Vee

The reason Romney has backed off Libya is because clear-headed, incisive reporting on Libya has proven there is nothing there. The CIA has backed that up. A series of unfortunate coincidences and yes, possible security failures, and a national tragedy. But not a cover-up or a gross failure from any department. The other reason is because every time Mitt has tried to go there he has humiliated himself and looked like a fool. Starting in September, and capped off with the second debate. After that, you couldn't get him to say Benghazi on TV with a cattle prod to his nuts. The Republican Congress also doesn't want to explain why they cut embassy security funding. In the right-wing noise bubble you can get away with the endless conspiracies into conspiracies based on no real evidence. You can get away with gleefully reprinting pictures of Chris Stevens' ashen corpse being dragged through the streets and claiming without proof that the Libyan citizens were not taking him to shelter, but instead off to mutilate his body after - this is actually part of the RW coverage - raping him before his death. And maybe that will even work for you in a Republican primary. But it doesn't work in the national race, or in the national eye. It's a paranoid right wing fantasy of a Jimmy Carter reprise, 24, xenophobia and homophobia all wrapped in one insane package. It just doesn't work in the light of day, and that's why the nation has rejected it. It's a loser. But Rush Limbaugh and Drudge and Breitbart say it's still hot, even when America has forcefully rejected it. They never get out of the bubble and take an honest look at the state of the nation. That is why they lose.

You mean these numbers, Casey? Here, I'll even put in RCP's laughable version of "national average." You'll forgive me, but I think the Obama edge in many of these and the very tight race otherwise looks pretty good - particularly since RCP is a known, slanted and shamed right-wing organ. As for Scott Rasmussen, he's another infamous right-wing hack who has been criticized heavily by the media for years now because of inaccurate and poorly-sourced polling which often tightens just before Election Day. And then there's Gallup, which has been a laughingstock for months but particularly in the past month, or as the New York Times puts it, it's Gallup vs. the World. The ABC poll completely avoided and low-sampled the Northeast, and really, there was no point in polling during Sandy because of that. But some people will poll anyway to try and preserve a horse race. If you really want to go with this, though, and never step outside the right wing noise bubble courtesy of Breitbart, Drudge and RCP or look at the real numbers, sampling and other factors, then good luck, Casey. Just don't look at me with doe eyes on Election Night like you guys did in 2008 when everything was 'good news for John McCain.' Republicans are always baffled when they lose, but a large part of that confusion stems from the fact that they never get out of the RW bubble, and only accept the facts and numbers that they choose to believe. All inconvenient truths are blamed on bookish homosexuals like Nate Silver.

I'm saying you're not showing me any actual polling to deal in. I'm also saying that even RCP's electoral maps have Obama at 290 - and that's the one with no toss-ups in the mix.

RCP? Those crusaders against "anti-conservative, anti-Christian media bias?" LOL.

The only person whose campaign has collapsed is Romney's. Everyone knows it. The numbers know it. It's been like this for weeks and it's only gotten worse for him. Rasmussen and Gallup are outliers, and the press knows it. And Chris Christie certainly knows it. The media has been trying to preserve the horse race, but it's been falling away from them for days. The only way to keep it up is to keep pushing the outliers. "Unskew" the polls all you like, but the most conservative estimates have Obama at 290-295 EV. And I haven't even mentioned the debacle that this national tragedy is for Mitt.

The thing is, the Romney momentum myth was dispelled in the last week or so - it was all a bluff. The numbers did not back it up. They've started coming to terms with that, but they continue to pretend he is competitive in Ohio when he's really not very competitive. Except without Ohio there is no game. Sandy or no Sandy, they'll have to face up to that sometime late next week in order to avoid looking like fools on the 6th. I think Nate Silver and most other reliable predictions had Obama at 290-295 EV.

There's nothing official on Romney and Ohio. It's just scuttlebutt right now, though I could swear I had seen a few reputable articles regarding backchannel talk in the past couple days. Let me see what I can find. The media is trying to pretend Romney still has a shot in Ohio, because without that shot that's the end of the horse race. He really doesn't. As per Nate Silver (who the right wing is now smearing as "an effeminate castrati"):

Oh, no, they've gone full bore with that stuff in the last two or three years in particular. BBCA began a much bigger national push starting with the Moffat era. I've seen it around in comic shops and so on.

I'm not surprised River is back. I figured she would be around at least until shortly before Smith and Moffat left, whenever that may be. Matt is signed through at least 2014, I believe, and I think it's confirmed he is doing Series 8, though I don't know whether that airs in fall 2013 or early '14. They never gave her a goodbye in TATM, so I knew she'd be around. Lots left to do. I would cry if they did another tie-in with the SJA kids sometime during the anniversary. Have Luke, Clyde and Maria (or Rani, or whoever that little girl was they added in the last series I haven't watched) pop up to help the Doctor.

Pretty much all the legit polling shows Obama pulling out a commanding lead. Which is why I laughed my ass off when I saw CNN the other night showing Obama up four points in Ohio and Wolf Blitzer staring into the camera calling it "a tie." I've heard Romney may be pulling out of Ohio and trying to peel off Nevada. It can't be done. He cannot win.

From the anniversary celebration today at MCM London: Matt Smith confirmed River Song would return soon enough. Also, there was this cute bit:

Speaking of Joe Scarborough, this morning Joe came to terms with some of the hard math (and I think he may be wrong about Virginia and Florida, to name a few). There isn't a YT upload yet, but it's here and the discussion really starts several minutes in (around 3:30). Oh, and I was right about Virginia - this morning's Pew poll has Obama up 5 over Romney at 51%.

In other news, Colin Powell will be on CBS This Morning today, and looks set to endorse Obama again. ETA: And yes he did!

The most terrifying thing about Joe Scarborough these days is that compared to about 75% of the current Republican legislature and government, he is a compassionate moderate. He's a sane man. A partisan, and almost relentlessly wrong, but he has some sense. Most of the actual elected Republicans today do not, or have ceded it for political expediency - something John McCain's been doing since 2000 in the hope of being president, and now does seemingly out of sheer spite against Obama. And while McCain sold his honor for his campaigns, he still had a set of core beliefs which he deeply felt and stood by in his campaign. George W. Bush, for all his catastrophic decisions, was the same. Even though he was a wrongheaded, arrogant fool, even as he drove this country into senseless war, he cared deeply for the men and women he sent to battle and wept for them. I don't believe Mitt Romney cares about any of that, or anything else any of the most arrogant of those men cared about. He just cares about closing a deal. I've never seen anyone so utterly amoral in my admittedly-limited political lifetime. This, too, is why all the Republican candidates in the last four years, to a man, despise Romney - he has no core. For all their horror, no one could say the neoconservative lobby did not truly believe what they believed about America or the world. I think Mitt Romney only believes in himself. That is unbelievably dangerous. Fortunately, he's not going to win. The wind is now Obama's, as are the polls. I look forward to casting Mitt forever to what The Simpsons called "the land of wind and ghosts."

She's the daughter of Lenny and Lisa Bonet. Absolutely beautiful girl, she also co-starred in X-Men: First Class., a.k.a. the only good X-Men movie. But she had very few lines there, and that's because she's more of a vision than an actress. She does alright in this film, but she has some wooden-ness and is clearly struggling with the weight of carrying it. EJ Bonilla seemed much more natural here than he ever did on GL. But yeah, Billy Kay - it was odd. He does look the same, but he also looks like a slightly heavy adult playing dress-up. It was a tad Jason Priestley or Luke Perry on 90210.

Minor note: Two young GL vets have turned up in something I had to watch recently - Yelling to the Sky, a gritty if derivative indie about a young girl (Zoe Kravitz) who turns drug dealer. Has Gabourey Sidibe from Precious as her nemesis, but as for GL, EJ Bonilla (Rafe) has a bit part as one of the girl gang's boyfriends, and Billy Kay (Shayne) - now 28 years old - is still playing high schoolers. He turns up as a preppy drug dealer in a sweater vest with longish hair. I guess he sort of sells it, he still looks about the same, if a bit puffier. But it's a little silly.

Amazing how it's always "that lone guy".

50/50. Please. This ain't 2000 or 2004. Voter suppression can only do so much in 20 fuckin' 12. It was a wide enough lead in '08 to be unable to be faked then, and Mitt Romney is no John McCain and Paul Ryan no Palin (who was equally a fraud, but a far better entertainer). It's not going to be close. Yes, I have been drinking, what of it.

Romney had a very slim chance before last night. If anyone thinks he has a chance after last night, I got a bridge to sell you. That Libya answer is going to live in infamy. It's history now, and Obama broke him on live television, with spontaneous applause.

That was lovely.

Get ready to cry.

There was no reason one of those kids could not be Brenda's, either, maybe fobbed off on a relative or adopted, in secret. That is an old, old soap staple. Remember, a weird plot point of that first season was that Kelly had a young son by Dylan, who was a deadbeat dad. It would've ignited that show like wildfire if Kelly discovered one of her students (and one of the regular teen cast) was Brenda's illegitimate son/daughter - also with Dylan, but conceived in the '90s during their time together away from the States. I thought Jennie Garth in particular had a formidable presence in that early time of the new show, and thought they really fucked her and the two Wilson parents over.

I lost interest in that show once they dumped Kelly, Brenda, Ryan Eggold, Rob Estes and Lori Loughlin. It was already swiftly moving to terrible before that but it really got bad when they cut all those ties and started blitzing through stories and pairings faster than B&B. A real waste of talent and of a brand. AnnaLynne McCord is great, as is Jessica Stroup, as is the guy playing Navid, as was Tristan Wilds (on The Wire). And Jessica Lowndes is talented, and Matt Lanter is still hot. But the show is a hot mess.

After Dorian confessed in 2007, they very deliberately changed the date of Victor Sr.'s death back to the '70s in the Lord crypt. I think that said it all about RC's regard for the 2003 story.

Dorian out and out said she killed Victor in 2007. I don't know if I believed it, but I think it was more explicitly put there - however randomly - to cast doubt on the 2003 story where Malone foolishly revived Victor. Dorian addresses it with "if that was him..." In typical Carlivati work, this would be a lead-in to a future retcon of a bad story/explanation, but they never touched it again. I always preferred that Viki did it, but w/e.