Home in Henderson will have a weekly thread for political issues, including this thread, counting down 8 weeks until November 6th, 2012, election day. Discuss as you please, keep it civil and respectful. Next Tuesday will be Election Day, 2012!
You are free to comment on political issues anywhere else on the site as well, but it might be easier to carry about long discussions in specified threads instead of many different threads over the website.
Noting the presence of hurricane activity off the eastern coast of America, Twitt Flopney has decided that his previous positions regarding FEMA and federal disaster assistance must be reversed. The pious hypocrite realized that millions of registered voters were in the path of Hurricane Sandy. Monday, the perfidious presidential candidate for the Republican Party changed his support for federal disaster relief. He had previously decried federal disaster relief as “immoral” (June 13, 2011, New Hampshire CNN primary debate). His positions have all the consistency of a hurricane projection track.
Truth is–the states NEED to reclaim fiscal responsibility for themselves–by accepting federal assistance for infrastructure , federal grants, not to mention SCHOOLS–we have to go along with Washington edicts. See where that has gotten us.
I am just waiting for someone to declare the election can’t happen next week–ugh–hope I am way off base on that.
Prudence, I am 100% with you. Since Governor Romney started gaining traction on Obama, many conservatives have warned against an “October Surprise”. I put nothing past Obama. He and his gang of Chicago thugs smell defeat and they are squirming.
District Judges
The following data is from an evaluation of trial court judges who are eligible for election in 2012. The North Carolina Bar Association (NCBA) published results of a survey January or this year. Only active NC attorneys were allowed to rate each judge. A true peer review of each judge’s performance based on six categories:
1. Integrity and Impartiality | Judge is fair to all persons, bases decisions on facts and law and refrains from inappropriate ex parte communications;
2. Legal Ability | Judge demonstrates knowledge of law and rules of procedure and evidence;
3. Professionalism | Judge exercises patience, is courteous to all and attentive to proceedings, fulfills out-of-court duties and responsibilities, and upholds the dignity of the office;
4. Communication | Judge speaks clearly and understandably, prepares coherent decisions and carefully reviews orders before entry;
5. Administrative Skills | Judge is punctual and prepared, controls the courtroom appropriately, uses courtroom time efficiently, enforces deadlines appropriately and makes decisions promptly; and
6. Overall Performance | Rate the judge’s performance overall.
The attorneys’ were to rate each judge’s performance in each category, using a scale of:
5 (Excellent), 4 (Good), 3 (Average), 2 (Below Average) and 1 (Poor).
Survey says:
Categories 1 2 3 4 5 6
S. Quon Bridges 3.93 3.60 3.83 3.91 3.73 3.74
John W. Davis 4.76 4.78 4.79 4.74 4.66 4.75
Daniel F. Finch 4.03 4.20 4.11 4.14 4.11 4.14
Carolyn J. Yancey 3.46 3.27 3.48 3.63 3.47 3.31
Additionally, the NCBA asked its members to rank judicial candidates using the same six categories.
Categories 1 2 3 4 5 6
Amanda Stevenson 3.95 3.59 3.80 3.73 3.58 3.73
Quon Brigdes ratings are slightly above Amanda Stevenson in five of the six categories including overall. Based on the data Amanda Stevenson is an improvement over Carolyn Yancey’s. A shame she chose to attack a near equal instead of replacing an inferior.
When faced with a crisis or problem, Mitt Romney’s first instinct is to lie. Witness the false ads in the ultra-important swing state of Ohio. The car industry is very big in that state and voter concern about Romney’s previous statements of unconcern about the auto industry have negatively impacted his poll numbers. His response: LIE. The nefarious Mitt unleashed a series of TV ads upon the poor Ohio electorate falsely claiming that Jeep is going to transfer jobs to China. This LIE has been completely disproved by many sources (including Jeep itself). But the shameless Mitt claims he read it somewhere. Well read this Mitt: YOU ARE A LYING SORRY EXCUSE FOR A MAN.
This just in. Twitt Flopney surrogate former Minnesota senator Norm Coleman, claiming to speak only for himself, has stated concerning Roe v Wade, “…not going to be reversed.” Sounds to me that Twitt has seen some recent poll numbers from Ohio.
THIS JUST IN!! Publius you are an UNMITIGATED FOOL! You call Romney a liar!? He is NOT even in the same league with the resident of the taxpayer’s house in Washington! You just can’t stand the fact that your super-duper, Ain’t telling where I was born, ain’t telling how those AMERICANS got killed in Libya, and ain’t telling HOW I got the money for a supposedly FIRST CLASS education I got and HAS told as many OUTRIGHT LIES as any President since Warren Harding!
Sorry folks, but there is more from the Mitt Romney front: In response to Hurricane Sandy, the Romney campaign donated to the Red Cross supplies, giving the manly Mitt a golden photo-op of him virilly slinging around boxes. The first problem is that the Red Cross only accepts cash donations (due to logistic reasons, I think). Now get this: all the supplies were destined for the swing states of Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania-but not the hard hit, and safely Obama leaning, New York and New Jersey. You can’t make this stuff up.
But YOU are doing very GOOD job of spreading manure! NOW why has that NOT been published on MSNBC or CNN?
Attorneys ranking judges? Doesn’t mean a thing to me — and in fact seems like a joke. I would like to know the ranking from victims instead.
Chill Swampgas, you’ll get a stroke. I intend to bash Twitt every day between now and the election. And more often if I feel like it.
Betterworld–totally agree with you!
Publius, you just told 2 “whoppers” in one paragraph. I called the National Red Cross office today and they gladly accept checks, credit cards, money orders and just about any way you want to donate to disaster relief. The lady I talked with said they had made special arrangments to receive non-perishable supplies such as canned goods, diapers, bottled water, etc .In addition, you should have watched televion tonight and you might have seen one of the Romney trucks being unloaded in New York.
Why are you making something political out of a response to a natural disaster?
Since you opened the door by calling Governor Romney a liar, try this one on for size. “No person in this country who makes less than $200,000 or less than $250,000 as a couple will pay more in federal income taxes next year under my plan.”—Barrack Obama—August 14, 2012. Absolutely false because all qualified dividends which have not been taxed in years will be taxed under Obama’s plan.
Publius, knowing your disdain for Republicans’ veracity, you may verify ,by calling, that supplies collected by Governor Romney yesterday have been received in New York (Queens Village) and arrangements have been made to receive more tomorrow by the South Jersey Red Cross.. Thephone numbers are in the book.
Expanding on yesterday’s theme of Romney’s loose attachment to the truth, let’s talk ethics today. For all you Republicans out there, ethics is the branch of philosophy involving the moral principles about how we interact with each other. It is a basic underpinning of civilized society. One of the basic moral principles is that we do not lie to each other; this is a part of the social contract when we decide to participate in a society. I know, this is pretty basic stuff, but it would appear that some of you need a refresher.
Now, business ethics is something entirely different. As was taught to Mitt Romney at Harvard business school, anything short of murder is allowed if it increases shareholder value. Lying is entirely permitted (some call it advertising). Theft in the form of tax evasion is OK-just don’t get caught! (Actually, murder is moral in the insurance field if the gains are cost effective.)
I’ve posted this before, an oldie but a good, a direct quote from Mitt Romney:
“First of all, ads are propaganda by definition. We are in the persuasion business, the propaganda business…. Ads are agitprop…. Ads are about hyperbole, they are about editing. It’s ludicrous for them to say that an ad is taking something out of context…. All ads do that. They are manipulative pieces of persuasive art.”
This is why MBAs and related **** should not be allowed to be hold high public office.
Betterworld has you know judges apply the law to the facts presented by the attorneys and issue a judgment. In North Carolina the state legislature created a punishment formula that District Judges must apply to criminal cases. Denouncing a judge for applying the law, as written by the legislature and approved by the governor, needs to be based on more than emotion.
Allowing victims of a crime to rank a judge gives a distorted ranking. Many times the victim is seeking revenge for a wrong they have incurred not a fair impartial judgment. Our system is based on blind justice, a fair and impartial justices.
Those doing the daily battling for justice (both prosecution and defense attorneys) are in the better position to rank judges. For knowledge of the law attorneys scored Judge Bridges and criminal defense attorney Amanda Stevenson slightly above mid-point of average. The same group considers Judge Yancey well below average. For integrity and impartiality Judges Bridges and criminal defense attorney Amanda Stevenson both scored a high average while Judge Yancey scored below mid-point of average.
If I were a victim or a defendant of a crime I want Judge Davis to preside on my case. If he is busy then Judge Finch and finally Judge Bridges in that order. I would seek a change of venue if Judge Yancey was the judge in my case. Her peers view her has less than mid-point of an average judge. In her courtroom victims and defendants of crime probably feel no justice or an unfair application of the law.
Publius, I know I am wasting my time bringing up the subject of Obama telling bad-faced lies about his tax plan not raising federal income taxes next year for people who make less than $200,000. Do you not call that a lie or merely deception as recently pointed out by the Washington Times. I have noticed something here about Obama’s supporters. When you mention Obama’s pure lies or his current association with Muslims, Communists and unsavory characters, they never respond.
Sure they do, Out in left field, sure they do. From my experience and opinion, I would much prefer Yancey to Bridges, but of course your mileage may vary (and apparently it does). I agree with you regarding Finch.
It would appear that the tea party tide of 2010 has crested and withdrawn, mercifully murdered by Mitt Romney, probably his only positive long-term legacy. Reluctantly, the TP shifted its support from the exposed moron Governor Rick Perry (R, TX) to the quarter billionaire Governor Romney (R, Mars). The TP rested on an anxiety caused by the fear of becoming less than the majority in “their” own country. Such blatant racism even the spineless Romney could not abide. Although not going as far as John McCain in confronting the hate-born-of-fear that so consumed the TP, to his credit Romney did not feed the beast. (He did make a few snide insinuations about President Obama’s place of birth-the bully in him couldn’t resist.) He finessed TP support by giving the dumb goobers some slight reason to believe that he was one of them by being vague and lying about his plans and ideals. As with the rest of America, Romney intends to sell them out to the Kochs and Adelsons of the world. Having seen their dreams smashed by the man, the TP will crawl back into their hovels and die.
Judge Yancey talks a good game but her courtroom management could be improved. Amanda Stevenson hasn’t got a chance of unseating Judge Bridges. I think the whole entire Courthouse could use an overhaul of both Judges and District Attorneys b/c too many cases are being decided before the doors ever open into the Courtroom. My biggest complaint about the Court System is that you will get more time for a drug conviction in Vance County than you will if you kill someone. Look at the statistics on Murder Convictions…..more times than not it is always pled down to either voluntary manslaughter or involuntary manslaughter. Gives the Court Staff a ‘conviction’ but JUSTICE is far from being served. And you wonder why so many people are ‘packing heat’ in Vance County? It’s because they know they won’t get JUSTICE should they need it from the local Court System.
Publius, You don’t know anything about the TEA Party or you wouldn’t attach the racist label to us. Your fantasy of the demise of the TEA party is just that, a dream. Your love of communism and hatred for capitalism and the free market is because you have no education in civics or history. And I’m sure you don’t care about those truths because clinging to your own bitter and hate filled reality is the only comfort you know. I can only wish that God will bless you and your family and this country. May one day you let love into your heart and learn to respect every person as an individual instead of automatically despising those that would dare to challenge the direction our country is headed now. Just stop and think for a minute, would you prefer that you lived in an America where every person that identifies themselves as a TEA party member is locked in jail or murdered, as all the great communist societies have done through out history with citizens that didn’t conform with their despotic plan? The freedom loving TEA party is not the threat in America, the freedom hating communists are. But your last sentence reveals your truth of how you have been indoctrinated, you do wish us death – “Having seen their dreams smashed by the man, the TP will crawl back into their hovels and die”. Who is the hater, Publius?
OK Dagmar, a little test of your history knowledge .This should be should be easy for a tea partier: During the American revolution, who was Publius? No google, please.
Publius is a troll but a useful one because he exposes the venim and hatred spewing from the liberals now. The Democrat party today ain’t your Granddaddy’s party. Their love of communism is unabashed, they don’t even try to hide it any more. Mr. Brand came out against the free market, although he certainly didn’t wish anyone dead. But there is a huge threat out there for them. The strength and values and popularity of the TEA party terrifies them. Thus the need for Publius to wish us banished and dead and label us racist. He can make no response to the hater charge because he agrees with it and knows it’s true. And Tuesday will be an awful day for him as he realizes that the TEA party isn’t dead but is the leading political power in America today.
MORE TROLLING:
A recent report seems to contradiction a major tenet of modern conservative thought. A recent report from the Library of Congress’ Congressional Research Service seems to undermine “trickle down” theories because they could find no connection between tax rates and economic growth. There was a predictable bellow from the Republican herd. No inconvenient truths! This follows a well-defined pattern of conservative denying the presence of an objective, measurable reality. I call this phenomena the pathogens of the Republican plague (PRP).
Richard Hofstadter studied this phenomenon in his Pulitzer wining Anti-Intellectualism in A American Life. He ascribed anti-intellectualism (the antecedent of PRP) to the reaction of frontier town and village dwellers to the “sharpies” in Eastern cities. Modern studies seem to take a more psychological approach. For more reading on this, I might recommend The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt. A difficult read, but he does bring up many interesting points. He postulates that once a person has adopted a position then she will be resistant to any information that assails that position. No inconvenient truths! This goes far to explain many odd things people do, such as voting against their economic self-interests and watching the FOX News atrocity. I’ll explain the later: Consumers of FOX sewage hear only opinions they already know they will agree with. (Incidentally, I get my sewage from NPR and MSNB: I have unassailable positions to begin with.) Which brings up an interesting point to me. By having their perception of realty obscured are people with PRP at an evolutionary disadvantage? After all perceiving the environment is very important to long-term survival. Seems to me this is the road to extinction, or devolution into something like to a blind eye-less cave fish. Thank god for Darwin.
Who is John Galt?
No matter the outcome of the election Tuesday, the Tea Party is here to stay and is growing. The fact that liberals constantly decry us, points to that fact.
By the way, Publius, you remind me of your boy, Hussein. He reads well what others write and you copy well from articles published elsewhere.
Following WWII (1939-1945 AD), the looting of America began, as the military-industrial complex built up a straw man in the form of Soviet communism, against which a massive military machine must be constructed. American plutocrats were happy to build this machine, of course. Trillions of dollars of debt were built up to finance this fleecing
.
President Lyndon Johnson (D, TX) decided to finance our expedition into Southeast Asia by turning all the social security fund assets into IOUs, thereby making it unfunded, a problem that exists today. A constant theme is the rejection of using current assets, such as cash from tax revenues, instead borrowing from (principally) China. President Ron Reagan (R, Flatlandia) was a particularly forceful proponent of this idea.
Following the downfall of the Soviet Union, our in-house commissars looked elsewhere for spoils. Worker retirement systems proved to be fat little pigeons. Once the retirement systems were insured by the feds, is was relatively simple to take over companies, loot the retirement funds of cash, and then dump the liability on the government. Romney-Ryan continues this MBA case-study today by advocating dumping the Medicare/Medicaid liability on the states.
Things were beginning to slow down; income was flat. Our plutocrats decided to wreck the financial system. The government, again borrowing money, gave the proceeds to the banks since the financial system was too big to fail.
Sometimes foreign plutocrats try to hog in. The mid-east oil barons, noting the dependence of America on the automobile, decided to get their own cut of the action. “Get your filthy hands off my cattle!” cried the vampire squid. Various wars have ensued. China is currently trying a similar strategy. Expect war soon.
Things came to a head since the debt is unsustainable. “Blame it on the poor! They don’t pay taxes, therefore they are the ones that caused this mess!”
Jesus wept, what a con job
Mr Cut & Paste strikes again. What a load of nonsense. Rock on TEA Party! Publius, we are everywhere!
Weeks ago, I tried to tar Mitt Romney (R, Mars) with the philosophy and plans of Paul Ryan (R, AynRandland). I was wrong. Mr. Etch-A-Sketch moved so quickly to the political middle that he left Ryan standing there with his tongue hanging out, saying “Where’d he go?” No mention of voucherizing Medicare or tax breaks for the wealthy. Immigration reform has not been an issue. Climate change, zip. Privatizing national disaster relief, nada. The best conservative minds of his generation (an obvious oxymoron) urged him to go loud and proud. Not the button-downed Mitt’s style. Meek and bleak is more like it. Good thing he didn’t nominate Chris Christie (R, Everywhere). Chrisy would’ve strangled him.
DON’T TREAD ON ME!