Rex Kickass

QUOTE (BearSox @ Nov 7, 2008 -> 12:07 PM) So, by your point of view, would it be okay for a brother and sister to have children, even though their kids would very much likely be deformed? How does that have to do with a legal contract? I have no problem with "marriage" being left to the churches, as long as its left to the churches equally. If they want to call it "civil unions" with the government, fine, as long as its applied equally.

QUOTE (Reddy @ Nov 7, 2008 -> 12:06 PM) that page on change.gov doesn't make that clear. but also, in complete honesty, i think john edwards' plan was ten times better. this community service thing does NOTHING (relatively) for the country. in edwards' you had to work like 10 hours a week to get the cash from the gov't. this way at least you're feeding and helping the American economy. I think its a reasonable plan, but I also think that the amount of work required should be increased to 200 hours for college students per year.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Nov 7, 2008 -> 10:26 AM) yeah, how many more times are they going tohave to recount those votes to make up the difference there? Actually, this is just proofing of vote counts. They actually found one precinct where the number of Senate votes cast to the number assigned to actual candidates was off by exactly 100 votes. Turns out that a poll counter accidentally wrote 24 next to Franken instead of 124. I have a feeling that with a hand recount like Minnesota has that there might actually be a switch in the lead because of the way Minnesota does its vote. Votes are done by optical scan there IIRC and if someone did not properly fill in the circle or placed a checkmark instead of an X, the vote may not have been counted by the scanning machines. Apparently the estimates are that 2 in 1000 ballots may have suffered this problem (sort of the average for elections in MN) which would lead to as many 6000 spoiled ballots which have to be individually examined to represent clear intent of voters. Alaska, however, is where I would look for shenanigans. You've got the governor of the state on a ticket, record early voting in the state and turnout decreased 11% from 2004? According to what I understand, turnout for this election was lower than any other Presidential election in Alaska's history.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Nov 7, 2008 -> 10:44 AM) She made herself look bad for sure. I respect people's rights to protest and make asses of themselves, but in cases like this where they clearly cross the line, they need to be punished, and with more than just a slap on the wrist. It has to be somewhat severe to serve as a warning to them and others that there IS a line you can't cross. All those Code Pink protests we were subjected to the last 2 years? not one charge ever brought against them, for anything. There has to be something they can be charged with, even if it is just a misdemeanor. but they are always let go, facing no reprecusions, so they feel empowered to do it again, and again. protest all you want. but be prepared to pay the price if you break the law. They get arrested repeatedly actually. It's called Civil Disobedience. For them arrests mean that it is working.

The gap between Coleman and Franken is now down to 240 votes.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 6, 2008 -> 04:33 PM) For what it's worth, it's also possible that someone else could step forwards and become a leader. I'll give you an example. 8 years ago, the President-Elect could not get in to the Democratic National Convention. He had to watch from outside at a viewing station. Things can change awfully fast in politics. Let's take it another step. Two years ago, Survey USA did a poll on a hypothetical match up between McCain and Obama. Their projection? McCain - 510, Obama - 28.

Merkley's lead is around 50,000 votes now in Oregon. Looks like he'll win that seat after all.

Coleman's lead has been slashed in half since yesterday. It is now 337 votes. Apparently as they go through the provisionals and they recheck the numbers, we might see the lead further dwindle or potentially completely evaporate. That's a difference of 0.11%.

QUOTE (Controlled Chaos @ Nov 6, 2008 -> 11:26 AM) I agree with this sentence 100%, including the part about it making her look stupid. That's totally different from saying she "couldn't" name one, that's all my point is. Of course she could, but I'm sure she was thrown off a little like...wtf are you asking me what paper I read for? Then she's thinking, this is a trap question, if I say the Wasilla Times or something, I'll get ridiucled, but if I lie I'll get ridiculed. Her answers have consequences and she wasn't up to snuff on how to BS your way through a question yet. The question was specifically made to get her to say she doesn't read the NYT, WSJ or any main stream papers and she blew it and looked dumb. I agree with that, but that is different from acting like she is mentally incapable of forming the words to say what paper she reads. If any of us walked by her on the street 6 months ago and asked her what paper she read, I'm sure she would have answered in an instant. That's all I'm saying... She could have just said, I try to read the Anchorage paper every day. And I look at other papers when I get the chance. I'm not even her and I could easily make some crap up that nobody's going to really catch.

QUOTE (longshot7 @ Nov 5, 2008 -> 05:47 PM) Kerry for State, and Napolitano for AG. Kerry is possible but Napolitano is not likely. She's kind of expected to fight against McCain in 2010 for the Senate. The Senate map is still favorable to the Democrats in 2010 and there will be a focus on running up that score to maintain a majority in 2012 and beyond.

Truth is, Murtha could have only spoken in burps on the campaign trail and won. He's sort of woven into the fabric of his district that he's been there so long, and there aren't many "good" candidates that are going to work in the effort of taking Murtha out. Murtha said stuff that could have made him lose. But in a year like this one, with an overarching democratic lean, you have to run an exceptional candidate against him, and Murtha's candidate wasn't exceptional. If he was, we'd know his name.

This Prop 8 battle isn't over. It's just a shame that it's going to have to be won in the courts. I'd say there's a 35-40% chance that Prop 8 will not be allowed to be implemented into the California constitution because of the way the decision to allow gay marriage was written. It can actually be thrown out, because if its viewed to be overly discriminatory and taking away rights on an unequal basis, it may be considered invalid.

Merkeley is now up by about 15,000 votes in OR. Looks like he will pull it off, since most of the votes left to count are in DEM strongholds. That gives the DEMs 57 votes. Georgia is a runoff now. Minnesota is a recount now with Franken behind less than 700 votes out of 2+ million cast. In Alaska, Stevens is ahead by about 3300 votes with everything but Absentee/Provisional in. There are between 60K and 75K left to count. 15% of that is from Juneau apparently, where Begich won by a 2-1 margin. If there really are 9000 votes there, he could conceivably close the gap there and we could see a recount in Alaska too.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 5, 2008 -> 05:50 PM) The "No on 8" campaign was pretty much an abject disaster. This will not be the last time this battle is fought. And there is a legitimate argument to be made that Prop 8 is actually not a valid ballot initiative because it infringes on rights that should be considered innate. The argument is that you can't put a ballot initiative to stop free speech for just women in California because its discriminatory and considered an overarching right intrinsic to the spirit of the constitution of California and based on the ruling legalizing gay marriage, this falls under the same umbrella.

Merkley is now ahead in Oregon with over 100,000 Eugene and Portland area votes still left to be counted. Merkley is winning by 20 point margins in both those areas.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 5, 2008 -> 05:11 PM) Having the voter ID's and being able to draw them out at a 64% clip nationwide are 2 different things. Chambliss won't have his turnout machine either though. He only got 1.07 million votes in 2002. He exceeded that by about 700K yesterday. Lots of new voters in GA, and they're more Dem than GOP.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 5, 2008 -> 04:05 PM) On the other hand...Chambliss gets one potential advantage in a runoff. He doesn't have to go up against the Obama turnout machine. You don't think that his amazing voter ID file won't find its way to the GA Dems?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 5, 2008 -> 04:50 PM) It's going to stay that way for a while until the recount happens in a couple weeks and the courts get a chance to hash everything out. You know, presumably there are also going to be a decent number of "Provisional ballots" cast in that election, ballots cast by first time voters or voters who's names don't appear/don't match the voter rolls exactly. Those will take days to weeks to check as well, and I'll bet they go overwhelmingly for the Dem because they'd be a lot of new registrations. In Minnesota, you don't have a voter registration deadline. If you are unregistered and bring proof of your residence, you register to vote and then can immediately vote. There aren't that many provisionals, if any at all, to count in MN.

The last electoral vote in Nebraska may still be in play. NE splits its Electoral vote and in one of the Congressional districts Obama trails by just 569 votes with 9,000 uncounted votes. If Obama pulled in 54% of those votes, Obama adds one electoral vote.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Nov 5, 2008 -> 04:00 PM) thats true. there is still around 27% left to count. so it could turn around quickly. at best I see 57 senate votes for the Dems (55 plus the 2 I's). I think 57 is very possible. I think Coleman or Chambliss could lose. OR's senator stays in office.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Nov 5, 2008 -> 03:11 PM) Chambliss will most likely win the runoff. Smith leads in OR and Coleman in MN. I'm sure we'll see some recount shananigans, but I think both will win. Stevens will hold in Alaska I believe, but will get booted from the Senate, which will lead to another election which the Republican will likely win. Palin will name a temporary replacement. so 54 D 2 I 44 R in the Senate. with the two I's voting with the Dems most of the time. The problem with Chambliss' runoff is that Chambliss started to fall apart a couple weeks ago. If he can't recover in the runoff, there's no guarantee of anything. There are a lot of people around the country that want Chambliss gone, specifically for what he did to Cleland to win in 02. And I think that means a great outpouring of support for the Dems in that runoff. Lean Chambliss but by no means a sure thing. The problem with Minnesota is that there were issues in Minneapolis. You can register to vote the same day that you vote. And in many urban areas, they ran out of registration materials and there were some other irregularities that may result in vote totals flipping.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 5, 2008 -> 03:13 PM) So you don't think Klan members hanging out in front of the polls in a minority area wouldn't be voter intimidation? The equivalency isn't valid because if I'm not mistaken, there were minorities hanging out in front of the polls in a minority area.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 5, 2008 -> 02:43 PM) Franken/Coleman will not be decided for over a month. Anything under 15000 votes requires a recount, and it's going to be a few hundred either way. Norm Coleman is already on TV saying this election is too important to have a recount. We won't know Begich/Stevens for up to two weeks because the margin is 3500 and there are 64000 absentee ballots to count and those take a while apparently.

It looks like a run-off in Georgia between Saxby Chambliss and Jim Martin, thanks to the 3% siphoned off by the Libertarian candidate.

Automatic recount for Franken/Coleman. The difference is less than .02% between them. 571 votes out of 2.9 million.