2012 US General Election Discussions: Start to Finish

[Semantics]

Originally Posted by Kobi

Got my first celebrity political call today.....from Matt Damon supporting Elizabeth Warren over Scott Brown for the Senate. Matt has good taste.

Wonder when Ben Afflect will be calling?

I got a call from Pat Boone yesterday.


He was calling on behalf of Linda McMahon (running in CT). I called her branch office immediately and asked them if Linda was aware that Pat Boone is a bigot who said that homosexuals are worse than terrorists.

The man who answered apologized and said he'd had no idea and that Linda McMahon supports the gay community.

Having an asshole like Pat Boone call is real supportive, right?

[Kätzchen]

Well, here we are, less than 48 hrs away from hearing the verdict.




Side note: I have yet to be called by anyone. But this probably has to do with me setting the parameters on who gets to call me. I don't like calls, so that probably figures in respectively to my own parameters being respectfully held in place. However, I have had a number of people who have paid visits to me at home. Each time a volunteer worker came to my house, usually late in the evening and fortunately I was home, I found them to be very respectful in their presentation of information and I always made a concerted effort to thank them for coming to my house and checking up on me and sharing with me items of relevancy. I plan to write to each respective candidate office and share positive feedback with them on each visit made on my behalf and to advocate this approach again, if necessary in up-coming voter elections issues. I find that grass roots organizational approaches are probably the best single method available, in organizing positive voter turnout; with voters being much more informed by having a personal conversation with people who are well versed on voter issues, rather than a call or being assailed by non-sustainable practices (mailbox full of pamphets, flyers, etc).

Leaving less of a carbon footprint is always better.

[Martina]

He's also a birther.

Originally Posted by Semantics

I got a call from Pat Boone yesterday.


He was calling on behalf of Linda McMahon (running in CT). I called her branch office immediately and asked them if Linda was aware that Pat Boone is a bigot who said that homosexuals are worse than terrorists.

The man who answered apologized and said he'd had no idea and that Linda McMahon supports the gay community.

Having an asshole like Pat Boone call is real supportive, right?

[Martina]

I got an email from Kiefer Sutherland. *swoon* He wants me to vote for Prop 34 to end the death penalty in California. I was going to anyway, but I might have changed my mind for him. He is one of the very few men I would do.

Mmm. Jack Bauer. I would email him back, but unfortunately his email address is info@voteyeson34.org

[Martina]

Okay, Rachel is scaring me. Why did she need to get on on a Sunday night just to scare me?

It's about the long lines and all the ways that Republicans have managed to discourage voting.

[BullDog]

Why Romney hasn't released his tax returns: He's been using a tax loophole (now defunct charitable remainder unitrust with old users grandfathered in) where he essentially uses a "charity" (in his case the Mormon church) for tax deferement, still gets annual payments from the trust, and the charity gets very little in return.

This doesn't seem to be getting much coverage- maybe because the story broke during Hurricane Sandy.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-1...donations.html


"Setting up the trust, worth between $750,000 and $1.25 million in 2001, enabled Romney to take an upfront deduction for his charitable donation to the trust, while also earning annual payments worth 8 percent of the trust's assets. Unlike much of his own portfolio, Romney's charitable trust investments have been very conservative. (It's now just all cash.) As a result, according to Bloomberg, the trust earned only $48 last year, while paying out nearly $37,000 to the Romneys. Meanwhile, the principal, which goes to the charity upon Romney's death, has been dwindling as a result of those payouts, down to $421,000 in 2011."

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012...ery-charitable

[UofMfan]

Obama Responds to 10-Year-Old's Heartfelt Letter About Her Dads ~ HuffPo Jamie McGonnigal Founder, TalkAboutEquality.com

[DMW]

Credo petition...85% there...http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/...787607-sXER1Sx
Tell Ohio's Secretary of State: Count every vote

With razor thin margins predicted in Ohio, the state's Republican Secretary of State took steps this weekend to modify vote counting procedures in a way that could invalidate thousands of provisional ballots.1

Previously, it was the responsibility of trained election workers to record identification information presented by voters who submit provisional ballots. But now Secretary of State John Husted has put that burden on voters to record this information (which can often be confusing to identify) on their provisional ballots -- paving the way for a significant number of ballots to be thrown out due to recording errors even though the voter presented a valid ID that was accepted by the pollworker.

Tell Ohio's Secretary of State: Count every vote -- rescind your administrative orders aimed at suppressing the vote in Ohio.

Husted, a Republican, has already been working to suppress the vote in his state. Many workers who have trouble getting to the polls during regular business hours on a Tuesday traditionally favor weekend early voting. Husted tried to end weekend early voting in Ohio by reducing the state's five weekends of early voting to zero. In response, the courts ordered him to maintain access to one weekend of early voting -- the weekend before the election -- open to Ohio voters, though allowing him to cancel the previous four weekends of access. As a result, voters at many early vote locations had to wait outside in the cold, in lines stretching outside the buildings and around city blocks.

And now, as the election in Ohio is reportedly a dead heat, and it's clear the state's 18 electoral votes could very well decide the presidency, Husted is taking additional steps to suppress the votes of Ohio citizens.

Republicans have a long tradition of partisan Secretaries of State like Ohio's Ken Blackwell and Florida's Katherine Harris who cared more about delivering their state's elections to Republicans than ensuring their state's citizens could cast a ballot that counts.

We cannot let John Husted join their ranks and use his position as the chief of elections in Ohio to swing his state's electoral votes to Mitt Romney.

Tell Ohio's Secretary of State: Stop the shenanigans and count every vote.

1. Andrew Cohen, "Ohio's Provisional Ballot Order: The Biggest Legal Story of the Weekend," The Atlantic, November 4, 2012.

[Medusa]

This voter intimidation shit they are pulling in Florida is about to make me bust a fucking vein.