Half-baked Republican Presidential Fruitcakes (and fellow confections)

Delirium

Republican Texas Judge Prepares For ‘Civil War’ If Obama Wins Second Term

A Texas Republican County Judge fears that a re-election of President Barack Obama could lead to a “civil war” with a potential invasion of United Nations troops, and so he has taken measure to prepare for the unrest.

Lubbock County Judge Tom Head has called for a local tax increase in order to “beef up” the county’s resources in the event of a “civil war” in the wake of an Obama re-election.

Judge Head, a county judge of 13 years, believes that civil unrest would lead to the president handing over United States sovereignty to the U.N., fueling even worse violence at home. “He’s going to try to hand over the sovereignty of the U.S. to the United Nations, what’s going to happen when that happens?” he told FOX-34 in Lubbock.

joseph brand

Michael D Higgins rap version. :eek:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRptfLISJ1g

He's gone viral.

Jimoslimos

koth wrote: »

Republican Texas Judge Prepares For ‘Civil War’ If Obama Wins Second Term

A Texas Republican County Judge fears that a re-election of President Barack Obama could lead to a “civil war” with a potential invasion of United Nations troops, and so he has taken measure to prepare for the unrest.

lol! UN invasion! Guess it'd be easier than sorting Syria out

joseph brand

jank wrote: »

Colour has nothing to do with it and it appears you are totally ignorant of the fact. .By all means raise the topic over in the US politics forum and you will see that the majority of posters will conclude that

No they won't.

daesu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYg2IX0OdY0

jank

A few things here to take on board.

Penn wrote: »

No, because Obama hasn't done a bad job as president. Maybe not a fantastic job, but not a bad job. Again, my argument is based on "If Obama had done a poor job, it is likely that XXXX would have happened". All just my opinion though. I don't think it's a huge stretch though.

Well that is all subjective. Define a good job. What are the good things he has done over the past 4 years?

Yes, Obama will be judged on his own merit. But for future black presidential nominees, Obama's record, if it had been poor, could have been brought up and negative associations made. Let's face it, there are still people calling for his birth cert and college records. Why? Because he's a Democrat, which means extreme right-wingers have to find a way to discredit him, and because he's also black, that's the route they chose. Same with any following black democratic nominee. If Obama had been a poor president, associations most likely would have been made. It's the political game. Hell, when David Cameron was campaigning to become PM people were associating him with Thatcher because he said he admired her.

I don't think you can associate someone's admiration to other people who they share a political ideology with the skin of their colour or race. These extreme right wingers had a great go at Clinton, they spent the best part of the 2nd term trying to impeach him FFS. So they are consistent. I presume you also missed the issues that came up for Hillary as far back as 1994 from the right wing. It is not the colour of the skin or gender, it is the membership of the party that gives democrats grief from the right, as you say its politics not race.

It's the political game; discredit your opponent by any association you can, and if a new black presidential nominee stepped forward, he'd be associated with Obama in any negative way possible. Herman Cain escaped the brunt of it because it wasn't a presidential race, it was to become the party's presidential nominee. And being from the same party as the rest of his opponents meant they couldn't discredit each other to nearly the same extent as they could from another party.

No, I don't buy that at all and I don't think anyone would take that argument seriously state side. Do you have any evidence, proof?

Obama was elected because he is black
4 years later, race is still an issue for some voters
Mitt Romney is carrying 0% of the black vote

Again, I'm not saying that race SHOULD be an issue, I'm saying for some, it IS an issue.

One of those links is interesting, the GOP have never done well with the black vote but it appears black people are voting for Obama in record numbers well because he is black. But isn't that by its definition racist? Why aren't white voters voting for Romney because he is white by the same token?
Remember it was white people that put Obama in office, yet a recurring theme is that some whites don't like him because he is black. That is a fair point on some level Yet the same standard is not leveled at black people. I just find this ambivalence interesting.

robindch

robindch

Meanwhile, Jesus' dad smites the convention with storms, bad weather, etc:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/26/republican-convention-tropical-storm-isaac

Guarniad wrote:

Modern political campaigns are tightly controlled events but no one can control the weather and a storm barrelling towards Tampa has forced the cancellation of the first day of the Republican party's national convention.

Tropical storm Isaac is expected to develop into a hurricane and sweep up Florida's western coastline on Sunday night and Monday morning, missing Tampa directly but dumping heavy rain and causing a storm surge across the low-lying swampy region.

As a result Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus issued a statement nixing the first day of events and throwing a spanner in the carefully choreographed process that will officially nominate Mitt Romney for president.

Priebus said the convention would briefly meet on Monday and then reconvene for Tuesday, leaving Florida's emergency services to face the storm without the huge event going on.

"Our chief priority is the safety of the residents of Florida, of those visiting the convention, and all those in Gulf Coast states who may be impacted by tropical storm Isaac," said Republican national convention president Bill Harris in a statement.

Former Massachusetts governor Romney was campaigning with his running mate, Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan, in the battleground state of Ohio as thousands of delegates, journalists, protesters and party officials arrived in Florida by the planeload. Meanwhile technicians completed the conversion of a hockey arena along Tampa Bay into a red, white and blue-themed convention hall and in downtown Tampa tight security cordons were set up in city streets.

But conventioneers and everyone else arriving in the city now face the same task as more permanent residents of Florida: bedding down to ride out the storm. It is expected to have passed by the end of Monday afternoon, meaning there will be a more crammed schedule for an event now truncated to three days from four.

There will be no impact on Romney's actual nomination though no doubt campaign managers and party officials will be frustrated at the disruption to their carefully laid plans of introducing him to a prime time audience and seeking to get a strong bump in the polls.

However, this is not the first time such an event happened. In 2008 the Republican convention that nominated Arizona senator John McCain also cancelled its first day due to a hurricane. Though that meeting was being held in Minnesota, hurricane Gustav was headed for the Gulf Coast and a decision was taken to cancel the festivities until the impact of the storm was clear.

The opening day had been dubbed "We Can Do Better" and was supposed to highlight the ailing American economy. It was slated to feature ordinary people and other speakers who would address what they considered to be the Obama's administration failure to create jobs and stimulate economic growth.

Gbear

A good article by Bill Maher from the Huff Post about the whole Todd Akin fiasco and why the Republican party is ****: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-maher/todd-akin-republicans_b_1826617.html

Some choice quotes:

When I say religion is a mental illness, this is what I mean: it corrodes your mental faculties to the point where you can believe in tiny ninja warriors who hide in vaginas and lie in wait for bad people's sperm.

Evangelicals might like to pretend that the magical thinking that they indulge in at home doesn't affect what they do at the office, but it absolutely does. The brain that believes in angels and miracles and Jesus riding a dinosaur is trained to see the world not as it is, but as you want it to be.

The Mad Hatter

Gbear wrote: »

A good article by Bill Maher from the Huff Post about the whole Todd Akin fiasco and why the Republican party is ****: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-maher/todd-akin-republicans_b_1826617.html

Some choice quotes:

He read that out on his show last Friday, and in the post-show, he allowed his right-leaning guests to respond. It somewhat inevitably became a debate on climate change, with the right-leaning guys equally inevitably denying climate change outright, with all the usual hand-waving and ignorance.

MagicMarker

I only started watching Real Time lately, downloading it the morning after. Have to say it's brilliant, if only we had stuff that good over here.

Gbear

MagicMarker wrote: »

I only started watching Real Time lately, downloading it the morning after. Have to say it's brilliant, if only we had stuff that good over here.

I was kinda taken aback the first time I watched it with a Republican on it - the level of adversariality (you might be asking yourself whether that's a word or not - it is not) shown is pretty off-putting when compared to Britian and our rather tame broadcasts but it's the same when sane people go on the O'Reilly Factor or something.

The US seems a strange place - they're by turns incredibly polite and PC and also incredibly forthright.

joseph brand

MagicMarker wrote: »

I only started watching Real Time lately, downloading it the morning after. Have to say it's brilliant, if only we had stuff that good over here.

There are podcasts of 'Real Time' which are handy for the car. Maher has a great panel on each show.

Check out 'The Daily Show' with Jon Stewart and the Steve Colbert's 'The Colbert Report'.

We have nothing like their shows here. If only Dermot Morgan were still alive.

Sulla Felix

Gbear wrote: »

A good article by Bill Maher from the Huff Post about the whole Todd Akin fiasco and why the Republican party is ****: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-maher/todd-akin-republicans_b_1826617.html

Some choice quotes:

When I say religion is a mental illness, this is what I mean: it corrodes your mental faculties to the point where you can believe in tiny ninja warriors who hide in vaginas and lie in wait for bad people's sperm.

Evangelicals might like to pretend that the magical thinking that they indulge in at home doesn't affect what they do at the office, but it absolutely does. The brain that believes in angels and miracles and Jesus riding a dinosaur is trained to see the world not as it is, but as you want it to be.

Has he recanted his anti vac stance yet? As much sense as he sometimes speaks, he shovels a fair amount of **** too.

Gbear

Sulla Felix wrote: »

Has he recanted his anti vac stance yet? As much sense as he sometimes speaks, he shovels a fair amount of **** too.

From Wiki he seems to engage in a little bit of "big pharma" paranoia (although I think it's easy to stray from having legitimate gripes about them into woolier territory) and he seems to be a bit into healthy eating having more power than it really does.

The anti-vaccine thing seems not to be a fundamental dismissal of vaccines but an incidental misunderstanding brought about by the paranoia mentioned above specific to flu vaccines and a perception that swine flue was overblown.

By celebrity bull**** standards it's not too bad.

Sulla Felix

"I would never get a swine flu vaccine, or any vaccine." As recently as '09 he was outspoken in his support for Barbara Loe Fisher, who's one of the more influential anti-vacs in the US.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tB5DLf1Qt78

Delirium

Racist RNC Attendee Allegedly Harasses CNN Camerawoman

According to TPM's Kyle Leighton, a pretty terrible thing happened on the way to Ann Romney's speech tonight — an attendee at the RNC allegedly threw nuts in the face of a black CNN camerawoman and said, "This is how we feed animals."

Penn

Gbear wrote: »

From Wiki he seems to engage in a little bit of "big pharma" paranoia (although I think it's easy to stray from having legitimate gripes about them into woolier territory) and he seems to be a bit into healthy eating having more power than it really does.

The anti-vaccine thing seems not to be a fundamental dismissal of vaccines but an incidental misunderstanding brought about by the paranoia mentioned above specific to flu vaccines and a perception that swine flue was overblown.

By celebrity bull**** standards it's not too bad.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Maher

He supports the legalization of marijuana and same-sex marriage, and serves on the board of PETA

In truth though, I did lose a fair bit of respect for Bill Maher when I found out about his stance on vaccines, because he was basing it more on his opinion rather than facts and even despite facts to the contrary, which is something he essentially makes fun of religious people for doing.

That being said, Real Time is still a great show and I do agree with Maher on a lot of things. PETA and the vaccine stuff though did make me lose respect for him.

Penn

koth wrote: »

Racist RNC Attendee Allegedly Harasses CNN Camerawoman

Disgusting.

Gbear

He did also say this though:

"What I've read about what they think I'm saying is not what I've said. I'm not a germ theory denier. I believe vaccinations can work. Polio is a good example. Do I think in certain situations that inoculating Third World children against malaria or diphtheria, or whatever, is right? Of course. In a situation like that, the benefits outweigh costs.

"But to me living in Los Angeles? To get a flu shot? No."

from here: http://www.winnipegsun.com/entertainment/tv/2009/10/28/11548266-sun.html

So it seems, rather than it being a fundamental misunderstanding or willfull ignorance he's seeing "the world not as it is, but as [he] wants it to be."
He's doing the mental gymnastics that he derides the republicans in "Dispatches from the Bubble" for to fit his preconceived notions about healthcare.


Ultimately it's another celebrity who's talking through his arse - lots of them do that.

robindch

Republicans set up a committee to look into whether the USA should return to the Gold Standard:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19422104

//madness

joseph brand

If you haven't watched The Newsroom, do!

Here's a taste. Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels) calls the Tea Party, 'The American Taliban'.

fitz0

joseph brand wrote: »

If you haven't watched The Newsroom, do!

Here's a taste. Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels) calls the Tea Party, 'The American Taliban'.

Its a good show, but it comes of a little preachy by times and for all is cleverness in its writing it suffers from being too clever.

Then again, its very well written, acted and produced and I'm very interested in seeing where it goes next season.

joseph brand

fitz0 wrote: »

Its a good show, but it comes of a little preachy by times and for all is cleverness in its writing it suffers from being too clever.

Then again, its very well written, acted and produced and I'm very interested in seeing where it goes next season.

I think this is one of the main criticisms of the show. In dealing with real news stories from under two years ago, they've shown the facts. The show also deals with the lies spread by the Tea Party and the GOP.

I'd say it's preachy in the way that Hitchens was preachy.

Jeff Daniels is wonderful, along with his boss played by Sam Waterston.

Brilliant entertainment which might even 'enlighten' some of the mentally lazy Rep voters, if they dare watch.

I watched The West Wing, in between episodes , to tide me over.

fitz0

I'm not criticizing the content, just the delivery. The writing falls down when it comes to getting across a point, it feels overwrought and fake. This is by no means a constant issue, just sometimes. I'm quite a fan of Sorkin but I've had more than a few eye rolling moments during the Newsroom.

The title credits are cracking though.

fisgon

Great article by Camilla Long in The Sunday Times this week on the Republican convention. Describing Michelle Bachman....

"Bachman appears, a slim, sharp congresswoman from Minnesota who is 97% hair.
"We are going to take the country back," she yells, in a voice that could perform vasectomies.""

The Mad Hatter

Have you got a link to the article?

Corkfeen

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

Have you got a link to the article?

Here ya go.
http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/newsreview/article1116398.ece?shareToken=6c6b85a17d45abb2d7250d56aa88a23c

The truck driver is flattered to be called a bigot — “I am one,” he booms. A woman next to him agrees. “I have my gun in my car,” she says. showing me a concealed weapons licence. “They will take my gun and my Bible from my cold, dead hands.” What America needs is “Jesus back in government”.

Actually reminds me of some posters that come to visit.... :P

jank

Corkfeen wrote: »

Here ya go.
http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/newsreview/article1116398.ece?shareToken=6c6b85a17d45abb2d7250d56aa88a23c

Actually reminds me of some posters that come to visit.... :P

Always good to have a sterotype, I wonder will the media present the DNC in the same light as a Soviet May day parade?

Tommytwotimes

The Republicans, they all mad!