Avon Barksdale
Member
Can't blame Websitegate on the GOP.
Notice how I said most.
Can't blame Websitegate on the GOP.
Good luck with thattime to start making certain kinds of overtures to every friend i have in canada
time to start making certain kinds of overtures to every friend i have in canada
This shit happens every time anyone talk about cutting the defense budget in Israel, it's quite morbidly hilarious actually.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/01/u...iden-on-2012-ticket.html?pagewanted=1&_r=3&hpPresident Obama’s top aides secretly considered replacing Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. with Hillary Rodham Clinton on the 2012 ticket, undertaking extensive focus-group sessions and polling in late 2011 when Mr. Obama’s re-election outlook appeared uncertain.
The aides concluded that despite Mrs. Clinton’s popularity, the move would not offer a significant enough political boost to Mr. Obama to justify such a radical move, according to a newly published account of the 2012 race.
The idea of replacing Mr. Biden with Mrs. Clinton had long been rumored, but the journalists Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, in their new book, “Double Down,” provide a detailed description of the effort inside the senior circle of Obama advisers. It was pushed by the chief of staff at the time, William M. Daley, despite the close personal rapport Mr. Daley had developed with Mr. Biden, a fellow Irish Catholic and veteran of Washington politics.
“When the research came back near the end of the year, it suggested that adding Clinton to the ticket wouldn’t materially improve Obama’s odds,” the authors write in their sequel to “Game Change,” which chronicled the 2008 campaign. “Biden had dodged a bullet he never saw coming — and never would know anything about, if the Obamans could keep a secret.”
In a phone interview on Thursday, Mr. Daley acknowledged that he had wanted to research what the move would have meant for Mr. Obama, whose popularity, in the fall of 2011, was at its lowest in his presidency to date. He called it simply “due diligence.”
“I was vocal about looking into a whole bunch of things, and this was one of them,” he said.
“You have to remember, at that point the president was in awful shape, so we were like, ‘Holy Christ, what do we do?’ ”
While last year’s grind of an election lacked the drama of the 2008 race, there was no lack of backstage maneuvering and fighting, providing grist for the authors’ reconstruction of Mr. Obama’s race against Mitt Romney and the at-times-unpredictable Republican primary.
Mr. Obama is seen as being detached from much of the tedious but necessary grunt work of politics and as wanting to be a more unapologetically liberal president.
Mr. Biden, who may run for president in 2016, is viewed warily by Mr. Obama’s circle not only for being a gaffe-prone “Uncle Joe,” but also for, in their minds, being overly consumed with his own political future.
And Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, another potential presidential candidate, is described as having been eliminated from vice-presidential contention by Mr. Romney because of unanswered questions about his background and health.
But at the heart of the book, which The New York Times obtained from people in the publishing industry, are the same two families that loomed over the 2008 race: the Obamas and the Clintons.
Even after Mr. Obama named Mrs. Clinton as secretary of state, seemingly binding the wounds from their hard-fought 2008 primary campaign, the book says, he still could barely endure spending much time with the often-exhausting Bill Clinton. Mr. Obama rarely contacted his Democratic predecessor in the first years after taking office, but after the midterm losses for his party, the incumbent and his inner circle realized that they needed the still-popular Mr. Clinton.
When the two of them golfed together in September 2011, an effort aides hoped would bring them closer, they did not even finish 18 holes. Mr. Obama succinctly expressed his view of Mr. Clinton to an aide after coming off the course at Andrews Air Force Base. “Obama grimaced and replied, ‘I like him ... in doses,’ ” the authors write.
Earlier in the year, “Clinton held Obama captive in the presidential limo” outside a fund-raiser at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York, the authors write, grabbing Mr. Obama’s hand as he reached for the door. Instead of having a one-on-one meal together that night, as was planned, Mr. Obama, unable to “handle any more undiluted Clinton,” invited aides from both of their staffs to join the dinner and talked to them about their children, rather than talking about politics with his predecessor.
And Mr. Clinton’s praise, in the spring of last year, of Mr. Romney’s business record as “sterling” infuriated top Obama advisers and even prompted Mrs. Clinton to tell her aides that “Bill can’t do that again.”
Ultimately, though, Mr. Obama came to rely on Mr. Clinton, not only as a silver-tongued surrogate, but also as a private counselor. Mr. Obama huddled with Mr. Clinton at the home of the Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg just days after the president’s disastrous performance in the first debate with Mr. Romney.
And on election night, immediately after Mr. Romney’s concession call, Mr. Obama instructed his campaign manager: “Get Bill on the phone.”
As the relationship between Mr. Obama and Mr. Clinton thawed during the campaign, the incumbent’s bond with his vice president was tested. On a trip to California in early 2012 dedicated to raising money for Mr. Obama’s campaign, Mr. Biden sought to append some meetings with Silicon Valley and Hollywood heavyweights that could help his future ambitions. Word got back to David Plouffe, a top adviser to Mr. Obama. “We can’t have side deals,” Mr. Plouffe told Mr. Biden. The vice president apologized to the aide.
But after a leak that infuriated Mr. Obama, the president followed Mr. Plouffe’s recommendation to limit the size of their strategy meetings, a decision that excluded Mr. Biden. Mr. Obama and his team were also angry when Mr. Biden declared his support for same-sex marriage on “Meet the Press” in the spring of last year, pre-empting the president’s own poll-tested plans to announce what the book indicates was a position he had held as early as 2004.
As for the Republicans, the book includes details with potential 2016 implications for Mr. Christie, who is widely seen as a favored candidate among establishment Republicans.
Mr. Romney included the blunt-talking governor on his vice-presidential shortlist, crossed him off, reconsidered choosing him and then ultimately decided that he could not pick Mr. Christie. Mr. Romney made the decision not only because of the fund-raising restrictions Mr. Christie would face as the governor of New Jersey, but also because Mr. Christie did not offer the same amount of information to Mr. Romney’s team of vetters as the other potential vice-presidential picks.
According to a memo on Mr. Christie from the vetting team, it had unanswered questions on a defamation lawsuit against the governor from earlier in his political career, on a Securities and Exchange Commission settlement involving Mr. Christie’s brother, on names and documentation of his household help, on information from his time as a securities industry lobbyist, and on his medical history. “The dossier on the Garden State governor’s background was littered with potential land mines,” the authors write.
Asked to respond, an aide to Mr. Christie arranged for Beth Myers, who oversaw the vice-presidential search for Mr. Romney, to issue a statement on Thursday that read: “Governor Christie complied fully with the Romney campaign’s request for documents in a timely manner, including a complete medical report from his internist and cardiologist.”
The book includes other nuggets of interest to political insiders:
■ Mr. Obama, who is known to detest the intense care and feeding some campaign donors require, told his campaign manager that he could not even name his top five bundlers — “I just have no idea,” he said. After meeting with the liberal billionaire George Soros, a potential major donor to Democratic 2012 efforts, the president said that “if we don’t get anything out of him,” he would never sit with him again.
■ The authors reveal the source who told Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, that Mr. Romney had not paid any taxes in 10 years: Jon M. Huntsman Sr., the father of Mr. Romney’s early rival in the Republican primaries.
■ Mr. Huntsman’s son, former Gov. Jon M. Huntsman Jr. of Utah, is portrayed in perhaps the most negative light in the book. As Mr. Obama’s ambassador to China, he repeatedly assured top White House officials that he was not considering a Republican presidential bid, even as he was meeting with potential campaign strategists during a trip to his Washington home around Christmas 2010. And while Mr. Huntsman was in Beijing, his wife was exchanging emails with his eventual consultant, trying to be discreet about their political plans by referring to her husband only with the code word “HE.”
Okay, not to be a broken record but seriously mainstream media, enough with the crap about the Obamacare website. Yes, it's an important thing to point out, and there should be accountability. That's fine. But there's no goddamn reason to cover that issue every fricken day. The MSM has been going on about it nonstop since the shutdown ended, and it's hard to tell which has received more coverage by this point. It's like they're trying to make up for daring to go after the GOP during that period. I mean even South Park had a whole episode dedicated to it.
IT'S. NOT. THAT. CRITICAL.
Eh I can't blame him for not kissing slick Willy's ass. Clinton is a shitstain. Smooth talker, sure. But you have to wonder how many faces the guy has.http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/01/u...iden-on-2012-ticket.html?pagewanted=1&_r=3&hp
Yup...that sounds like Obama.
Good luck with that
I know some people
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/01/u...iden-on-2012-ticket.html?pagewanted=1&_r=3&hp
Yup...that sounds like Obama.
Replacing Biden with Clinton would have looked highly opportunistic and desperate. I'm glad they didn't.http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/01/u...iden-on-2012-ticket.html?pagewanted=1&_r=3&hp
Yup...that sounds like Obama.
You guys been following Gattaca-gate?
I didn't really show much interest when it was first reported, but this is one of those instances where the damage control is worse than the original story.
Rachel Maddow: So senator, why did you plagiarize entire sections of your speech from wikipedia?
Paul: I never said I wrote the screenplay for Gattaca, STUPID! :smug
Sounds like hanging out with Bill Clinton can be an exhausting experience.
I'm not all that shocked with the revelations about Huntsman Sr being the guy who told Reid about Romney, we all figured it must have been someone from Huntsman's camp.
I have to say I am glad Obama couldn't give a rat's ass about the guys who raise his money. Now if only he would make a serious push for campaign finance reform.
The Christie stuff does surprise me though. Other than his temper and abrasive attitude I thought he was relatively clean.
All he had to do was admit his mistake. That's it. Jesus.
You guys been following Gattaca-gate?
I didn't really show much interest when it was first reported, but this is one of those instances where the damage control is worse than the original story.
Rachel Maddow: So senator, why did you plagiarize entire sections of your speech from wikipedia?
Paul: I never said I wrote the screenplay for Gattaca, STUPID! :smug
I need a militia, how competent are you with a bowstaff and/or bear trap?time to start making certain kinds of overtures to every friend i have in canada
Can't blame Websitegate on the GOP.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/01/u...iden-on-2012-ticket.html?pagewanted=1&_r=3&hp
Yup...that sounds like Obama.
There's a few things in there you should also give Obama credit for, that I think you doubted earlier. Obama being in favor of same-sex marriage since 2004; wanting to be more liberal; that Obama isn't beholden to contributors. If you believe all the bad things, you should believe all the good things, as well.
It is kinda petty. You are allowed to copy from Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipe...s_Attribution-ShareAlike_3.0_Unported_License
But I guess he was supposed to give attribution. But the way he is dismissing it by creating strawman argument is pretty pathetic.
You guys been following Gattaca-gate?
I didn't really show much interest when it was first reported, but this is one of those instances where the damage control is worse than the original story.
Rachel Maddow: So senator, why did you plagiarize entire sections of your speech from wikipedia?
Paul: I never said I wrote the screenplay for Gattaca, STUPID! :smug
Beyond being odd to use Gattaca as a talking point in a speech... it's just odd in that Herman Cain sort of way. His speech should be judged on its own merits first and foremost, and the Gattaca thing is neither here nor there really. Why should he owe anyone an explanation for referencing and borrowing heavily from wikipedia in his speech beyond it being a noted 'huh ok' moment.
Beyond being odd to use Gattaca as a talking point in a speech... it's just odd in that Herman Cain sort of way. His speech should be judged on its own merits first and foremost, and the Gattaca thing is neither here nor there really. Why should he owe anyone an explanation for referencing and borrowing heavily from wikipedia in his speech beyond it being a noted 'huh ok' moment.
is there a link to this exchange? XD
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/01/us/most-of-law-on-abortion-is-reinstated-in-texas.html?_r=0Only three days after a federal judge blocked a new Texas law that threatened to shut down many of the states abortion clinics, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans, reversed the decision, saying the rule should take effect while the case is argued in the months to come.
Abortion clinic owners and womens health advocates said the decision would have catastrophic effects because as many as 13 of the 36 clinics providing abortions in the state would have to stop doing so immediately, forcing women in large swaths of Texas to travel several hours on at least two days to obtain abortions.
The clinics forced to halt abortions have been unable to satisfy a new requirement, part of a broader anti-abortion law adopted in July, that doctors performing the procedure must have formal admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the clinic.
Greg Abbott, the state attorney general and a Republican candidate for governor next year, filed an emergency appeal to the three-judge circuit court on Monday asking it to overrule the lower court. He said in a statement Thursday, This unanimous decision is a vindication of the careful deliberation by the Texas Legislature to craft a law to protect the health and safety of Texas women.
Gov. Rick Perry, who has said he hopes to abolish abortion in Texas, said in a statement, Todays decision affirms our right to protect both the unborn and the health of the women of Texas.
In blocking the requirement on Monday, Judge Lee Yeakel of United States District Court in Austin accepted the argument of the clinics, and many doctors and national medical associations, that requiring admitting privileges had no bearing on safety because in the rare event of an emergency, patients will be rushed to the nearest hospital and treated the same way regardless.
The requirement is likely to be unconstitutional, he declared, because it is without a rational basis and places a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion.
But the appeals panel found just the opposite: that the rule is likely to be constitutional because it serves a legitimate state interest in regulating doctors and does not impose an undue burden on the right to abortion.
The appeals court said that the admitting privilege rule might increase the cost of accessing an abortion provider and decrease the number of physicians available to perform abortions.
But it cited a Supreme Court statement in an earlier abortion case that if a regulation serves a valid purpose, the fact that it has the incidental effect of making it more difficult or more expensive to procure an abortion cannot be enough to invalidate it.
Republicans continue to hate women. They have for a long time, and they're not exactly known for changing their ways.
It is kinda petty. You are allowed to copy from Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipe...s_Attribution-ShareAlike_3.0_Unported_License
But I guess he was supposed to give attribution. But the way he is dismissing it by creating strawman argument is pretty pathetic.
How was this not posted!?
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/01/us/most-of-law-on-abortion-is-reinstated-in-texas.html?_r=0
uggghhhh
Fixed.Republicans continue to hate everyone but rich white men. They have for a long time, and they're not exactly known for changing their ways.
Be careful what you wish for; "more women in Congress" could end up just translating to "more Michelle Bachmann clones"
lol, only a quarter of Republican women want to see their gender fairly represented in Congress.
That's fucking horrible.
Republicans continue to hate women. They have for a long time, and they're not exactly known for changing their ways.
So humanity majors are declining? Maybe this article only refers to the highend colleges?
It's probably because once you graduate, no one will give a rats ass about your degree. You may as well not even have one, which is incredibly messed up.
Marginalization of women is a strong cultural aspect among people with "traditional values," including women. Women are supposed to be subservient to the wills of their husbands, fathers, etc.Wow...so Republican women are just self-hating...jesus.
No wonder the GOP doesn't give a shit about women. Their female constituents don't give a shit about women either!
I think the thing that blew me away on this was the republican women stat. Only tracking 2 points higher than republican men.
Just imagine how much airtime has been given to the 90+ million dollars spent on healthcare.gov, something that will eventually be a useful service, versus the 24 billion dollars that the government shutdown cost us.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/01/u...iden-on-2012-ticket.html?pagewanted=1&_r=3&hp
Yup...that sounds like Obama.
How long before someone claims LAX was orchestrated by Obama to divert attention from Obamacaregate?