I will not miss hearing about the invisible Obama that only Republicans can see. I'd be tempted to trade him for the real Obama, mind you; it makes me SO angry when they accuse him of being all the things I'm mad at him for not being.
We haven't had a Democrat in the White House since Jimmy Carter.
QuoteOn another subject... Congrats to you americans for another fine election. All the world holds its breath when you elect a new leader, do not forget that.thank you, but you should know that i'm not american and neither is Armageddon.
there is an election thread (http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=2579.0) in the Recreation Commons if you want to congratulate them though. ;)
Freaking Out: The Best of the Worst Responses to Obama's Winhttp://news.yahoo.com/freaking-best-worst-responses-obamas-win-193457867--abc-news-politics.html
By Gregory J. Krieg | ABC OTUS News – 3 hrs ago.. .
Mitt Romney gave a brief and graceful concession speech Tuesday night after it became apparent that President Obama had won a second term in office. Romney's campaign went a step further, livestreaming the president's remarks from Chicago a little while later. But not all of Obama's opponents have been so willing to let the results pass quietly.
Rush Limbaugh and "the Elves"
Surprising precisely no one, the syndicated radio host didn't take Tuesday night's decision well, saying Wednesday: "I went to bed last night thinking we're outnumbered. I went to bed last night thinking all this discussion we'd had about this election being the election that will tell us whether or not we've lost the country. I went to bed last night thinking we've lost the country. I don't know how else you look at this."
Get more pure politics at ABCNews.com/Politics and a lighter take on the news at OTUSNews.com
Limbaugh then moved on to an "Obama-as-Santa Claus" metaphor:
"[Obama supporters] think that the only way they're going to have a chance for anything is if somebody comes along and takes from somebody else and gives it to them. Santa Claus! And it's hard to beat Santa Claus. Especially it's hard to beat Santa Claus when the alternative is you be your own Santa Claus. 'Oh, no, I'm not doing that. What do you mean, I have to be my own Santa Claus? No, no. No, no, no. I want to get up every day and go to the tree. You're the elves,' meaning us."
Univesity of Mississippi Students "Riot"
"Hundreds of Ole Miss students exchanged racial epithets and violent, politicized chants in response to the announcement of the re-election of President Barack Obama," student reporters from The Daily Mississipian wrote early Wednesday morning.
After getting the call, the University Police Department "forcibly dispersed the crowd," threatening students with a trip to jail if they didn't go home. Two people were arrested.
Chancellor Dan Jones said the incident wasn't quite up to "riot" standards - "no injuries and there was no property damage" - but acknowledged in a statement that "reports of uncivil language and shouted racial epithets appear to be accurate." Jones said those actions "are universally condemned by the university, student leaders and the vast majority of students who are more representative of our university creed."
Victoria Jackson
The former Saturday Night Live comedienne, now an active tea party member, was upset with the results. Here are a few of her thoughts, via Twitter:
I can't stop crying.America died.
- Victoria Jackson (@vicjackshow) November 7, 2012
But not all is lost:
America's dead but Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever.
- Victoria Jackson (@vicjackshow) November 8, 2012
And then the requisite conspiracy theory:
Military Absentee Ballots Delivered One Day Late, Would Have Swung Election For Romney fb.me/1hpkx8JQZ
- Victoria Jackson (@vicjackshow) November 8, 2012
Akin Speech
The Republican Senate candidate from Missouri, who during the campaign suggested that pregnancy was unlikely in cases of what he called "legitimate rape," took a page out of the Romney campaign's playbook. In his concession speech Akin told supporters:
"There's one class in this country: Americans. We also believe that the source of America's great strength is our faith in a loving God, who allows courageous people the freedom to pursue the unique dreams that each of them have. And we believe that the Constitution is not a list of suggestions. We believe that ordinary people built America. We believe you built that."
Karl Rove
George W. Bush's former political guru wasn't convinced that Ohio had gone for Obama, so on Tuesday night, he explained his reasoning. But Fox News anchor Megan Kelly was dubious about the math, asking if it was something he "does as a Republican to make himself feel better, or is this real?"
Kelly's zinger hardly settled the matter. The Fox News host then got involved in moderating the awkward and contentious debate between Rove and the Fox News "decision desk." Rove believed they had called Ohio for Obama too soon. Ultimately, though, and after some on-air consultation with the behind-the-scenes crew, Kelly wasn't buying it.
"They are not listening to Karl," she said. "They don't care what Karl said."
Ted Nugent
The man who gave us "Cat Scratch Fever" can't stop clawing at the president. In April, Nugent was summoned to a meeting with the Secret Service after making some ugly comments at a National Rifle Association convention in St. Louis, Mo.
"If Barack Obama becomes the president in November, again," he said, "I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year."
After meeting with Nugent a few days later, the Secret Service declared the situation "resolved."
Not resolved: Nugent's issues with President Obama and the people who elected him to a second term. His made his thoughts plain on Twitter.
Goodluk America u just voted for economic & spiritual suicide. Soulless fools
— Ted Nugent (@TedNugent) November 7, 2012
Six minutes later, at 6:40 a.m., Nugent went from mad to sad:
I cry tears of blood for The Last Best Place & the warriors who died for this tragedy
— Ted Nugent (@TedNugent) November 7, 2012
Everyone's a Critic
Kelly Romney, a distant relative of the defeated candidate, told ABC/Univision's Manuel Rueda that he "tried to warn Mitt about his 'mistake'" in not doing more to sway Latino voters "on three occasions" before the election.
"It's just a real tragedy I think that he did not connect with us where we could've helped him," Kelly Romney said. "I really think it would've made a difference in the election."
Click HERE to watch President Obama's full acceptance speech.
Dick Morris
Refuting Oasis's Noel Gallagher - who wrote and brother Liam sang that "nobody ever mentions the weather can make or break your day" - the former Clinton aide turned conservative talker charged Superstorm Sandy with raining on and ultimately "breaking" Mitt Romney's Election Day.
Below is a choice excerpt from Morris's Wednesday blog post, titled "Why I Was Wrong."
"I've got egg on my face," he began, humbly enough. "I predicted a Romney landslide and, instead, we ended up with an Obama squeaker."
We can debate whether or not an incumbent president makes a squeaking sound while surpassing 300 electoral votes on his "re-election night" some other time, but in the meantime, Morris gets down to the real reason for Obama's win:
"The more proximate cause of my error was that I did not take full account of the impact of hurricane Sandy and of Governor Chris Christie's bipartisan march through New Jersey arm in arm with President Obama. Not to mention Christie's fawning promotion of Obama's presidential leadership. It made all the difference.
[Sleezebag]
The birther's meltdown is well-documented at this point. And that's a good thing, because he deleted some of his more provocative and inaccurate ("more votes equals a loss… revolution in this country") tweets over the past 24 hours. Of what remains, there is this call for what we might understand to be a friendly group visit to our nation's capital.
We can't let this happen. We should march on Washington and stop this travesty. Our nation is totally divided!
- Donald J. [Sleezebag] (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2012
Let's end this on a positive note:
We have to make America great again!
- Donald J. [Sleezebag] (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2012
A Continuum of Post-Romney Defeat GOP Meltdownshttp://news.yahoo.com/continuum-post-romney-defeat-gop-meltdowns-194313598.html
By Elspeth Reeve | The Atlantic Wire – 3 hrs ago.. .
If we want to know which way the Republican Party is headed after its big losses on Tuesday, it helps to look at how conservatives are explaining Mitt Romney's loss to themselves. "This should have been a slam dunk," Rush Limbaugh said on Wednesday. "But it wasn't. There are reasons why. We're gonna have to dig deep to find them and we're gonna have to be honest with ourselves when we find the answers to this." From Republican pollsters to talking heads to activists, the reactions are on a continuum from analytical to thoughtful to insane. Here's a guide to the diggingm deep and not-so-deep:
RELATED: The Difference Between Harry Reid and a Birther
How can we make minorities like us?
RELATED: Ames Has Gotten Rather Mean Lately
Because most of the pre-Election Day poll denialism was focused on demographics -- that there was no way the portion of the 2012 electorate that was black and Latino would be as high as in 2008, much less higher -- much of the post-Election Day soul-searching was focused on why the Republican Party is so unpopular with those groups.
RELATED: Gingrich Blames Obama for His Attacks on Romney
At The Daily Beast, David Frum, who was outsed from the conservative movement for saying Republicans should have negotiated with President Obama on Obamacare, says that just being pro-immigration won't help the party. "It's necessary of course to refrain from insulting Latinos, or, for that matter, anybody," Frum writes. "But the crying need in the GOP is for a more middle-class orientation to politics, one that addresses concerns like healthcare as well as debts and deficits."
RELATED: Romney Ruined a Perfectly Good Moment for Righteous Outrage
However, many prominent conservatives still in good standing failed to meet Frum's first requirement -- the no insults part -- even as they were talking about their unpopularity among those groups. On election night, Fox News' Bill O'Reilly said if Romney loses, it's because non-whites want free stuff.
"The demographics are changing. It's not a traditional America anymore. And 50 percent of the voting public who want stuff. They want things. And who is going to give them things? President Obama. Whereby 20 years ago, President Obama would have been roundly defeated by an establishment candidate like Mitt Romney. The white establishment is now the minority."
Rush Limbaugh, too, was at a loss to explain why minorities don't like the GOP. After all, he can name some black and Latino Republicans:
Let me take you back to the Republican convention. We had Suzanne Martinez, female Hispanic governor, New Mexico. We had Condoleezza Rice, African-American, former secretary of state. Both of those people imminently qualified, terrifically achieved... We had Marco Rubio. We had a parade of minorities who have become successful Americans... Now, why didn't that work, folks?
He continued with this theme later in the show:
It doesn't count with Obama voters about whom it is said that stuff matters most. It doesn't count. Why not? Why, putting it somewhat coarsely, why doesn't the Republican Party get credit for Condoleezza Rice?
People voted for Obama because they want free things.
RELATED: Mitt Romney Is a Twihard
In the minds of some conservatives, like Bill O'Reilly, this, unfortunately tied to their explanations for why Republicans are unpopular with minorities. But others don't make it a race thing. The whole country has gone to seed, Ann Coulter says. "If Mitt Romney cannot be elected, we've reached the tipping point. We have more takers than makers," a forlorn Coulter told conservative radio host Laura Ingraham on Wednesday. America "no longer is interested in conservative ideas. It is interested in handouts." The Israeli paper owned by Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire who blew so much money on the election, ran the headline, "America Chose Socialism."
Limbaugh hit on this theme too. "It's just very difficult to beat Santa Claus," he said. "People are not going to vote against Santa Claus, especially if the alternative is being your own Santa Claus." He continued that Obama supporters "think the Democrat Party's gonna punish the people who have unfairly gotten stuff that they shouldn't have. They got more stuff than other people have stuff and that stuff's gotta be redistributed."
It's not entirely about free stuff, says John Hayward at Human Events. "It’s really a battle of irresponsibility vs. freedom." He writes that conservatives must explain the true cost of free stuff, "A good portion of the middle-class 'free stuff' crowd, including quite a few of the working poor, would be much less receptive to Big Government if they appreciated that its financing is not a painless skimming of loot from bulging treasure vaults."
Was one of our own lying to us?
It's taken for granted that any campaign would feed a bunch of… let's call it malarkey to the press. But was the campaign feeding malarky to donors, too? Where does the malarkey line stop? Politico's James Hohmann and Anna Palmer report that Romney's loss "shocked many who had heard self-assured projections about voter enthusiasm and turnout in private conference calls and meetings in the campaign's final stretch."
Romney backers bought the poll deniers' argument that white voters would be a bigger portion of the electorate. But that didn't happen. In Ohio, for example, blacks were 15 percent of the electorate, up from 11 percent in 2008. Romney wasn't close to turning Pennsylvania red. Politico reports an anonymous Republican operative said, "I think Republicans are split right now between confused and shocked, and also I think they are wondering did the Romney campaign have numbers we didn’t have... Was last week a head fake, or were they just not that smart?"
Karl Rove's super PAC Crossroads USA spent $100 million this election, and couldn't win Senate seats or the presidency for Republicans. Rick Tyler, who worked for Todd Akin, told BuzzFeed's Rebecca Berg, "Rove spends more for Republican candidates than the NRSC and the NRCC. He's running things... Rove is definitely a problem." Of that $100 million wasted, Tyler said, "It's either malpractice or it's corrupt."
The solution is to hurt myself to spite people who might have voted for Obama.
A Las Vegas business owner immediately fired 22 people after Obama's election in anticipation of economic hardship. The anonymous businessman told radio host Kevin Wall on 100.5 KXNT that he'd warned his employees he'd have to take drastic measures to prepare for the costs of Obamacare.
"Well, unfortunately, and most of my employees are Hispanic — I’m not gonna go into what kind of company I have, but I have mostly Hispanic employees — well, unfortunately, we know what happened and I can’t wait around anymore, I have to be proactive. I had to lay off 22 people today to make sure that my business is gonna thrive and I’m gonna be around for years to come. I have to build up that nest egg now for the taxes and regulations that are coming my way. Elections do have consequences, but so do choices. A choice you make every day has consequences and you know what, I’ve always put my employees first, but unfortunately today I have to put me and my family first..."
And the award for the most far-out reaction goes to Eric Dondero, a former Ron Paul aide who leaked tales of Paul's not-so-open-mindedness about gays during the Republican primary. Dondero said he was quitting blogging at Libertarian Republican so he could devote himself full-time to "outright revolt." This will start small, by unfriending all Democrats on Facebook. Then he will sever ties to Democratic friends and family.
Do you work for someone who voted for Obama? Quit your job. Co-workers who voted for Obama. Simply don't talk to them in the workplace, unless your boss instructs you too for work-related only purposes...
Have a neighbor who votes for Obama? You could take a crap on their lawn.
Every moment when you think he's definitely joking, the next sentence shows he's not joking. Not because of like a lot of swears or exclamation points, but because he's thought through the consequences of his actions.
If I meet a Democrat in my life from here on out, I will shun them immediately. I will spit on the ground in front of them, being careful not to spit in their general direction so that they can't charge me with some stupid little nuisance law.
Dondero's every human interaction will be dedicated to his cause.
When I'm at the Wal-mart or grocery story I typically pay with my debit card. On the pad it comes up, "EBT, Debit, Credit, Cash." I make it a point to say loudly to the check-out clerk, "EBT, what is that for?" She inevitably says, "it's government assistance." I respond, "Oh, you mean welfare? Great. I work for a living. I'm paying for my food with my own hard-earned dollars. And other people get their food for free." And I look around with disgust, making sure others in line have heard me....
What I plan to do this week, is to get yard signs made up, at my own expense, that read, "EBT is for Welfare Moochers." I will put the signs out on public property off of the right-of-way so it's entirely legal, in front of every convenience store or grocery store that has a sign out saying "EBT Accepted Here." I may even do some sign waving in front of these stores, holding up my "EBT is for Welfare Moochers," sign, and waving to passers-by.
Dumb curiousity.
Anyone know how/why "The Left" "the Right" came to be?
As one who is sinister, I find it curious.
Dumb curiousity.
Anyone know how/why "The Left" "the Right" came to be?
As one who is sinister, I find it curious.
I've read somewhere that it stems from the first French parliament. There were two basic groups of MP:s who sat to the right and left, respectively.
It is interesting that I thought I was a liberal until my senior year of high school. After all, liberals are clear-thinking and logical, right? And conservatives have muddled-thinking and illogical, right?
So I get elected as the representative of my high school, and go to a national student congress; they ask me what I am, and I proudly declare "liberal". So they ask me a series of issue position questions, and I answer with my well though out positions backed by a considerable amount of study. And guess what? I found that my positions placed me as 100% conservative! How could that possibly be?
It turns out that the idea of liberals as clear thinking and logical, and conservatives the reverse, was simply public school brainwashing for 12 years. But because I had read some great classic books like "Democracy in America", "Atlas Shrugged", and many, many others, there was no confusion about my position on the issues.
It boils down to this for me: America is the last major bastion for true freedom. Europe is almost completely socialistic. Most non-socialistic nations are either communistic or dictatorships or theocracies.
For those who are trying so hard to steer the USA toward the European path of socialism, we should take a serious look at the end results. Italy is bankrupt, and many of the EU countries are not far behind. Not surprising when the governments are so generous with wealth redistribution. And since the New Deal forward, the USA is heading down the same path. What I would not give for a modern man like Davy Crockett; when he was in the US Congress, and a bill was presented to provide disaster relief to some people in need, he said that he would give $1000 out of his own pocket for the relief, and challenged his fellow congressmen to do likewise. But he said that the US constitution does not empower congress to take money from taxpayers, and distribute it for this purpose.
But now, congressman completely ignore US Constitutional limiations, and take money from whoever they will, to give to whoever they want. Interestingly enough, this had been predicted in "Democracy in America" written 200 years earlier, that this would come to pass: That Constitutional protections would be ignored, and that congress would stomp on the freedoms that were supposed to be guaranteed by the Constition.
Indeed, we see this with Obama, who increased the national debt by trillions to bail out failing businesses.
The only US Presidential candidate that even addressed the issue of the Constituion was Ron Paul, and he was defeated in the primary.
At this point, the US already has more people on the dole than actually pay taxes. After all tax credits are taken into account, fewer than 50% of the workers in the US pay any US income tax at all. Many "taxpayers" actually receive a larger refund than their entire tax bill due to earned income tax credits. The super-wealthy do not care, because they can easily shift their wealth whereever than want, and can completely avoid US income taxes on their wealth. They only pay income tax on their work, and many of the super-wealthy do not hold such a job. Which leaves the middle class to bear the brunt of the entire tax burden.
I personally pay over 50% of my earnings in total tax, and that is with 7 children. Furthermore, although many other people's children benefit from government grants to go to college, but my children are excluded because of my income, so that have to take extra jobs, go to school every other semester, and take loans to get through the school, despite scoring in the 97 to 99 percentile on their PSATs and SATs.
In retrospect, the year before my first child started college I should have quit my job and gone on welfare, so that the FAFSA would have calculated an expected contribution of $0. Then my children could have gotten a free ride to college given their SAT scores. The problem is, once enough people figure this out, there won't be enough taxpayers left to put anyone's kids through college.
Is this the direction that we want the USA to go? That productive people are actually less well-off than those on welfare?
The problem with government owned businesses is that they have proven to be very inefficient in actual operation. Classic examples of this are public schools and the US post office, which have much higher operating costs yet poorer performance than similar private businesses. Not to mention the extremely high level of corruption often involved in government run enterprises, whether it is road repair crews or travel agencies.
Also, personally owned property tends to be treated much better. Look at government housing to see this in action. I once made the mistake of renting a house to through a government housing program waiting for the housing market to improve before I sold it. Big mistake! It cost me thousands of dollars to refurbish the house, none of which was covered by the government, nor could be recovered from the deadbeat renters. They even stole the curtain rods and bilind handles! What, did they get a dollar from a pawn shop for them?!?
Another example was the Elephant extinction problem, which is now being reversed after now permitting private ownership of elephants.
How could private property be inherently unfair? If I work and earn money and buy a computer, why is that unfair? To me, ownership of property is the most fundamental right that government should protect. Governments that do not protect private property rights historically fail (like the American collonial commonweaths, which nearly starved to death until they moved away from the commonweath charter).
Proper government has to take into account human nature. Most people will do what they is best for themselves. So when the government penalizes married folks who are on social security by removing 50% of the benefits, many couples respond by divorcing and continuing to live together as usual. When government taxes double wage earner families with higher taxes than singles, many couples just don't get married or get divorced (and still live together). People or firms, do not naturally cooperate unless they believe it is in their best interest. Asking them to do it for the "good of society" is not an incentive. Separating the compensation for a job from the effort and intelligence required to do the job will ultimately fail.
Ideally, a government should have few enough restrictions that those who do not want to continue to work for a wage can start their own business. Currently, many people who look at this option are dismayed at the cost of compying with volumes of government regulations, and continue as wage earners. The best thing government can do for the people is to help facilitate people starting small businesses, instead of blocking them with mountains of regulations.
Until people get better educated so that they can get candidates through the primaries that are halfway decent choices, we will end up with elections with two bad choices. I have looked at the books my children studied in high school. Instead of some great books like "Democracy in America", "1984", "Atlas Shrugged", etc., they had to read junk like "Life of Pi" and a bunch of other very forgettable books.
I do not like the term selfish, it is loaded with a lot of negative connotation; I meant exactly what I said, that people tend to choose what they consider to be best for themselves.
I prefer the term "enlightened self interest", which has almost nothing in common with classic "selfishness".
I donate heavily to charities of many kinds, because I believe in the benefits they bring to society, and ultimately, to me and my family. I have no problem giving some of my money to feed and shelter the homeless. What I don't like is the idea of my money being extracted from me at gunpoint by the government, and given to people. Even if these are very deserving people, the government robs me of the joy of giving, and robs the receiver of the joy of gratitude. Furthermore, I cannot vet how the money is used. The organizations I donate to give a person a chance to get back on their feet, with the ultimate goal of getting them a job and to move out to their own housing. They will not host a person indefinitely who shows no interest in trying to work.
Even the early Christian church, which in many ways functioned in a socialistic fashion, said "if a man will not work, neither shall he eat", because too many ablebodied people were eating food that was primarily intended for the disabled, the elderly, the widows, and the orphans.
BUncle, if the Democratic party was still the party of "ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country", I would be a Democrat myself. But now it embraces dolism and an incredible number of amazingly off the wall ideologies.This from the party with Ann Coulter in it, (to the extent she’s not a cynical act for the money she makes throwing bombs - I honestly suspect her of that.)
I have no problem with what any number of people of any sexuality do in their bedroom, but I get concerned when l see all of these in your face demonstrations.As do I.
When democratic judges protect the publishing rights of pedophiles to tell other pedophiles how to seduce children.Assuming this is true, what does the bad decision of one judge have to do with the party? Have you had the legal reasons for the decision explained by a lawyer? Would the reason have been the First Amendment, perchance? The government tried to stop that magazine from publishing the h-bomb plans in 1979, and the First Amendment won the day for the idiots of The Progressive, a rather more important public concern. (BTW, I’d bet the house that those plans will get you killed trying, or DC would be vapor long ago, or the spooks would have pragmatically done something illegal to stop it.) But anyway, you don’t hate the Constitution, do you?
When groups have as their slogan, "we're ... we're proud, and we're after your children", and such groups are embraced by the Democratic party.Well sure. I mean, I have a major problem with all the filth out there that decent people are no longer allowed to avoid. My mother would like to be able to watch TV without being exposed to so much dirty stuff.
Yes, the Republican party has some fringers and nutcases as well, but the Republican platform does not embrace them the way that the Democratic party does.…
Until people get better educated so that they can get candidates through the primaries that are halfway decent choices, we will end up with elections with two bad choices.Yes.
I have looked at the books my children studied in high school. Instead of some great books like "Democracy in America", "1984", "Atlas Shrugged", etc., they had to read junk like "Life of Pi" and a bunch of other very forgettable books. Who chooses this?Texas. Seriously. Look it up.
Mostly, the educational system and media are controlled by liberals (based on polls of teachers and reporters), who seem to want to dumb down the electorate instead of educating them.Sir, you are confusing ideology with competence, here, and placing blame wrongly.
My children were taught that slavery was the main issue in the US civil war, that the southern states succession was because of the emancipation of slaves; how dumb is that?! The emacipation proclamation did not get issued until months after succession. The succession of the southern states was based on unfair taxation and unconstitutional laws being passed by the northern controlled congress, but you won't find that taught now.I try not to get into discussions of the Civil War; it only reinforces the Yankees’ wrong-headed preconceptions about us, like that we can’t let it go. (Which is much like how they can’t let go of Vietnam, a war they aren’t comfortable admitting that we lost.)
I do not like the term selfish, it is loaded with a lot of negative connotation; I meant exactly what I said, that people tend to choose what they consider to be best for themselves.And yet you want to pollute kids with Randist ideas. Which is it?
I prefer the term "enlightened self interest", which has almost nothing in common with classic "selfishness".
I donate heavily to charities of many kinds, because I believe in the benefits they bring to society, and ultimately, to me and my family. I have no problem giving some of my money to feed and shelter the homeless. What I don't like is the idea of my money being extracted from me at gunpoint by the government, and given to people. Even if these are very deserving people, the government robs me of the joy of giving, and robs the receiver of the joy of gratitude. Furthermore, I cannot vet how the money is used. The organizations I donate to give a person a chance to get back on their feet, with the ultimate goal of getting them a job and to move out to their own housing. They will not host a person indefinitely who shows no interest in trying to work.This is about the best articulation of this principal I’ve ever encountered.
Even the early Christian church, which in many ways functioned in a socialistic fashion, said "if a man will not work, neither shall he eat", because too many ablebodied people were eating food that was primarily intended for the disabled, the elderly, the widows, and the orphans.Marx, you know, spoke of Jesus as an early proto-communist.
I think it's a horrible idea to teach young people that there is only wrong and right in the world, and nothing in between. I had a terrible case of that in my youth without the help of Objectivism, (virtually all teenagers of any dept and thoughtfulness do) it was hard to shake off, and the world is a better place since I grew out of it. It is really not that simple.Where in the world does this come from? This is not remotely what I said! I don't think I even mentioned "wrong and right"! Nor does Objectivism espouse a system of right or wrong. It is simply a philosophical basis for reasoning, presuming that there is an actual objective reality that we all share (rejecting the idea that there is no objective reality). It is a way of helping people frame their own rational worldview based on their own study and reasoning.
We're on different planets about the nature of Objectivism, as in, you're contradicting a central tenant, as I understand it, and hear from every Objectivst I've ever read or talked to.From aynrand.org:
1. Reality exists as an objective absolute—facts are facts, independent of man’s feelings, wishes, hopes or fears.I see no contradiction with this from anything I have said. By the way, I am personally not an Objectivist, but I do believe it provides a rational basis for studying philosophy, and I am therefore in favor of some study of Rand's fiction.
2. Reason (the faculty which identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses) is man’s only means of perceiving reality, his only source of knowledge, his only guide to action, and his basic means of survival.
3. Man—every man—is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life.
4. The ideal political-economic system is laissez-faire capitalism. It is a system where men deal with one another, not as victims and executioners, nor as masters and slaves, but as traders, by free, voluntary exchange to mutual benefit. It is a system where no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force, and no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. The government acts only as a policeman that protects man’s rights; it uses physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use, such as criminals or foreign invaders. In a system of full capitalism, there should be (but, historically, has not yet been) a complete separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church.
There are simply better ways than Rand to teach young people intellectual and moral self-reliance.That is not what the Rand books are about. Have you actually read any Rand fiction? If so, which books?
And I assure you that you're overestimating the capacity of most teachers and students alike to comprehend the very concept of more than one way of thinking.No person can be considered educated who has only be exposed to a single philosophic viewpoint. I believe that most teachers can indeed comprehend various philosophical viewpoints; if not, get different teachers. And I am equally confident that the students would benefit from being exposed to a variety of philosophic viewpoints and would be able to understand them. In any case, it is better than brainwashing them with a single viewpoint. I would rather have them confused, which will hopefully lead to further study, than to have our youth simply indoctrinated.
They're going to get indoctrinated no matter what we do unless we do get different teachers - but tell me: who decides what's indoctrination and what's teaching? Me? You? What's the fair standard here?The fair standard is to teach a variety of philosophies.
And no. I had never been in the physical presence of anything by Rand until years of knowing Randists in college had already poisoned me against her. I've read about Rand and her ideas a fair bit, and talked to a lot of her cultists. My reading habits tend to words assembled in a sequence, but there are limits. That woman and what she taught was vile.How can you actually know what she taught unless you read one of her fiction books? Not second-hand accounts or summaries, but one of her actual ficiton books? You label her vile without having read her work!?! Start with "Anthem"; it is short, and can be read in 1 or 2 hours. Try to read with an open mind. Then can you explain exactly what you find vile about it?
Charles Darwin gets 4,000 write-in votes in Georgiahttp://news.yahoo.com/evolutionist-charles-darwin-gets-4-000-write-votes-160159056.html (http://news.yahoo.com/evolutionist-charles-darwin-gets-4-000-write-votes-160159056.html)
By David Beasley | Reuters – 22 hrs ago.. .
ATLANTA (Reuters) - A Georgia congressman who attacked the theory of evolution found himself with an unlikely opponent in Tuesday's U.S. election, when 4,000 voters in one county cast write-in ballots for the 19th century father of evolution, British naturalist Charles Darwin.
In a September 27 speech, Paul Broun, a physician and member of the U.S. House of Representatives Science, Space and Technology Committee, called evolution and the Big Bang Theory, "lies straight from the pit of hell."
Since Broun, a Republican, had no opposition in the general election, a University of Georgia plant biology professor, Jim Leebens-Mack, and others started a write-in campaign for Darwin, the father of the theory of evolution.
"We don't feel our interests are being best served by an anti-science fundamentalist representing us on the Science, Space and Technology Committee," Leebens-Mack told Reuters on Friday.
The write-in votes in Athens-Clarke County will not count officially since Darwin was never certified as a write-in candidate, but Leebens-Mack hopes the campaign will encourage a strong candidate, Democrat or Republican, to challenge Broun in 2014.
"I think there could be Democratic opposition, but even more likely is having a rational Republican who understands issues like global warming, scientific reasoning more generally," said Leebens-Mack.
Broun received 16,980 votes in Athens-Clarke County, home of the University of Georgia, Broun's undergraduate alma mater.
Broun's office issued a statement on Friday that did not directly address Darwin, saying that the congressman "looks forward to representing the ... constitutional conservative principles" of his constituents.
The statement also noted that Broun "received a higher level of support from his constituents in Athens-Clarke County this election cycle than in any of his previous campaigns."
I think you have a good point about discussing the Civil War re-enforces the idea that you can't let go of it. I respect that.In fact, the South alone did immeasurably worse with the man dead than alive after the unpleasantness. He was pursuing a sensible, sane, conciliatory policy that we're all Americans together again. He might have been able to make it stick. He would, I guarantee, have left office the most unpopular President ever, because the Yankees were so mad for revenge that they impeached Andrew Johnson, a man history has since done much injustice, just for pursuing the same mild policies.
When I remember Lincoln, I think of two things he accomplished that shaped and united America-
Transcontinental Railroad Act.
The Homestead Act.
I'm having a lot of trouble getting my rants to postTell me about this problem; we'd like to track it down and fix it, but this is a new one by me. I keep seeing you trying to post, and I'd been thinking you kept changing your mind...
I also hate when they (fictitiously) accuse him of pulling the kind of lame crap Republicans do all the time. Anyone on the right with a stronger criticism of his economic work than "he hasn't done a good enough job" (true), but instead accusing him of sending the economy into the toilet? Republicans who say that ought to be struck by lightning for the hypocrisy.
And he's liberal like the Clintons, which is to say not liberal at all. I'm sick of the fantasies and the "liberal" news media letting them pass.
Well, I hate to get into conspiracies, because usually I think it's more likely a matter of incompetence followed by a lot of CYA. I mean if those ( insert conspirators here ) could have managed that without leaving proof, they could have managed to do their jobs well.I don't go in for conspiracy theories, I really don't, but this is Cheney we're talking about. I can't prove it, I deduced the hypothesis entirely on my own, but it's what seems to me to fit the observable facts. I'll be shocked if I'm ever proven right, because this is treason, and not the sort of thing that makes it into even posthumous memoirs, or the sort of thing one would have commited to paper at the time at all.
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. You could be right.
No doubt, not doubt.
I miss Ross Perot. The mouthy little chimp was wrong about everything after his big topic, but he scared the big kids and made them class up their acts. He would have made a terrible, terrible president, but I doubt Clinton woulde have been sumitting balanced budgets to congress without him.
I think Romney's experience as a governor without a legislative majority is an excellent qualification. I wish more presidents knew how to get things done without one.Governor able to work with the opposition is an excellent qualification, but not nearly enough qualification. I stand behind my previous remarks, but wish to add a list of high-level government jobs deserves partial credit - provided the resume' still includes some MAJOR elected offices, else go away until you're ready. (Just ask Eisenhower.) Don't let your ego play dice with the whole planet.
I think credible qualifications are Governors, Senators, and major generals. I also think that combat command experience ( Truman, George McGovern, George the Elder ) makes a guy good in a high pressure emergency.
The fair standard is to teach a variety of philosophies.
Okay, points to you. You win this one.QuoteAnd no. I had never been in the physical presence of anything by Rand until years of knowing Randists in college had already poisoned me against her. I've read about Rand and her ideas a fair bit, and talked to a lot of her cultists. My reading habits tend to words assembled in a sequence, but there are limits. That woman and what she taught was vile.How can you actually know what she taught unless you read one of her fiction books? Not second-hand accounts or summaries, but one of her actual ficiton books? You label her vile without having read her work!?! Start with "Anthem"; it is short, and can be read in 1 or 2 hours. Try to read with an open mind. Then can you explain exactly what you find vile about it?
By this standard, I should have never read anything by Marx or any other socialist or humanist work, because of rabid socialist and humanists in college with their closed-minded poison. But I have read several works of these kinds, so that I can understand.
Personally, I have rarely read a more vile statement than "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need." Though some claim that Jesus taught this, he taught no such thing. This is a most morally bankrupt philosphy, that my ability becomes the basis of theft of my work, and that one's need becomes the authority to perform the theft.I'm going to leave this part to our commie/socialist contingent to argue with you, but I find your assertion incredible. I think you misunderstand the credo entirely.
I am very scared that so many people in the world accept this as a valid philosophy of life! They need to be exposed to other philosophical views. Then if they still hold to that view, so be it. But most hold it because they are told they can occupy the moral high ground using it, and they are not exposed to other philosophies that illustrate just how depraved this philosophy actually is!
Yes, a general's job is very political at the top, and for that matter, you don't get to the top without playing politics.Working at the Pentagon command level is definitely a qualification. But again not enough qualification. You're never going to have much luck dealing with politicians without understanding them, and the best understanding comes from the inside. And the actual military part is very poor experience for dealing with non-miltary people. It's a specialized job, and the President must have a wider experience base than that.
Oh. Didn't know you lurked, but thanks.Oh man. I must not get into this. Not in public.
I must admit I was surprised by the election. I figured to see a lot more FLA- OH style long counts. I expected Romney to win some of the battlegrounds.Whatever else is true about the mass media, horse races sell newspapers. This has been a truth in Romney's favor from before he won the nomination (although it also hurt him a lot earlier in the primaries.)
What I haven't sorted out is guys like Carl Rove and Dick Morris.All of the above.
Morris was predicting a Romney landslide
Rove organized some of the biggest fundraising /advertising efforts, and he was calling for a decisive Romney victory.
I havent decided if they are con-men, cheerleaders, or just guilty of malpractice.
Yes, of course I'm talking about the balanced budget stuff. It was 95% of everything he said -in baby talk, as if the nation's finances are best run the way I should run mine. Not always true, but truer than the insane situation in place. He raised the issue, and created a climate where capable sleezeball Clinton could go for it and get it passed. We owe Perot for that.No doubt, not doubt.
I miss Ross Perot. The mouthy little chimp was wrong about everything after his big topic, but he scared the big kids and made them class up their acts. He would have made a terrible, terrible president, but I doubt Clinton woulde have been sumitting balanced budgets to congress without him.
I'm assuming by big topic you meant the deficit.
I don't think he was wrong about everything else. I liked his no-nonsense approach.
Example #1
Lobbying
He said one of his priorities was ethical reform in Washington. He had seen it from the government contractor's side. He wanted to make it illegal to give up a gov. paycheck and work for a firm lobbying the government. For 5 years domestically and 10
if it's a foreign interest.
Example # 2
Healthcare reform.
He said the worst thing we could was design a program in DC and roll it out across the rest of the country. He said we should try our five best ideas, then test them in pilot programs with one large state and one small each. From there we could see what worked, and what didn't and fine tune it before we made a final decision and went nationwide.
Example # 3.
Gun control-
He said that crazy people shouldn't have guns, and people that use them to threaten others shouldn't be allowed to keep them.
Wouldn't we be better off if Clinton- Gingrich had endorsed those ideas too?
Oh. Yes, Cheney is an exceptional individual, with a blend of competence and self-righteousness that's pretty dangerous. He seemed to lose his mind after 9/11 ( along with Dennis Miller and Ron Silver ) so that I didn't even know him anymore. He did get exceptions approved for the Haliburton process.
All bets are off when it comes to him.
I must tell you that I've been flipping on the news this week when I went for coffee. I strongly believe that MSNBC as the (leftist) anti-Fox is a bad thing, right? But I gotta tell you - Wolf Blitzer is bland to the point of coming off stupid, or at least vacant. That's pretty much the trend at CNN, aside from Anderson Cooper, and he's a little soft-news, for all of being an appealing and very bright guy.
If you want GOOD wonky, thoughtful, civil, rational talking-head action, as long as you avoid Ed and Al Sharpton, MSNBC is the place. Part of being the anti-Fox is thoughtfulness, obviously, and THAT part is a very, very good thing. Hard to beat Dr. Maddow, Larry, and even Chris Matthews compared to all competiton.
And Morning Joe provides a lot more political balance than Geraldo being at Fox, not even counting how much airtime each gets, which is a huge gap. Gerry is only a liberal about the things he's liberal about, to Joe's consistent not-all-that-moderate conservatism. And Joe mostly doesn't make decent adults want to throw up, something Geraldo can't claim.
Much smarter news channel, MSNBC. And not nearly as hopelessly partisan, in my very biased opinion.
Good. As long as you can agree that Perot had more than one common sense idea we should have implemented, I can agree that he would have made a bad president..I still think you're way too easy on the man. I appaud what he achieved, but think not so much of the him - if he'd had his head on straight, he should have run for Governor of Texas and established a track record. He shouldn't have set up his attempt at a third party as the Perot show, then walked away and let clowns like [Sleezebag] turn it into a pie-fight and a joke and then dead.
Later in the 1990s, Perot's detractors accused him of not allowing the Reform Party to develop into a genuine national political party, but rather using it as a vehicle to promote himself. They cited as evidence the control of party offices by operatives from his presidential campaigns. Perot did not give an endorsement during Jesse Ventura's run for governor of Minnesota in the 1998 election, and this became suspicious to detractors when he made fun of Ventura at a conference after Ventura had a falling out with the press. The party leadership grew in tighter opposition to groups supporting Ventura and Jack Gargan. Evidence of this was demonstrated when Gargan was officially removed as Reform Party Chairman by the Reform Party National Committee.I read that after typing my preceeding remarks, not before.
In the 2000 presidential election, Perot refused to become openly involved with the internal Reform Party dispute between supporters of Pat Buchanan and of John Hagelin. Perot was reportedly unhappy with what he saw as the disintegration of the party, as well as his own portrayal in the press; thus he chose to remain quiet. He appeared on Larry King Live four days before the election and endorsed George W. Bush for president. Despite his earlier opposition to NAFTA, Perot remained largely silent about expanded use of guest worker visas in the United States, with Buchanan supporters attributing this silence to his corporate reliance on foreign workers.[39] Some state parties have affiliated with the new (Buchananite) America First Party; others gave Ralph Nader their ballot lines in the 2004 presidential election.
What else? Oh, 9/11 flipouts, well I was in a hurry and those names came to mind as people who lost their reason permanetly..Just saying it was a very long list that, I, a rural Southerner far from likely targets, resent deeply. Don't erode my freedoms because of your low-probability hypothetical events, you silly people. Getting born is 100% fatal, and we need a decent place to live in the meanwhile, not a police state.
As for flipped out democrats, well we still have Gitmo and the Patriot act ( comparable to Lincoln's suspension of habeus corpus , don't you think? ) in spite of democratic one party rule 3 years or so ago..I do think. I think it's very, very wrong.
• OSC says: Don't just take my
word about the state of scientific
evidence on same-sex
"marriage."
• OSC asks: Why do we allow
them to teach global warming to
our children in science class? As
Bret Stephens points out, it's
really religion
• Bush never lied to us about Iraq
• Environmentalists Pick Up
Where Communists Left Off
...Speaking of people driven insane by the New York thing:
http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2012-11-08-1.html (http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2012-11-08-1.html)
That's Orson Scott Card, the SF author. I know this guy a little - if I ran into him on the streets of Greensboro, he might actually remember my name, and it's been 24 years. He was hardly ever going to write the sequel to Das Kapital, and I was vaguely aware that he'd been taken in by the monkey, but I. am. shocked. He was a thoughtful man, a genius intellect and always talked good sense.
If your have no time or a weak stomach for bull, leave the link up there alone. Check out four consecutive entries from his article sidebar:Quote• OSC says: Don't just take my
word about the state of scientific
evidence on same-sex
"marriage."
• OSC asks: Why do we allow
them to teach global warming to
our children in science class? As
Bret Stephens points out, it's
really religion
• Bush never lied to us about Iraq
• Environmentalists Pick Up
Where Communists Left Off
:o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o
Sometimes people just sap my will to live.
MSNBC Beats Fox News By Following Its Examplehttp://news.yahoo.com/msnbc-beats-fox-news-following-example-123919914.html (http://news.yahoo.com/msnbc-beats-fox-news-following-example-123919914.html)
By Dashiell Bennett | The Atlantic Wire – 2 hrs 39 mins ago.. .
Brian Stelter of The New York Times reports that MSNBC is finally starting to catch up to Fox News in the rating game, mainly by becoming the left-wing answer to Fox's conservative cheerleaders. Stelter says MSNBC, which normally trails Fox News in overall ratings, managed to best their cable rival in the key 25-54 year-old demographic on three straight nights after last week's election. MSNBC still trails behind Fox and CNN in the number of overall viewers, but has closed the gap considerably in the recent years, by accepting their role as "the Anti-Fox News." The re-election of Barack Obama will only help MSNBC keep the ball rolling, as hosts like Rachel Maddow and Chris Matthews have become unapologetic supporters of "Obama's America" and stand to benefit from four more years of his liberal politics.
RELATED: The Secret to 'Ailing' CNN's Success
From a business perspective, however, MSNBC is still hampered somewhat by being the junior varsity squad to the parent network of NBC. No matter how popular they get or how much they appear to be on the same team, Brian Williams and his NBC News squad will continue to monopolize the "serious" news credibility (and the top shelf guests), a problem CNN and Fox News don't have to deal with. NBC's coverage drew nearly three times the viewers of MSNBC on election night and the cable network lags far behind its rivals in the fees that it earns from cable operators, which is a major source of revenue.
RELATED: So, Where Does Keith Olbermann Go Now?
Late in his story, Stelter also drops a rumor that Ezra Klein of The Washington Post maybe the next journalist to join the MSNBC roster, possibly taking over a primetime spot currently held by Ed Schultz.
Secession petitions filed in 20 stateshttp://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/secission-petitions-filed-20-states-190210006.html (http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/secission-petitions-filed-20-states-190210006.html)
By Mike Krumboltz, Yahoo! News | The Lookout – 32 mins ago.. .
Thousands of Americans have signed petitions seeking permission for their states to peacefully secede from the United States. The petitions were filed on We the People, a government website.
States with citizens filing include Louisiana, Texas, Oregon, Alabama, Tennessee, Montana, North Dakota, Missouri, South Carolina, Arkansas, New Jersey, Colorado, Georgia, North Carolina, Mississippi, Michigan, New York, Florida, Indiana and Kentucky. Oddly, folks from Georgia have filed twice.
The petitions are short and to the point. For example, a petition from the Volunteer State reads: "Peacefully grant the State of Tennessee to withdraw from the United States of America and create its own NEW government." Of all the petitions, Texas has the most signatures so far, with more than 20,000.
Of course, this is mostly a symbolic gesture. An article WKRC quotes a University of Louisville political science professor who explained that these petitions aren't terribly uncommon. Similar petitions existed following the 2004 and 2008 elections. Still, should the petitions garner 25,000 signatures in a month, they will require an official response from the Obama administration.
From the We the People site:
The right to petition your government is guaranteed by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. We the People provides a new way to petition the Obama Administration to take action on a range of important issues facing our country. We created We the People because we want to hear from you. If a petition gets enough support, White House staff will review it, ensure it's sent to the appropriate policy experts, and issue an official response.
Teacher allegedly tells class Obama’s re-election is ‘America’s funeral’http://news.yahoo.com/teacher-allegedly-tells-class-obama-election-america-funeral-134714427.html (http://news.yahoo.com/teacher-allegedly-tells-class-obama-election-america-funeral-134714427.html)
The Daily Caller – 6 hrs ago.. .
On November 7, an elementary school teacher in south central Louisiana allegedly told her class of fourth graders that she was “attending America’s funeral” because Barack Obama won the presidential election, according to a report by KATC, the local ABC television affiliate.
Students say the teacher, clad in all black that day, also said the United States will turn into a “new China” under Obama, KATC reports.
“She made the comment that since Michelle Obama is first lady and with the meal plan she has, the kids are gonna look like toothpicks in a few months,” parent Lindsey Shello told KATC.
Shello’s nine-year-old son is a student in the teacher’s class. She was outraged about the episode, and that the teacher had vented her feelings on Facebook.
The teacher, who is never named in the KATC report, reportedly requested a personal meeting with Shello. The teacher also cautioned Shello that her son might be embellishing the story.
However, other kids are apparently telling the same story. Another parent, Chassatey Jackson, says her children have related the same basic account, KATC reports.
Both parents agree that teachers should avoid expressing political opinions in fourth-grade classrooms.
“Her personal opinion needs to remain her personal opinion. She doesn’t need to push it on the kids,” said Shello, according to KATC.
Parents have reportedly contacted the principal at Delcambre Elementary as well as the local school board.
This incident certainly isn’t the first time in recent memory that a schoolteacher has been accused of interjecting personal political beliefs into the classroom.
Just last month, Linda White, an eighth-grade science teacher in Clinton, Mississippi, allegedly told her students of her belief that Obama is a Muslim and, for that reason, he should not serve a second term. White also reportedly told students she supports Romney because he is a “good Christian,” according to WJTV, the CBS affiliate in Jackson, Mississippi.
White has since resigned her teaching post.
Earlier in October, Lynette Gaymon, a geometry teacher at Charles Carroll High School in Philadelphia reportedly ridiculed sophomore Samantha Pawlucy for wearing a pro-Romney shirt to school and told Pawlucy to remove it. Gaymon allegedly called Carroll High a “Democratic school,” reports Philly.com. Gaymon, who is black, is also said to have suggested that the shirt was comparable to shirt supporting the Ku Klux Klan.
In the aftermath, Gaymon, the geometry teacher, reportedly received death threats, according to Philly.com. Pawlucy transferred to a different school.
In May of 2012, Tanya Dixon-Neely, a social studies teacher at North Rowan High School in Spencer, North Carolina, told a student in her class that could be arrested for criticizing Obama, and that people had been arrested for criticizing President George W. Bush. A student captured Dixon-Neely’s rant on hidden video, which later went viral on YouTube.
“Let me tell you something,” Dixon-Neely says in the video, “you will not disrespect the president of the United States in this classroom.”
The local school board suspended Dixon-Neely, but with pay, according to WBTV, the CBS television affiliate in Charlotte, North Carolina.
In 2009, a fairly disturbing video emerged on YouTube showing about 20 children at B. Bernice Young Elementary School in Burlington, New Jersey singing pro-Obama anthems.
One song the children in New Jersey sang quotes directly from the spiritual “Jesus Loves the Little Children,” reports Fox News. However, the lyrics replace Jesus with Obama: “He said red, yellow, black or white/All are equal in his sight. Barack Hussein Obama.”
I think texting is a strong sign of a spoiled and doomed society. Never tried it. I think anything that can't be plugged into a printer is a toy.
Black Vote in Ohio Fueled by Voter-ID Billshttp://news.yahoo.com/black-vote-ohio-fueled-voter-id-bills-131452246--politics.html (http://news.yahoo.com/black-vote-ohio-fueled-voter-id-bills-131452246--politics.html)
By Rosa Ramirez | National Journal – 7 hrs ago.. .
For African-Americans in Ohio, coming out to vote during this election was personal. Many saw the state’s voter-ID bills as a direct threat to rights denied their ancestors decades earlier. Fueled as much by angst against the ID mandate as enthusiasm for a black president, African-Americans voted at a rate so much higher than 2008 that they may have been the decisive voting bloc.
President Obama captured Ohio, arguably the most important battleground state, thanks to record African-American turnout. The Resurgent Republic, an independent not-for-profit organization that gauges public opinion, pointed out, “If African-American turnout was in line with 2008, Romney would have won Ohio,” according to Politico.
Ohio, with its complex melting-pot populace that crosses many socioeconomic levels, has long been a battleground. National Journal’s Ron Brownstein asserted that Obama took Ohio by focusing on income equality and fairness, a strategy that attracted enough working-class whites and blacks to swing the election. But some observers also point to a 2011 effort to spur blacks to vote.
That plus anger stirred by the still-pending voter-ID bill that passed the Ohio House last year became the impetus that reenergized many African-American voters, said E. Faye Williams, president of the National Congress of Black Women. During a Washington event on the minority vote weeks before the election, Williams told a small group that such laws would likely push minorities to come out in droves.
(Related: Presidency May Rest on Minority Turnout, Uptick Over 2008.)
While African-Americans account for 12 percent of the state’s population, they made up 15 percent of Ohio's electorate in November, a jump from 11 percent in 2008. “It exceeded our expectations,” said Sybil Edwards-McNabb, president of the NAACP's Ohio Conference. “We’re very pleased with the results.”
The NAACP had called the state voter-ID bill, passed in days by the Republican-held House, “the most restrictive in the country.” Billboards in the months leading to the election placed in black and Hispanic neighborhoods warned, “Voter fraud is a felony!” After much public outcry, the ads were removed.
In a way, the Ohio surge represented a movement, shared by blacks in other states, to preserve the vote, a right denied only a few generations ago to grandparents or great-grandparents of many of these voters. In 2008, blacks came out in large numbers during that historic election for a chance to elect the first black president. “This time around, it was widely to protect the vote,” Williams explained. “We know our history. When voter-suppression laws increased, people saw a way to hold on to what we had.”
Since the start of 2011, about 25 laws and two executive actions in 19 states regarding voting passed, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. Community and church activists charged the GOP with attempting to hold down the minority vote.
During the early July NAACP conference in Houston, for example, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder called the Texas voter-ID law a “poll tax.” And Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., who once marched alongside Martin Luther King Jr., emphasized that these laws were being pushed to “stop some people from voting.”
“The Republican leader in the Pennsylvania House even bragged that his state's new voter-ID law is ‘gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state.’ That's not right,” Lewis said during a speech during the Democratic convention.
Pierrette “Petee” Talley of the Ohio Coalition on Black Civic Participation pointed out that blacks for decades had fought efforts to diminish their right to vote. The fight this election season became personal to them, she said.
The nonpartisan coalition, aimed at increasing voter participation, immediately jumped into the fray in Ohio. It began a campaign to educate the public on proposed changes, Talley said. The voter-ID was lost in political wrangling. Another bill restricting early voting, HB194, was signed last fall but repealed in May by Republican Gov. John Kasich.
An alliance of Masons, Methodists, and black unions, among others groups, led by Ohio’s NAACP, had already built strong momentum to get out the vote. “And we just kept going,” Talley recalled.
Their door-to-door educational campaigns became voter-registration drives. Speaking with residents, coalition members learned that a number of blacks had been purged from voting rolls because they moved or missed federal elections yet believed they were still registered to vote. “We became engaged in a very aggressive registration and certification campaign,” she said.
Oh? A positive development like l33tspeak?
I'm probably being a boring old fart, but no thank you. And please take FaceBook with you on your way out.
I am, and shall remain, a grumpy old man on this subject...
I was a fairly early adapter on home computers -1982 or so- it WILL happen to you in a decade or two.
Any thoughts on the voter ID thing that might surprize me?
I'm 47 and white as a sheet. ;) My 48th birthday is in about three weeks, BTW.
And leaving the racism part out (which no one should, because it's real even if the white people don't encounter it every day, and so tend not believe most of it, even the racists - especially most of the racists), it's as simple as the wealth party screwing with the poor. C'mon; that's just not kosher.
You know, there's a point in there underlining the schizophrenia of the Republican party. The Cheney administration sided with big business interests every. single. time., no matter what. You're possibly to young to have been aware of the business where they backed regulations that considerably extended how far into the US Mexican truckers were allows to go before they had to stop and off-load their cargo. I don't have to have watched Lou Dobbs (or any of the openly Mexican-hating element) around then to know how that went over with their (frankly Mexican-hating) base. It was just a terrible political move. But that's the Bush occupation all over for you; business interests always won with them, and business likes cheap labor.
I actually see the sense in that, and why the talking heads are obsessed with latins this week - they've lost the blacks pretty much forever, or until a lot more blacks aren't poor.
Latins? How can any good hardcore old-school Catholic not find some attraction to the social conservative wing of the right, if only the social conservatives weren't the racists too?
(I know I'm offending many conservatives reading, and I appologize for that; it's just the facts as I know them, and I WILL tell some stories from things I've seen and heard in my life if I'm challenged on this point.)
Persuasion works better than laws, too.The beauty of that statement is that it can be applied to almost any ideal or faith as well. To enforce an ideal is to strike it into someone, in which they will often come to despise later. To teach and promote healthily however promotes tolerance.
I think that New Covenant theology is from Martin Luther, and Catholics don't go in for it...
Good point, though.
I think of it as mostly St Paul theology as in the Book of Hebrews, as best example.Sure, but they're all Protestants as far south as north Florida and clear over to the Mississippi, and don't have just everything in common with the Catholics after some core cultural values -the differences being mostly apparent only to them, but they find them significant- but give them all the America they want, and watch the purges of unpopular minority denominations begin and work up to whoever wins being the official state religion in a theocracy of unhappy people.
As for the Catholics... Oh. I suppose you're right.
But the cultural conservatives in your part of the country should be well-versed enough to understand my argument.
Persuasion works better than laws, too.
No, really; it does. What you describe is failed persuasion.
Laws without persuasion give you Prohibition. That really worked out well. ;sarc
Persuasion without laws is still better, even if needing ongoing persuasion and other social mechanisms to work in the long-run. I stand behind my remarks. You like the persuasion-based way I run this place better than some other, more common, moderation philosphies I could bring to bear, I assure you. :whip::whip::whip::whip:
:D
Why Men Like Petraeus Risk It All to Cheathttp://news.yahoo.com/why-men-petraeus-risk-cheat-210918083.html (http://news.yahoo.com/why-men-petraeus-risk-cheat-210918083.html)
By Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer | LiveScience.com – 7 hrs ago.. .
An admitted affair has crumbled the career of CIA Director David Petraeus, prompting the evergreen question: Why do people with so much to lose risk it all for sex?
In the last few years alone, several public figures, from former Rep. Anthony Weiner to action star and former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, have admitted to straying from their marital vows. In Petraeus' case, a miscalculation of risk may have contributed to the decision to cheat, psychologists say.
"People tend to underestimate how quickly small risks mount up" because of repeated exposure to those risks, said Baruch Fischhoff, a professor of social and decision science at Carnegie Mellon University. "You do something once and you get away with it — certain things you're probably going to get away with — but you keep doing them often enough, eventually the risk gets pretty high."
Even so, men can become blind to risk at the sight of an attractive woman, and from an evolutionary perspective, cheating can be a positive mechanism for ensuring gene survival, regardless of risk, scientists say.
Military affairs
Petraeus, a retired four-star general, resigned his post as CIA Director on Friday (Nov. 9), admitting to an affair with Paula Broadwell, his biographer. Twenty years the general's junior, Broadwell had close access to Petraeus for several years, but their affair reportedly did not start until after he left the military in 2011.
A West Point graduate, Broadwell is a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves. She reportedly bonded with Petraeus over physical activity, going on runs with him and remaining a close confidant after Petraeus' military career ended.
That time together likely contributed to the intimacy between Petraeus and Broadwell, said Frank Farley, a Temple University psychologist, just as many people begin affairs after getting close in the workplace.
Petraeus is not the first high-ranking military man to have an affair, said Farley, who is also a past president of the American Psychological Association. Famously gruff World War II general George Patton had an affair with his wife's step-niece. General Douglas MacArthur had a mistress named Isabel Rosario Cooper, whom he met in the Philippines.
And General Dwight D. Eisenhower, later president, may have had an affair with his World War II chauffer, Kay Summersby, according to the woman's memoirs and some suggestive letters left behind after both parties died.
"The nation should not be surprised at Petraeus having an affair," Farley told LiveScience.
Leaders like Petraeus tend to be bold risk-takers, Farley said, a personality trait that is very helpful when leading soldiers into battle. The same trait may make these leaders more likely to take risks in their personal lives, as well. [10 Easy Paths to Self Destruction]
Broadwell may have some of the same risk-taking traits as the former director. In a January interview with The Charlotte Observer, Broadwell, who is also married, called herself and her husband "adventure junkies."
Risk versus reward
Still, Petraeus' 38-year marriage and his career were at stake in his decision to pursue an affair. Extramarital liaisons are especially risky for CIA employees with access to classified information, because an affair can leave the person open to blackmail.
There are also concerns that Broadwell could have gotten classified information from Petraeus. For example, in a speech in Denver in October, Broadwell brought up details about the U.S. Consulate attack in Benghazi that may not have been public knowledge, according to The Daily Beast.
With risks like that on the line, could an extramarital affair be worth it? As it turns out, men may become blind to risk when an attractive woman enters the picture. One 2008 study found that men who played blackjack after seeing beautiful female faces took more risks than men who played the game after seeing unattractive faces.
This was true if the men were highly motivated in seeking new sexual partners. The blackjack risks seemed calculated to impress potential mates, study researcher Michael Baker, now a professor at Eastern Carolina University, told LiveScience. [The Sex Quiz: Myths, Taboos & Bizarre Facts]
More germane to high-profile affairs, Baker said, the risk of losing one's career or reputation is nothing compared with the evolutionary drive to reproduce. In that sense, while embarking on an affair may seem dumb, it actually shows something called "mating intelligence."
"These individuals have these very high-status, high-power positions, and the whole idea behind why people might be motivated to get these positions is because it gives them better access to resources that could be used to increase their reproductive success and attract more mates," Baker said.
Until the last few decades, extramarital affairs wouldn't have put a crimp in the careers of high-profile men, Baker said. It's only recently that men have been subject to the consequences of infidelity. And, of course, monogamy is often a lofty ideal.
"The human race has had thousands of years of problems with monogamy," Farley said. "The problems have not been resolved."
We've been lucky at AC2 to not have needed much in the way of laws, so far, actually. See any rules posted? Not a soul has done a single thing that requires remedial moderation more high-handed than friendly talking to someone to encourage them in the desired attitude. Just hasn't come up yet. sisko and me just ain't into imposing our will. Persusasion has been all it took so far, although this forum is actually a dictatorship with nothing so much as a Magna Carta, let alone a constitution.
Laws without persuasion don't work well, true, and a mainly persuasion-based way is a good idea (you don't run this place in a completely lawless manner, though; you wouldn't make it mainly about Civ whatever-the-number-is-now if that was the best
You know, there's a point in there underlining the schizophrenia of the Republican party. The Cheney administration sided with big business interests every. single. time., no matter what. You're possibly to young to have been aware of the business where they backed regulations that considerably extended how far into the US Mexican truckers were allows to go before they had to stop and off-load their cargo. I don't have to have watched Lou Dobbs (or any of the openly Mexican-hating element) around then to know how that went over with their (frankly Mexican-hating) base. It was just a terrible political move. But that's the Bush occupation all over for you; business interests always won with them, and business likes cheap labor.
Racists, on the other hand, like police. Schizo party, the Republicans.
I'm not sure I follow the distinction you're trying to draw. Of course there are other competing interests than the ones I mentioned.You know, there's a point in there underlining the schizophrenia of the Republican party. The Cheney administration sided with big business interests every. single. time., no matter what. You're possibly to young to have been aware of the business where they backed regulations that considerably extended how far into the US Mexican truckers were allows to go before they had to stop and off-load their cargo. I don't have to have watched Lou Dobbs (or any of the openly Mexican-hating element) around then to know how that went over with their (frankly Mexican-hating) base. It was just a terrible political move. But that's the Bush occupation all over for you; business interests always won with them, and business likes cheap labor.
Racists, on the other hand, like police. Schizo party, the Republicans.
It might help to look at it slightly differently.
The party includes big businesses, who engage in corporate chronyism... they are always lobbying to change the rules to their advantage.
There are also small businesses, entrepenuers, & family businesses, who basically want a fair chance. Sometimes they feel threatened by cheap illegal labor.
A special advantage and a level playing field are at odds.
I think texting is a strong sign of a spoiled and doomed society. Never tried it. I think anything that can't be plugged into a printer is a toy.
Come to think of it, Yitzi, I have a job for you, you being so impressively detail-oriented - start a thread In Council Room, and organize citizen participation in making up the forum rules. Quote this post. You, if you accept this commision, are hereby appointed Chairman of the Commitee of the Everyone Interested for Rules.
I think texting is a strong sign of a spoiled and doomed society. Never tried it. I think anything that can't be plugged into a printer is a toy.
I Hate Text Messaging (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCa9f8cPRbk#)
(Language warning.)
Video embedding is back, and the Boondocks is teh awsome, and I wanted everyone to see this NSFW clip...
But texting is awesome.
Well, I agree this is nonsense, and my brother-in-law would have a job offer with a defense contractor by now, if they weren't in limbo.Do you remember back when they did balance the budget in the 90s, that congressmen on both sides were talking publicly about how they could spend the windfall? My head was about to explode.
I think it takes two to tango.
Obama himself was denouncing the "Romney-Ryan budget " long before Mitt chose a running-mate. I understand that there were 33 budgets approved in the house the last couple of years, and the Senate has only acted on one.
It probably makes sense for strategic reasons for Obama to use it as a campaign tool, and it probably makes sense for the senate, with terms 3 times as long, and a tradition of fillibuster, to try and outlast the House rather than negotiate. Probably nobody envisioned virtually everyone re-elected.
That being said-
When I was a local gov guy, and sworn in to uphold my state constitution, I understood my first duty to be a timely balanced budget. it was our first responsibillity to hash that out. Anything less would be dereliction of duty. Anything else- like adding or rewriting rules, or hiring, or planning or investigating was extra- after we had our primary task completed.
People talk about the Buffet Rule, but they forget his other rule-
If the Congress doesn't pass a balanced budget on time, every member is inelegible for re-election.
Treason is a strong word. I'd call it dereliction of duty.
But texting is awesome.
Why?
But texting is awesome.
Why?
I think it's a very useful form of communication. But I'm a young'un. I actually don't like texting, but I generally feel like cell phones are a tether/leash, too often I like to have private time and not worry about constant communication with friends or family. However, I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority, and it has definitely provided a lot of benefits for people.
Ha. Kids.
I can't even stand cell phones.
Our Message to Washington: Time Balance the Budgethttp://news.yahoo.com/message-washington-time-balance-budget-170022820.html (http://news.yahoo.com/message-washington-time-balance-budget-170022820.html)
By Philip Moeller | U.S.News & World Report LP – 3 hrs ago.. .
It's way past time to take a giant step back in the federal fiscal debate. What we have here, as Paul Newman was famously told in the movie Cool Hand Luke, is a failure to communicate. In contemporary lingo, what we have is a huge framing problem.
Republicans are fixated on spending cuts and reducing tax rates that are at historic lows. Democrats are tethered to the idea of protecting and even strengthening the social safety net, even as all forecasts show that entitlement spending is bankrupting the nation. Each camp is packed with its respective interest groups. It's nice that President Obama and Congressional leaders had a friendly meeting last Friday and say they finally are willing to compromise.
But what's needed is a different way of looking at the problem. What is the single long-term achievement that would put the United States on the right path and be a huge confidence boost to businesses, consumers, foreign trading partners, and other governments? It's not the marginal tax rate on wealthy Americans. Nor is it the retirement age for Medicare benefits.
[Read: 3 Post-Election Tax Changes You Need to Know.]
It is, instead, one of the oldest ideas in the book and a return to the days when America was respected for its responsible leadership. It is called a balanced budget. Shoot me for being naive, but creating a binding agreement to close the gap between federal revenues and spending over the next 10 years would provide the certainty that businesses need and the clarity that everyone craves. It would re-frame the arguments in Washington and give both sides an opportunity to seek a higher road in their partisan efforts.
According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, federal spending in the 2012 fiscal year that ended last September was 22.8 percent of the nation's gross domestic product (GDP). That's above historical trends, mostly because of the recession and government efforts to help cushion people from its effects. Meanwhile, federal revenues were only 15.8 percent of GDP last year. They, too, have been affected by the recession and, yes, they would have been higher if the Bush-era tax cuts had not been extended. But let's shelve that ideological argument for now.
The nation's spending gap, then, is 7 percent of GDP. Whatever your politics, that's simply an unsustainable number. Ever since the United States began running regular deficits decades ago, most economists argued that the United States could run manageable deficits without harming long-term economic growth. That's owing mostly to our unique ability to print money and fund our deficits by selling U.S. securities to investors around the world. Greece, Spain, and other ailing European economies don't have this luxury. Without going off on too much of a tangent, it's not clear how much longer the United States can continue to fund its deficits this way.
[Read: Fiscal Cliff Shouldn't Change Your Financial Plans.]
More practically, the idea of spending more than you take in just doesn't fly with the balanced-budget reality that confronts American families as well as state and local governments. It especially doesn't play well with younger audiences who have more than enough reason to think their financial futures have already been mortgaged to the hilt. Balancing the federal budget would provide a tremendously reassuring message to them.
Closing a 7 percent budget gap will be painful. But we have no choice. American voters understood this when they went to the polls earlier this month. They want leaders in Washington willing to compromise and make tough decisions.
On the brighter side, closing a 7 percent gap in 10 years can be achieved in annual gradual steps. It could even include a near-term stimulus to help create more jobs and push the economy onto a higher-growth trajectory. And an improving economy would naturally help close a fair amount of the gap, unless Congress and the White House trigger another recession by their continued failure to deal with this issue.
[Read: Are Second Terms Good for Stocks?]
If President Obama and leaders of both parties in Congress together embraced a 10-year balanced budget agreement, they know they'd still have the arduous work of figuring out how much of the gap should be reduced through higher revenues and how much through spending cuts (more likely, such "cuts" actually would come in the form of reduced spending growth in future years). There then would be brutal negotiations on the specific tax and spending changes to be adopted.
But a binding balanced-budget framework--with optional triggers to deal with unforeseen events--would force decisions and prevent us from yet again kicking the can down the road. Make it 12 or 15 years if the CBO and other independent experts say that's the fastest we can get there. Is there any doubt that business confidence and stock markets would soar? Or that people would once again be able to make longer-term plans?
Just imagine. A government that acted like an adult, and behaved as a reliable and predictable partner. What a concept!
Senate bill rewrite lets feds read your e-mail without warrantshttp://news.yahoo.com/senate-bill-rewrite-lets-feds-read-your-e-mail-without-warrants-191930756.html (http://news.yahoo.com/senate-bill-rewrite-lets-feds-read-your-e-mail-without-warrants-191930756.html)
By Declan McCullagh | CNET.com – 19 hrs ago
A Senate proposal touted as protecting Americans' e-mail privacy has been quietly rewritten, giving government agencies more surveillance power than they possess under current law.
CNET has learned that Patrick Leahy, the influential Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee, has dramatically reshaped his legislation in response to law enforcement concerns. A vote on his bill, which now authorizes warrantless access to Americans' e-mail, is scheduled for next week.
Leahy's rewritten bill would allow more than 22 agencies -- including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Communications Commission -- to access Americans' e-mail, Google Docs files, Facebook wall posts, and Twitter direct messages without a search warrant. It also would give the FBI and Homeland Security more authority, in some circumstances, to gain full access to Internet accounts without notifying either the owner or a judge. (CNET obtained the revised draft from a source involved in the negotiations with Leahy.)
Revised bill highlights
Grants warrantless access to Americans' electronic correspondence to over 22 federal agencies. Only a subpoena is required, not a search warrant signed by a judge based on probable cause.
Permits state and local law enforcement to warrantlessly access Americans' correspondence stored on systems not offered "to the public," including university networks.
Authorizes any law enforcement agency to access accounts without a warrant -- or subsequent court review -- if they claim "emergency" situations exist.
Says providers "shall notify" law enforcement in advance of any plans to tell their customers that they've been the target of a warrant, order, or subpoena.
Delays notification of customers whose accounts have been accessed from 3 days to "10 business days." This notification can be postponed by up to 360 days.
It's an abrupt departure from Leahy's earlier approach, which required police to obtain a search warrant backed by probable cause before they could read the contents of e-mail or other communications. The Vermont Democrat boasted last year that his bill "provides enhanced privacy protections for American consumers by... requiring that the government obtain a search warrant."
Leahy had planned a vote on an earlier version of his bill, designed to update a pair of 1980s-vintage surveillance laws, in late September. But after law enforcement groups including the National District Attorneys' Association and the National Sheriffs' Association organizations objected to the legislation and asked him to "reconsider acting" on it, Leahy pushed back the vote and reworked the bill as a package of amendments to be offered next Thursday. The package (PDF) is a substitute for H.R. 2471, which the House of Representatives already has approved.
One person participating in Capitol Hill meetings on this topic told CNET that Justice Department officials have expressed their displeasure about Leahy's original bill. The department is on record as opposing any such requirement: James Baker, the associate deputy attorney general, has publicly warned that requiring a warrant to obtain stored e-mail could have an "adverse impact" on criminal investigations.
Christopher Calabrese, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, said requiring warrantless access to Americans' data "undercuts" the purpose of Leahy's original proposal. "We believe a warrant is the appropriate standard for any contents," he said.
An aide to the Senate Judiciary committee told CNET that because discussions with interested parties are ongoing, it would be premature to comment on the legislation.
Marc Rotenberg, head of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said that in light of the revelations about how former CIA director David Petraeus' e-mail was perused by the FBI, "even the Department of Justice should concede that there's a need for more judicial oversight," not less.
Markham Erickson, a lawyer in Washington, D.C. who has followed the topic closely and said he was speaking for himself and not his corporate clients, expressed concerns about the alphabet soup of federal agencies that would be granted more power:
❝ There is no good legal reason why federal regulatory agencies such as the NLRB, OSHA, SEC or FTC need to access customer information service providers with a mere subpoena. If those agencies feel they do not have the tools to do their jobs adequately, they should work with the appropriate authorizing committees to explore solutions. The Senate Judiciary committee is really not in a position to adequately make those determinations. ❞
The list of agencies that would receive civil subpoena authority for the contents of electronic communications also includes the Federal Reserve, the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Maritime Commission, the Postal Regulatory Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, and the Mine Enforcement Safety and Health Review Commission.
Leahy's modified bill retains some pro-privacy components, such as requiring police to secure a warrant in many cases. But the dramatic shift, especially the regulatory agency loophole and exemption for emergency account access, likely means it will be near-impossible for tech companies to support in its new form.
A bitter setback
This is a bitter setback for Internet companies and a liberal-conservative-libertarian coalition, which had hoped to convince Congress to update the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act to protect documents stored in the cloud. Leahy glued those changes onto an unrelated privacy-related bill supported by Netflix.
At the moment, Internet users enjoy more privacy rights if they store data on their hard drives or under their mattresses, a legal hiccup that the companies fear could slow the shift to cloud-based services unless the law is changed to be more privacy-protective.
Members of the so-called Digital Due Process coalition include Apple, Amazon.com, Americans for Tax Reform, AT&T, the Center for Democracy and Technology, eBay, Google, Facebook, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, TechFreedom, and Twitter. (CNET was the first to report on the coalition's creation.)
Leahy, a former prosecutor, has a mixed record on privacy. He criticized the FBI's efforts to require Internet providers to build in backdoors for law enforcement access, and introduced a bill in the 1990s protecting Americans' right to use whatever encryption products they wanted.
But he also authored the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, which is now looming over Web companies, as well as the reviled Protect IP Act. An article in The New Republic concluded Leahy's work on the Patriot Act "appears to have made the bill less protective of civil liberties." Leahy had introduced significant portions of the Patriot Act under the name Enhancement of Privacy and Public Safety in Cyberspace Act (PDF) a year earlier.
One obvious option for the Digital Due Process coalition is the simplest: if Leahy's committee proves to be an insurmountable roadblock in the Senate, try the courts instead.
Judges already have been wrestling with how to apply the Fourth Amendment to an always-on, always-connected society. Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that police needed a search warrant for GPS tracking of vehicles. Some courts have ruled that warrantless tracking of Americans' cell phones, another coalition concern, is unconstitutional.
The FBI and other law enforcement agencies already must obtain warrants for e-mail in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee, thanks to a ruling by the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2010.