November Election 2012

Church Elder Paul Newby defines his decision-making process:

So, I think most importantly, it is as I said, conscientiously before God, I will perform the duties of my office. And certainly I understand whether it's Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, whether it's the preamble to our state constitution ... 'all' means all, and our rights come not from the government, or the Bill of Rights or the Constitution, but our rights come from our creator."

In Western civilization anyway, most of the rights we attribute to a free society weren't really formulated until the 16th Century. They might have been developed sooner, but religious leaders of the time worked hand-in-hand with monarchs to preserve their respective power bases. Not to mention, if those rights did come from the Creator, why did this entity wait for 1,500+ years to put them in place? And what about these "rights":

Looking for a worthy candidate to support? Look no more:

Lillian's List took bold steps this election year by endorsing 26 pro-choice Democratic women running for the legislature and Council of State – our largest group ever! We've analyzed the districts and identified 10 General Assembly races in which our candidates are facing serious threats and need your help. Please consider supporting one of the following women.

Some of you may be uncomfortable focusing on gender as a motivator in this election. But unless you've been living under a rock, you already know that gender has been a focus on the right, and not in a good way. Women have been losing rights on the public policy front, and losing seats in our Legislature. And it's long past time to do something about it.

See if you can spot the irony in this Tweet:

RickyDiazNC 1:32pm via Twitter for iPhone
Crafted with pride in USA towering over Carolina comeback rally at Copland Industries in Burlington. #ncpol #ncgov pic.twitter.com/Ps5xYmxA

The biggest threats to U.S. manufacturing are free trade policies and the ability of mega-corporations to offshore American jobs with no consequences, and the GOP fully supports both of these job-killing activities. But don't take my word for it, here's James Copland (of Copland Industries) himself:

We'll start out with the meme of the week:

Jerry Tillman‏@jerrytillman Free stuff or Freedom. Pick one. You can’t have both. #ncpol

Says the man who's pulling in a retirement check as a former school administrator, and has pulled in close to a half-mil in campaign contributions from his other public job. But that's different...

Unfortunately, it will be hosted by a Conservative astro-turf organization:

Incumbents for the Supreme Court and Court of Appeals and nearly all of their challengers were slated to participate Tuesday night in judicial debates sponsored by a Winston-Salem chapter of the conservative-leaning Federalist Society.

And I'm sure the "sponsor" will choose which questions to debate. At first, I was somewhat incensed that this would be held in an (apparently) lawyer-only venue. But if the questions are already bent before the debating begins, maybe that's for the best.

Direct from the horse's er...mouth:

“If I had to do it over, I probably wouldn’t have released this poll because it allows people … to try to taint all of our polls. If you do as many polls as we do, some of them are going to be bad...I will acknowledge that we ask questions with a bent on our monthly polling,” he says. “We’re trying to find out when politicians frame things in certain ways how they will be perceived by the general public.”

Translated: "When an elected Democrat makes a statement that can be taken out of context and twisted into sounding like something bad, we take advantage of that and put it in front of 600 people at a pop."

We'll start off with an eye-opener:

Rob_Schofield 11:24am via Tweet Button
NC congressman needs to apologize immediately for appearance on "white nationalist" radio show shar.es/u2uzX #ncga #ncpol #bluenc

Hat-tip to my man Rob for linking to this article:

It worked in 2008, and it will work this year:

Among 18- to 30-year-old voters, 36 percent are “very excited” – the lowest level of any age group. The poll also shows 58 percent of N.C. likely voters age 30 and under support Obama versus 34 percent who would vote for Republican nominee Mitt Romney.

Logic would tell us that the more "mature" voters would be the ones who would weigh evidence and vote objectively. Unfortunately, most of us have already made up our minds, using an astounding level of immaturity in the process. So it's up to those meddling kids:

AARP establishes a new resource for probable benefit changes:

When elected officials talk about the future of Social Security and Medicare, it's usually a lot of "Washington-speak." AARP is working to change that by making sure everyone in North Carolina understands what's being discussed in Congress and has opportunities to express personal points of view. We've enlisted a broad range of experts from all political views to share their ideas so you can understand the pros and cons of leading proposals on the table in Washington.

Here's a link to the AARP page talking about this, but I think there's supposed to be a whole different website. I'll keep looking when I get a chance.

I voted for Barack Obama for President because I am black and I felt strongly that he was intelligent enough to hold the title. I have gone through 12 years of schooling and heard that black folks could become the President one day so when the opportunity came that I could vote for a black man then why in the hell would I not vote for him? I have voted for white men up until “our” current President was elected.

Hell no “our” current President didn’t have any experience at being the President because he had never held the title before. But none of the others before him had held the title before they became the President either. So what is the damn problem?

I can say I found Barack Obama while surfing the net when he was running for US Senate. I was on his mailing list up until that election was over.