November 14, 2012

Is it worth changing (even killing) filibuster to get liberal SC justices?

As the rules stand now, Obama's SC nominees will get Bork'd. There's no way the Rs will let the SC turn more liberal, more female, and less white.

So, is it worth weakening or killing the filibuster to change the face and heart of the SC?

Hells to the YES it is!!

November 14, 2012

Ed Schultz sounds like an idiot right now...

...and "co-host" John Nichols isn't setting him straight!

Ed's saying that he disagrees with Harry Reid and that Reid should not change the filibuster rules: leave them as they are. OK, that's his opinion, it's just one that I disagree with. But the problem with his argument is that he thinks it's based on facts, when in fact, he's merely regurgitating conventional wisdom about the history of the filibuster. This shit is so readily available, you just have to be intellectually lazy not to research it.

1. Schultz: The filibuster was specifically designed to protect the voice of the minority.
FALSE: Political scientist Sarah Binder writes that the filibuster was a "happy accident" that wasn't even discovered for years:

"In 1805, Aaron Burr has just killed Alexander Hamilton. He comes back to the Senate and gives his farewell address. Burr basically says that you are a great body. You are conscientious and wise, you do not give in to the whims of passion. But your rules are a mess. And he goes through the rulebook pointing out duplicates and things that are unclear."

"Among his suggestions was to drop the previous question motion. And they pretty much just take Burr's advice. And once it's gone, it takes some time for leaders to realize that they can't cut off debate anymore. But the striking part to me was that we say the Senate developed the filibuster to protect minorities and the right to debate. That's hogwash! It's a mistake. Believe me, I would've loved to find the smoking gun where the Senate decides to create a deliberative body. But it takes years before anyone figures out that the filibuster has just been created."
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/03/how_the_filibuster_was_invente.html

2. Schultz: It's worked this way for generations, don't change it now.
FALSE: It's been change several times over the years, but most recently, and most germane to today's debate, it was changed in 2003 when the "phantom filibuster" was introduced. Many believe that this is a rule change that Reid is considering. Ed says, no, leave it as it's been for "generations."

As for his opinion, he believes that Americans have it all figured out and that the Republicans will fall off the face of the earth in the next two election cycles. So "Democratic" of him: Expect the best case scenario and live to regret not striking when you had the chance.

What happened to the tough guy?

November 11, 2012

Yes, if you want to break white women into smaller voting blocks...

The *much* larger block -- that which broke heavily for Romney -- is made up of wealthier, older, more religious, and more racist white women. Clearly, more white women were college educated in 2012 than 2008 and 2004, but Romney outperformed both McCain and Bush with white women. All things considered, namely his stance toward abortion, and "the outrageous remarks of Republicans like Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock," I found the reverse gender gap most startling.

ALL white women
2004 Bush 55%, Kerry 44%
2008 McCain 53%, Obama 46%
2012 Romney 56%, Obama 42%

Even then, though, the gender gap needs interpreting carefully. It isn’t accurate to say that women as a whole are suddenly turning their backs on the G.O.P., and that this explains Romney’s defeat. The gender gap isn’t anything new. According to the exit polls, it was actually a bit bigger in 2008, when Obama got fifty-six per cent of the female vote and John McCain got forty-three per cent. Given the margin of error attached to these polls, a difference of two points—a thirteen per cent gender gap in 2008 versus an eleven per cent gender gap in 2012—isn’t statistically meaningful. But it indicates that Romney did make a bit of progress in attracting female voters, even as his own evolving stance on abortion and birth control, as well as the outrageous remarks of Republicans like Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock, made his task more difficult.

And that progress was wholly due to his success in appealing to white women. If Romney had exhibited similar strength in appealing to non-white females, particularly Hispanics, it would have made a big difference, but he couldn’t manage it. To the contrary, he did worse than his Republican predecessors. In 2004, more than a third of Hispanic women voted for Bush, and in 2008, thirty per cent of them voted for John McCain. This year, just twenty-three per cent of Hispanic women voted for Romney.

Why did so many white women vote for Romney despite his shift to the right on women’s issues during the G.O.P. primaries? One way to tackle this question is to ask why so many white men voted for him. Surely, many of the same factors that motivated white male Romney supporters played into the decision-making of white female Romney supporters. After all, in many cases, the members of the two groups are married to each other, and are shaped by the same cultural and economic environment. (To be clear, I am not suggesting that white women vote Republican because their husbands do. Women make up their own minds.)

Without much doubt, attitudes about race—and even outright racism—played a role, although one that is hard to quantify. But it’s far from the only thing. Income is important. On average, white men and women tend to be richer than non-whites, and voting Republican is strongly correlated with income. (In families that made less than a hundred thousand dollars a year, Obama won by eight points. In families that made more than a hundred thousand dollars a year, Romney won by ten points.) Age is another factor. Whites, on average, tend to be older than non-whites, and older people (male and female) tend to vote Republican in greater numbers. Religion is also part of the story. Most white women, like most white men, are churchgoing Christians, a group that is strongly Republican—especially evangelicals, who voted for Romney by almost four to one. Then there is ideology. Just as there are conservative men, there are conservative women.

Of course, all these factors were also present in 2008. The reason Romney did a bit better than McCain among white women is probably that they viewed him as a stronger candidate on economic issues, which are as important to women as to men. Or maybe they just saw him as a more plausible President than the aging war hero.

The key point is that voting against Obama wasn’t just a white-guy thing. A whole range of racial, cultural, and economic factors contribute to the dislike of the President among various chunks of the white population—particularly the chunk that resides inland and away from the big cities. White men may be particularly prone to Obama-phobia, but they aren’t the only ones. Unfortunately, many of their wives, daughters, and girlfriends feel the same way.

So it appears the biggest factor is that white women -- old and *young,* alike -- got wealthier from 2004 to 2012. Secondarily, as they got older, they became more conservative. One way of looking at this is that, over this span, all white women became more educated: more white women in their 60s today have college degrees than they did 30 years ago. The same is true of younger white women. Again, it appears that white, college educated women become more conservative as they grow wealthier and older. In the end, not much different than white men. But considering the way women are treated by Republicans, I find this truly startling.

November 11, 2012

Hopefully, the upshot from all of this will be that...

someday I will live in the sovereign nation of Yankeedom.



OK, we can work on the name but that's what they've got on the map already

November 11, 2012

Wait, What?!! "What’s Up with White Women?" (= title of article)

What’s Up with White Women? They Voted for Romney, Too

<snip>

I, for one, know a lot of weird white dudes, and the fact that Romney led Obama in their demographic by twenty-seven points—sixty-two per cent to thirty-five per cent—amply justifies all the attention it is receiving. But it turns out that, purely on the basis of their voting patterns, a similar question could also be asked about white women, or most of them. One of the least commented-upon aspects of the election returns is that well over fifty per cent of Caucasian females voted for Romney, too. Not as many of them as white men, of course, but a solid majority. Indeed, as a proportion of the total, more white women voted for Romney on Tuesday than voted for George W. Bush, in 2004, or for John McCain, in 2008.

<snip>

While the overall gender gap played a significant role in ensuring Obama’s reëlection, it didn’t have very much to do with white women, who remain one of the bulwarks of the Republican Party.

<snip>

In 2004, Bush got fifty-five per cent of the white female vote, and Kerry got forty-four per cent—a “reverse gender gap” (one working in the G.O.P.’s favor) of eleven points. In 2008, McCain got fifty-three per cent of the white female vote, and Obama got forty-six per cent—a gap of seven points. Compared to four years earlier, the reverse gender gap in this demographic had decreased by four points, indicating that the Democrats were making progress in attracting the votes of white women. But this year, that trend turned around again. Far from narrowing further, the reverse gender gap among white women widened to fourteen points. Romney got fifty-six per cent of the white female vote; Obama got just forty-two per cent.

<snip>

But it indicates that Romney did make a bit of progress in attracting female voters, even as his own evolving stance on abortion and birth control, as well as the outrageous remarks of Republicans like Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock, made his task more difficult.

And that progress was wholly due to his success in appealing to white women.


Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2012/11/why-white-women-voted-for-romney.html#ixzz2BsuZyhAt

November 7, 2012

I was just going to start this thread...

...Thom Hartmann was saying that Reid is going to do it because the only way of guaranteeing Obama gets true progressives on the SC is if the Rs can't filibuster them down.

The problem with Dems is that we'll wait for the Rs to strike first (kill the filibuster when they get the opportunity) then lament that we should have done it when we had the chance!

November 7, 2012

Flush it! I don't ever...

I don't ever want to hear about another swing state or panicked predictions that so-and-so will could win the EV but not the PV. I don't want to hear that so-and-so has virtually no path to victory when polls in western states are still open. I don't want to hear that it's OK for me not to vote because Illinois is solid blue. The electoral college discourages voter turnout. This country isn't center right. If the 95% turnout, we'll never again have to worry about the 5%.

Flush it!

EDIT #1
Those who don't show up now because they don't believe their vote matters got the wrong message. Their vote work down ballot races mean a lot! But they don't know that. That's because they focus solely on the top of the ballot. That's the message unsophisticated voters get courtesy the electoral college.

EDIT #2
The Senate gives tiny states all the ridiculously disproportionate power they believe they deserve.