lose Social Security income due to the marriage penalty if they married.
Woman calls to report herself for driving drunk:
Do we really have to charge her? She did the right thing.
Why couldn’t she have pulled over at the next safest stop and just waited to sober up (and then go into McDonald’s or whatever) and get a cup of coffee)?
Ha ha – for “not watching the polls”. Another Jr.jr trait. NYC tabloids make our mayoral buy-out a bit more fun
http://edgeoforever.wordpress.com/2009/11/04/tabloids-and-the-mayoral-buy-out/
In my tiny PA burg, the anti-gay, anti-teacher, anti-tax group added two to the school board. They now have a majority. The high school students formed a Gay Straight Alliance last year to counter anti-gay insults directed toward a student in the cafeteria. This fueled a large voter outrage every bit as much as economics.
Outside the polling area a “loving” fundamentalist minister promoting an “anti” candidate also mentioned pushing back against Obama’s too liberal agenda.
As I listened to this minister talking with another pamphleteer about the impending judgment day, I felt as though they’d like us all to die soon just to prove a point.
The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. I’ve got some vigilancing to do!
When have facts ever gotten in their way?
Darned if I know. You’d think the hard right would be practically thrilled with him.
I am sure they are thrilled at least behind the scenes. This is a golden opportunity for them to label people close to the center as liberal, thus moving the debate and the agenda further to the right. I believe that is what they are doing. Sets them up nicely to get everything they want in just a couple of years. If RW’s are anything it is that they are patient and can bide their time.
I believe you are correct.
That happened over here too-right wingers taking over the school board when no-one was looking. It had become far too automatic an election, and often there would be only one candidate.
Now we mammas are vigilant.
“I felt as though they’d like us all to die soon just to prove a point.”
That’s exactly how I feel about the political scapegoating of gay people. But then I remember that scapegoats are necessary, gotta have ‘em, and I cheer right up…or not.
It’s the con of the century. Get their base fired up while disenfranchising the Dem base. It’s a sure fire way to win back the WH in 2012.
And all the good little obots can sleep soundly at night knowing they did they part by electing a single-term, do-nothing, bi-racial president and “changing” the world. Gee, wasn’t that easy, and hey who’s got the remote?
How do you think this ground breaking official will do?
SOD: Are you located in the H-burg area?
We should meet sometime. My mom lives in Camp Hill
no pony just the droppings it left behind
so R.D. are you a happy camper this morning?hugs
I got the impression that in both VA and NJ the Republican candidates were focused on economic issues rather than the conservative social issues of abortion or marriage. Is that a correct impression or not? That seems to be what Rove is pushing for Repubs. If the Repubs could free themselves from the devil they married on social issues, they could wind up giving Dems some real trouble in 2010. It is the same kind of freedom and direction the Dems got when they finally divorced the South and segregation.
I think the “socialist” rhetoric is the interpretation the general population puts on things like the bailouts of banks, Wall St. and autos—it may be a mislabeling on classic definition grounds but it’s how people see it and perception is what counts.
Good point, and correct. Part of the reason they won I think is precisely because they downplayed the social batshit crazy stuff they would normally push.
Heck the only meme Deeds had any success with was pushing McDonnell’s thesis and the radical idea that womanz belong at home having babies. It actually did a small amount of damage. Unfortunately for Deeds its kinda hard t o support someone who is basically running on Republican lite(no public option) and didn’t really attempt to build on stuff like the fact that Va’s economy is better than nationwide. When it came to policy Deeds was outwonked by McDonnell.
One of the points I always tried to (albeit unsuccessfully) convey to obots is that the Dems were shooting themselves in the proverbial foot in 2008. Longtime, loyal Dems like my husband and I were cast aside and deemed worthless. The Dems didn’t “need” us. So now the Dems no longer have us.
This was the first election my husband and I ever boycotted. (I didn’t even vote for the woman running for lt. governor in VA.) I really think that this will be a problem for the party. The obots are only interested in Obama, and the independents will go whichever way the wind blows. It was incredibly stupid of the Democratic party to blow off their loyal supporters, but that’s what they did. And IMO they’ll be paying the price for quite a while.
I hope so.
All they seem to think about is controlling the message 24/7, anyway they can.
Joe Cannon has coined a great term–”Goldman Sachs Democrat”. What a perfect description of Obama, Blue Dogs, New Dems, whatever they want to call themselves. They just shouldn’t call themselves Democrats. When I was growing up, Repubs were definitely the party of big business. Now both parties are the parties of big business. The rest of us are just so much chopped liver.
Pinning the ” Socialist ” label on Obama and his ilk always cracks me up. Wall Street owns them. Just look at who contributes to their campaigns. Follow the money….
Another failure of the media, that Faux can label Obama as a Socialist or in Savage can call him a Commie and people believe it.
Wall St. does own them, he’s a corporatist, for lack of a better term. But I also think he’s working to create a permanent entitlement underclass of people who’s discontent can be mined by politicians for various ends. Maybe that’s why people confuse him with a socialist.
Erica: Great insight. I think it is also called poverty pimping—get the poor folks to vote for you, promise them everything, deliver little or nothing and make off with all the funds allocated to help them—those funds go to hire your relatives and friends. It is slumming 101.
You keep the riff raff hooked on hope which calms the hoods and the rich or more than happy to fund your efforts.
Middle class pays for it both ways. And we wonder why they label him a socialist when he is pimping huge tax dollars to bail out banks, Wall St. , GM etc? All they see is a government income redistribution and it is not going into middle class pockets—it even goes to tax breaks to take middle class jobs to another country. Liberals have to wake up—there definition of a socialist has been changed by the facts on the street.
yup. I went to the polls and voted for women of either party. Dem women over anyone, dem men over rep men and rep women over either party men.
In past years I would have voted a straight party ticket. It was really stupid of the party to dismiss those of us who vote all the time.
The meme this morning seems to be: 1) The losses were based on local politics, and HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH OBAMA; and 2) these non-election years are irrelevant.
Empty Harbingers in Virginia & New Jersey
By Ruth Marcus
WASHINGTON — Advice to readers about the coming orgy of analysis about the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial elections: Ignore it. Disquisitions on The Meaning of It All for President Obama or the 2009 results as a harbinger for Congress in 2010 have scant basis in reality.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/11/04/of_elections_and_sunspots_99004.html
LOL. Apparently denial isn’t just a river.
At the very least, the results prove that, in the coattails department, Obama is wearing a bolero.
WORD!!!!
Can we discuss the topic of a contribution button on the page to get some flowers (or whatever they need) for kat5 today? Many people were not around last night, and I want her to know we care about her.
What happened?
Look up Dakinikat on Corzine live blog 1.
Nov 3rd-10:51 pm
Basically kat5 was just diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer. The cancer is everywhere and she is in hospice care.
Oh no. I’m so sorry for her and her family.
Oh, no! How awful.
If someone can contact her husband, he might want to know about Lotsa Helping Hands. It’s a Livestrong site where people with cancer can set up their own websites that can be used to coordinate care and get things done for the family. A friend of mine uses it. We all go on there and sign up for whatever she needs, meals, walks, chemo company, kid pick-up, etc. She posts messages there too and it saves her a lot of time and energy.
How terrible.
I live in redneck Wyoming county PA. The democrat running for county judge won huge over the 20 plus year republican incumbent. The democrats where motivated here and the republicans stayed home.
But more than that, we elected more women to positions all over this district.
Good work!
If anyone has the time to send some positive thoughts and energy to Grandma G-cat, I’d appreciate it. She came out of semi-rural hospital with a 10% chance to live, after 24 hours there, on Monday noon. Still in ICU in the next city over, but much improved. Was a combination of things including a hot gallbladder, at 90 years old, surgery not an option. Expect her to come home in the next few days, but with a gallbladder drainage bag for 30 days. In someone as ery and with early dementia that alone will be a challenge.
Please, please, please if you or your loved ones do not have an advance directive get them done. I lost count of the number of times I was asked what I wanted done if she needed a respirator. It broke my heart each time and made me feel like I, alone, would be signing her death warrant, even though I know that’s really not the case. I decided that if needed it would be 4 days max. I refuse to have her be a breathing corpse in a nursing home. I may comment more later on how being the youngest in a family that fight like cats and dogs decided I would make the decision, although according to my sibling I’ve never made a correct decision in my life.
Get on those advance directives now, I waited too long because she didn’t want to deal with it. I don’t want you to go through what I just did.
Sending positive energy. You are courageous. Be gentle with yourself.
Sending good thoughts your way, G-cat.
Whatever decisions you make will be the right ones.
Best wishes G-cat. I just got thru a hospital emergency with a 96 year old myself this week.
(But she’s a bit better today
)
good energy coming to you and yours too! glad to hear she’s better
Hugs Gcat
My prayers go out to you and your family.
Best wishes, G-cat. I took care of my elderly M-I-L for a long time and went through hell with the medical and mental health systems.
Good luck G-cat, and prayers for your grandmother.
prayers to you and yours, G-cat. You are doing the best you can, and that is an act of love and courage. That is all anyone can do in these situations.
Hugs & prayers.
And please don’t hold yourself accountable for when your relatives fight or do stupid things; you can only do so much with some people. Family can sometimes be so callous and self-serving…. Just stay above it. (I know; easier said than done. [i]Sending some energy your way.)
Mebbe I better send that with better tags!
Uh, that ery should be ornery.
Those of us who have dealt with elderly parents or grandparents understood ‘ery’ perfectly. Best possible thoughts to you all!
Bill Clinton and George W. Bush will debate politics in Radio City Music Hall in February. That ought to be pretty interesting, though one-sided.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/kdvr-bush-vs-clinton-110309,0,4563568.story
It seem ludicrous that the administration could be trusted with something like net neutrality. Just have a look at this lovely handiwork on their secret copyright treaty.
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/03/secret-copyright-tre.html
Yea, sadly a very large percentage of the lawyers brought into the O admin are from RIAA and MPAA. I don’t think they have our interests at heart when it comes to fair use or anything else. Remember, what’s yours is theirs and what’s theirs is theirs. Forever.
And for net neutrality, they’re listing to the completely unbiased views of comast, and time warner, at&t, etc., etc. Yea, we’re going to be so screwed. Soon, what each of us sees as the internet will be exactly only what our ISP wants us to see as the internet. If you want your website seen, be prepared to pay a “viewable” tax to each and every major ISP. Scary stuff.
IP rights seem to be the best excuse they can find for censoring opinion. Until we have a government we can trust, I think perhaps no regulation is better than “net neutrality” through their eyes.
If the Obama crew can squeeze a campaign nickle out of it, we’ll get what ever onerous legislation the big business special interest groups desire.
If it helps this administration to control their message, all the better.
And they made fun of Al Gore, when IIRC he kept the Internet free for everyone’s use.
“Corporate Welfare Bums” was a term coined by the Canadian NDP leader in his somewhat successful 1972 bid for power. (That election resulted in a 2 year minority government within which the NDP held the balance of power, and during which many advancements were made for the public good.)
I think it could be effective to start accepting the “socialism” label for Obama, but adding to it “for the wealthy”. Then add something like “laissez faire” or “no fair” for the rest of us.
Corporate Socialism- take from the middle class and give to
and how about some pic of the new “welfare dads” with pics of all the banking CEOs and their lucrative bonus money and the CEOs of the insurance companies that are all fired scared about having to compete in a free market..
that’s symbolism that could get firmly locked into to social psyche fast!
Alan Fishman got 19 million dollars for heading Wamu for 17 days before it went belly up. Basically he got paid a million a day.
AIG got spa retreats worth hundreds of thousands. How could this not evoke the image of the welfare mom with a caddy I don’t know.
Parallel images ~ an old woman set adrift on an ice flow and an AIG exec set adrift in a desert isle resort.
I loved this article pointing out the hypocrisy.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/les-leopold/welfare-reform-for-wall-s_b_325821.html
Excellent article! For mass impact, it needs to be turned into pictures. (Where’s a good cartoonist when you need one?)
@jackyt
Here’s a cartoonist for ya
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v232/Robbedvoter/Interesting%20times/?action=view¤t=calvin.jpg
I like that jackyt. Truly the American people at the grass roots level see government handouts and bailouts as socialism. When O is labeled by them as a socialist it is about giving taxpayer money to whoever and whatever. O has earned his socialist label for bailing out GM, the banks and Wall St. It may not fit the liberal definition of socialist but that is what it is.
Bingo!
Slogan: “Welfare for the wealthy… no fair for the rest of us!”
I think that used to be what we called the republicans.
The Democrat and Republican labels are beyond useless. We should assign new labels to our pols. I’d start with Corprocrats, Theocrats, and Independents depending on the motivation and appeal of each one.
Call it what it actually is–corporate capitalism, or laissez faire capitalism, corporatocracy, or fascism, which is defined as the marriage of corporations and government.
Calling it socialism falsely positions Obama on the left and hangs him around the necks of genuine liberals. Neither the genuine liberals nor the people who benefit from the implementation of liberal values–the middle class as a whole, low-income Americans, women, LGBTs, racial and ethnic minorities, the whole “working class,” in fact–deserves having to fight off identification with a basically Reaganite Republican-lite GWB-clone incompetent whose only concern seems to be providing kickbacks to his campaign financers.
os,
Yup.
s
Thank you. What you just said should be a Public Service Announcement.
That may be how we look at it but good luck changing the mindset of the masses. They roll it all into one—their inclusion of corporate welfare under the title of “socialism” is a fairly recent addition.
corporate welfare is not a left-right issue. Bush did it (and was incorrectly called a socialist for it), Obama is doing it. I don’t expect that the masses will stop calling it socialism, but the problem didn’t start with the taxpayer money being given out to the corporations, the problem is rooted in the corporate monopolies that came first.
While what you said is true, it has to break through decades of media conditioning to be effective. I suggest you try it only if you can wait 50 yrs or so for it to take hold.
If you want to win sooner, you’ll need to use what you’ve got and will be instantly understood. “Corporate Socialism” would work just fine and be no less correct than corporate capitalism, which is redundant.
Politics has precious little to do with what you “deserve” and almost everything to do with what you can “win”.
The people who are repeating the “Obama is a socialist” mantra are the dupes who are following Glenn Beck, Pamela Geller and other right-wing nuts–i. e., mostly right-wing nuts themselves.
If that’s the kind of company you want to keep, go for it. Just don’t try to drag the genuine left and center-left into the cesspit with you.
And we would win the anti-Obama crowd by identifying Obama with ourselves and our political philosophies–how? Your logic escapes me.
If it’s all the same to you, os, I think I’ll just stay here in my skeptic tank.
Good one. I’m inordinately fond of puns, too.
What I’m not fond of is creating further misconceptions about who liberals/leftists are and what we really stand for. Just about the only thing we have in common with Obama or Glenn Becksters is breathing oxygen.
Hillary is still on the job-woke up to this on the box:
U.S. delegation holds talks with Myanmar’s Suu Kyi
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsMaps/idUSTRE5A25OM20091104
Hillary works, works, works.
The One plays with all the presidential toys and petty politics (any election not about voting for him) is beneath notice.
Whatever happens; it’s not the fault of the number 1 zero.
Could someone get my comment out of spam s’il vous plait? Thx in advance
never fear Patriots,
we will take our country back.
one brick at a time
No; she’s got scary lady parts.
I would love to be a fly on the wall in the WH. Why didn’t they just lie and say he wasn’t watching the returns because he was working? Okay, no one would believe it, but it wouldn’t play directly into the perception that he’s detached and narcissistic. I don’t get it.
Maybe he was watching ESPN and the WH tv doesn’t have pic-in-pic.
Ah, always a day late and a dollar short as always but being a voter in NJ who watched her vote totally discounted at last summer’s undemocratic convention I must say I woke up a very happy camper today!
Ciao jon, yesterday I kept my promise I made to you last summer (but of course I am sure you never got that email along with the thousands of others from similarly disaffected, and for many former democrats) because you didn’t keep yours.
Petty? Yeah, and happy.
love the “I miss Bill Clinton” avatar… I’m in the middle of reading The Clinton Tapes, which only makes me miss having both Clintons in the White House all the more.
…love the “I miss Bill Clinton” avatar
you beat me to it ! Nice avatar there ainnj!
Glad you’re happy, it feels good to be a person who keeps her word, no?
B0 should try it sometime.
According to this, the Bush-Clinton “debate” is a no-go:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/clinton_bush_radio_city_debate_called_ce0MMMHb5H2fKRFjKhRREK#ixzz0Vw8rQgNa
Thank you so much to those of you who sent good wishes, positive thoughts, prayers and comfort. My Mom is a tough old girl ( and a Hillary fan too). This is not the first time you’ve been kind and I’ll never forget it.