Go vote

[Ksandra]

I need to keep venting this but spamites are retarded sometimes.

Two students I tutor (they are exchange students from China), go to a christian high school (they are not christian but it's a pain to go to public and christian schools are usually the cheapest private).

Anyway I found out how hard they push the repub/tea party agenda at their school. They had Tea Partiers last week try to get kids to join them, and this weekend they were required for a huge history grade to volunteer for the republican party (for two hours they had to call people to get them to vote republican). No choice on which party to volunteer for, repub onry. On top of that unless they agreed with the repub candidates they got their grades marked down (had to do assignments on Whitman etc.).

Today they were telling me some retarded shit that their history teacher was telling them.

They were like "Ms. Katie, did you hear about Obama and India?"

I said "No"

They said "How can you not know, it's BIG news everyone at school is talking about it. He is on vacation in India for a month and spent...."

Basically, this:

http://www.rightpundits.com/?p=7610

And they added that India chopped down tons of coconut trees because they were afraid a coconut would fall on Obama's head.

They were laughing so hard and the teacher was demanding that kids should write to their representatives to have Obama impeached for spending all our money on this.

They ended it "isn't obama crazy?!"

So of course I factcheck it on my phone and sure enough there is no proof to this at all. Some random India newspaper said it with no proof and the extreme right ran with it like crazy.


And I was forced to try to explain to them that it's not true, without calling their teacher a complete fucking moron.


/rant

[Eanae]

That has to be some sort of illegal...

[Atreides]

if it's a private school then nope

also WA was finally called for Patty Murray, gives Dems 52 seats (including Lieberman and Sanders).

[Kuya]

Lieberman lol

[Atreides]

he's up for re-election in 2012, hopefully someone finally gets that whiny piece of crap out of office but I doubt it

9 Republican seats, 21 Democratic seats, and Lieberman/Sanders in 2012 actually. Can't really make any predictions at this point, but considering how blue Massachusetts went this year I'm guessing at least Scott Brown won't get a 2nd term.

[Talint]

he's up for re-election in 2012, hopefully someone finally gets that whiny piece of crap out of office but I doubt it

9 Republican seats, 21 Democratic seats, and Lieberman/Sanders in 2012 actually. Can't really make any predictions at this point, but considering how blue Massachusetts went this year I'm guessing at least Scott Brown won't get a 2nd term.

Scott Brown's a dope -- his platform was "I LIKE TEE-RUCKS!" after all -- but the republican machine is well oiled in MA. It's doable, but tough.

They'll need a strong candidate.

[Atreides]

I just really hope we don't lose McCaskill or Feinstein Or Menendez I guess, since he's one of my senators

[Coren]

Unfortunately neither of my senators will be up for re-elect for 4 years. Of course, when you live in bright-red SC, it's largely irrelevant. The same douchebags will keep being reelected (the ever-effeminate Lindsay Graham and the king-douchebag Jim Demented)

[Atreides]

i found it particularly hilarious when Jim DeMint was talking about "washington outsiders" on cnn today when he's been in office since 1995

[Ksandra]

Remember when Obama gave a speech to students at the beginning of the school year and Republicans accused him of indoctrination?

did the students get their grades marked down if they said they wanted McCain? Or did you not read everything?

[kuronosan]

I think you missed the point of his comment.

[aurik]

if it's a private school then nope

Vote Rand Paul '12

[Ksandra]

I think you missed the point of his comment.

sounded a lot like he was saying dems whine the same way repubs whine. If I misunderstood I apologize.

[kuronosan]

No, I believe the point he was trying to make was that everyone was bitching about Obama "indoctrinating our youth" with his propaganda and his agenda, yet here these people are forcing the same youths to support Republicans, Tea Partiers, and even go so far as to alter and affect their grades if they don't.

It's called hypocrisy, except Obama wasn't ever trying to indoctrinate anyone. These assholes are.

[Ksandra]

I got ya (b'')b

[Ksandra]

ya well people were calling me a hypocrite in spam so I took it the wrong way, I'm sorry D:

[Plow]

That's part of the reason I feel politicians these days are just as jaded with voter as voters are with them. There's no way either party can win a race based simply on people who will always vote Republican or always vote Democrat. So the race hinges on appealing to swing voters, but no one can appeal to the swing voters without also alienating their base. Of course, the reason their base votes the way they do is, more often than not, they don't bother to educate themselves on the other side of an issue, or even care about everything important going on. Democratic voters see Republicans as ignorant and greedy, Republican voters see Democrats as anti-American Socialists. Sure, that's the extreme, but it's really what it boils down to. So a politician could come into Washington with a great plan to do something like reform Social Security or protect the environment or make jobs, all his opponent has to do is say "he wants to spend all your money!" and the rug gets pulled out from under him in the court of public opinion.

Of course, our major media outlets are a major factor in this issue, but let's be honest - all this talk about government accountability and transparency is garbage. All the information is already there for anyone who wants to get at it, the problem is that very few people ever take the trouble to actually look it up, because our brains are wired to prevent us from thinking that we're ever wrong.

The problem is that there's no damn reason to be undecided, and that's entirely the fault of the politicians.

There's nobody differentiating themselves from their party at this point (no, taking your party's views to the extreme is not differentiation), even on single major issues.


I honestly can't think of a single person from either party that was worth a vote from the opposite side since Glickman.


Basically, they've taken the 2 party system to the point where being undecided just means you're fucking stupid, so all the politicking is directed at full on retards.

[Dantrag]

So, from what I heard on NPR on the way to work this morning, we're not going to see unemployment change enough to make a difference by 2012. According to the report if we manage to hire 230,000 people per month it will take 10 years to get back to 5% unemployment :/

[izembo]

surprise surprise it takes time, and it would no matter who controls senate/house/presidency. each party just likes to waste all their time blaming each other for everything when they wouldnt be any better

[Dantrag]

surprise surprise it takes time, and it would no matter who controls senate/house/presidency. each party just likes to waste all their time blaming each other for everything when they wouldnt be any better

That wasn't the point of my comment. I was saying that because even if it does start to pick up the best we can hope for is 8.5% unemployment by the time Obama is up for re-election, and I'm not sure how well that bodes for him. Hell, it could reflect badly on the Republicans but I'm not sure it will. But we really don't know what will happen 2 years from now.