— Jon Stewart (via kristinastewartcolbert)
(NPR) - The big demographic story out of the 2012 presidential election may have been President Obama’s domination of the Hispanic vote, and rightfully so.
But as we close the book on the election, it bears noting that another less obvious bloc of key swing state voters helped the president win a second term.
They’re the “nones” — that’s the Pew Research Center’s shorthand for the growing number of American voters who don’t have a specific religious affiliation. Some are agnostic, some atheist, but more than half define themselves as either “religious” or “spiritual but not religious,” Pew found in a recent survey.
They are typically younger, more socially liberal than their forebears, vote Democratic, and now make up nearly 20 percent of the country’s population. Exit polls suggest that 12 percent of voters on Election Day were counted as “religiously unaffiliated.”
“This really is a striking development in American politics,” says Gregory Smith of the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. “There’s no question that the religiously unaffiliated are a very important, politically consequential group.”
The religiously unaffiliated voters are almost as strongly Democratic as white evangelicals are Republican, polls show.
After superstorm Sandy canceled the first two tapings of The Daily Show this week, Jon Stewart was back on air Wednesday night.
Stewart hailed the overall air of bipartisanship that followed after the storm, praising New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and President Barack Obama.
Stewart heaped the majority of his praise on Christie, who he said “kicked crazy ass” for putting aside former harsh criticisms of Obama when he realized “he had a job to do.”
There was one moment, though, that caught Stewart’s ire. When Christie appeared on Fox & Friends, he was asked by host Steve Doocy if he was planning to invite Romney to tour the damage. Christie dismissed it quickly, saying he doesn’t “give a damn about presidential politics.”
“You kidding me, Doocy?” Stewart said.
Yep! This is another one of those right-wing “facts” that just won’t die because the right wing isn’t phased by facts or reality.
They’ll just keep hammering on the same misinformation over and over and over.
(via underthemountainbunker)
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Why Mitt Romney Is Slipping - NYTimes.com (via sarahlee310)
Yeah, let’s not get complacent. I saw a recent poll that had Obama and Romney both polling at 47% between likely voters.
Romney could very well slip in a win if people don’t get off their ass and vote.
(via sarahlee310)
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/secret-video-romney-private-fundraiser
The above link has many hidden camera videos showing Romney’s true feelings on many topics. It is rather disturbing. Big money has absolutely taken over the Republican Party. Romney has some very candid responses to questions from the donors… have a look, it’s quite amazing.
(Newser) – Four US soldiers planned to overthrow the federal government and kill President Obama, the Press Association reports. The alleged plot, whose details remain scarce, emerged during a murder case against the soldiers. One of the four, Pfc. Michael Burnett, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and gang charges today in the deaths of an ex-soldier and his girlfriend, 17. The ex-soldier, Michael Roark, was killed because he was aware of the plot, Burnett said. The quartet had purchased $87,000 worth of firearms and explosives; they intended to attack Fort Stewart as well as locations in Georgia and Washington state, the AP reports.
(Source: nickoftime, via sarahlee310)
Nicholas P. Cafardi at the National Catholic Reporter argues that while President Obama is in favor of supporting a woman’s right to choose, he doesn’t support social conditions that can lead women to feel compelled to choose abortion. He writes,
There is no doubt Obama is pro-choice. He has said so many times. There is also no doubt Romney is running on what he calls a pro-life platform. But any honest analysis of the facts shows the situation is much more complicated than that.
For example, Obama’s Affordable Care Act does not pay for abortions. In Massachusetts, Romney’s health care law does. Obama favors, and included in the Affordable Care Act, $250 million of support for vulnerable pregnant women and alternatives to abortion. This support will make abortions much less likely, since most abortions are economic. Romney, on the other hand, has endorsed Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan’s budget, which will cut hundreds of millions of dollars out of the federal plans that support poor women. The undoubted effect: The number of abortions in the United States will increase. On these facts, Obama is much more pro-life than Romney.
Most people who are pro-choice are actually more “pro-life” than actual pro-lifers.
Pro-life is anti-choice/pro-forced pregnancy.
(Source: sarahlee310)
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Bill O’Reilly, giving us a healthy dose of WTF, topped off with a dollop of denial and sprinkles of American Exceptionalism.
(via reallyfoxnews)
(Source: cognitivedissonance, via reallyfoxnews)
President Barack Obama has directed federal officials to offer seasonal firefighters the option of purchasing federal health insurance coverage, White House officials told The Denver Post Tuesday.
The temporary seasonal workers who descend into fire zones are usually young people who work sundry outdoor jobs, depending on the season. Some pick up contract work removing trees in the fall or they work at ski areas in the winter. Many are college students.
But because they are not full-time U.S. Forest Service employees, they previously did not have the option of purchasing federal health insurance.
Under a directive that will be made in the “near future” from the Office of Personnel Management, this group will get that option by the end of this month, White House officials said.
I had no idea they were not eligible. Thank you to the Obama Administration for taking care of our first responders in this regard. Now, let’s work to make it more affordable.
Obama Trade Documents Leaked, Shows POTUS Gave Power To Corporations To Violate National SovereigntyA critical document from President Barack Obama’s free trade negotiations with eight Pacific nations was leaked online early Wednesday morning, revealing that the administration intends to bestow radical new political powers upon multinational corporations, contradicting prior promises.
The leaked document has been posted on the website of Public Citizen, a long-time critic of the administration’s trade objectives. The new leak follows substantial controversy surrounding the secrecy of the talks, in which some members of Congress have complained they are not being given the same access to trade documents that corporate officials receive.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has been so incensed by the lack of access as to introduce legislation requiring further disclosure. House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) has gone so far as to leak a separate document from the talks on his website. Other Senators are considering writing a letter to Ron Kirk, the top trade negotiator under Obama, demanding more disclosure.
Under the agreement currently being advocated by the Obama administration, American corporations would continue to be subject to domestic laws and regulations on the environment, banking and other issues. But foreign corporations operating within the U.S. would be permitted to appeal key American legal or regulatory rulings to an international tribunal. That international tribunal would be granted the power to overrule American law and impose trade sanctions on the United States for failing to abide by its rulings.
The terms run contrary to campaign promises issued by Obama and the Democratic Party during the 2008 campaign.
“We will not negotiate bilateral trade agreements that stop the government from protecting the environment, food safety, or the health of its citizens; give greater rights to foreign investors than to U.S. investors; require the privatization of our vital public services; or prevent developing country governments from adopting humanitarian licensing policies to improve access to life-saving medications,” reads the campaign document.
Yet nearly all of those vows are violated by the leaked Trans-Pacific document. The one that is not contravened in the present document — regarding access to life-saving medication — is in conflict with a previously leaked document on intellectual property (IP) standards.
“Bush was better than Obama on this,” said Judit Rius, U.S. manager of Doctors Without Borders Access to Medicines Campaign, referring to the medication rules. “It’s pathetic, but it is what it is. The world’s upside-down.”
I posted this earlier and it only got 5 notes, so I’ll say it again, I’m pissed about this.
I fucking swear, Democrats have moved so far right they’re more conservative than the Republicans of my youth.
I’m getting to the point where if I had the money I’d move the fuck out of this country - everyone is so far up big business’s ass and it makes me sick.
(via thegermansmakegoodstuff)
Market Watch’s Rex Nutting examines the facts and concludes, “of all the falsehoods told about President Barack Obama, the biggest whopper is the one about his reckless spending spree.” The actual record under President Obama “doesn’t show a reckless increase in spending. Far from it.” Take a look at Nutting’s breakdown of spending over the last four years, which says that, under President Obama, federal spending is rising at the slowest pace since Dwight Eisenhower was President:
Here are the facts, according to the official government statistics:
In the 2009 fiscal year—the last of George W. Bush’s presidency—federal spending rose by 17.9% from $2.98 trillion to $3.52 trillion. Check the official numbers at the Office of Management and Budget.
In fiscal 2010—the first budget under Obama—spending fell 1.8% to $3.46 trillion.
In fiscal 2011, spending rose 4.3% to $3.60 trillion.
In fiscal 2012, spending is set to rise 0.7% to $3.63 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate of the budget that was agreed to last August.
Finally in fiscal 2013—the final budget of Obama’s term—spending is scheduled to fall 1.3% to $3.58 trillion. Read the CBO’s latest budget outlook.
Over Obama’s four budget years, federal spending is on track to rise from $3.52 trillion to $3.58 trillion, an annualized increase of just 0.4%.
There has been no huge increase in spending under the current president, despite what you hear.
Most importantly, the President has a balanced plan that would cut deficits by over $4 trillion over the next decade, including the spending cuts he has already signed into law that will bring discretionary spending to its lowest levels as a share of the economy since the Eisenhower Administration.
(via seriouslyamerica)
Background from Right Wing Watch:
Nugent called President Obama a criminal and denounced his “vile, evil America-hating administration” which is “wiping its ass with the Constitution.” Taking it a step further, he said that “If Barack Obama becomes the president in November, again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year.” …Nugent concluded with a call to cut off the heads of Democrats in November: “We need to ride into that battlefield and chop their heads off in November. Any questions?”
According to ThinkProgress, “The Secret Service, which investigates all threats against the President, confirmed to New York Magazine’s Daily Intel blog that they have in fact flagged Nugent’s comment” and will be conducting a follow up.
Thank goodness polite society has condemned Hillary Rosen for her remarks about Ann Romney. That’s so much more outrageous than Romney-endorser Nugent.
In the same rant, Nugent urged NRA conference attendees to find “a couple of thousand” people each to vote for Mitt Romney and said those who don’t are worthless.
But again, Hillary Rosen is just so goddamned awful. Right? </sarcasm>
Reblogging for commentary.
Free thinking, science, liberal politics, equal rights, freedom from religion, opinions, and random awesomeness.
