Wales2004

Now it's a campaign about the 100% http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2012/09/19/romney-softens-tone-at-univision-forum/

I'll call it a day with this: <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/zWd__w5UWVc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/wp43OdtAAkM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Cousins <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/jaXRDZQOGi4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/LM3ssoWjwY0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Wow! Thanks--that made me wonder why I have Kashif but no George Benson on my iPod. <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/puQ8B74xvmY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/o-wZgo9B_bU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Janis Ian - At Seventeen <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/f7kc144yy8Y" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

People in the 47% to whom he refers are apparently most likely to vote Republican. http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/18/how-do-the-47-vote/?partner=rss&emc=rss http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/09/19/wonkbook-the-47-percent-by-the-numbers/

The best part I've heard so far is when he tells his benefactors that he received a call from a former Secretary of State who he didn't want to name and that individual told him there was prospect for peace between the Israels and the Palestinians and he said "really" and left it at that explaining that he didn't delve into it. I don't think his mouth is in his foot on this one. I think he believes just about everything he said with the exception of possibly embellishing family stories. Now there's concern that a French cartoonists depiction of a naked Mohammed might cause some demonstrations targeted at France.

It would be different if he said things that have been totally misconstrued. I think he meant what he said and he said what he meant. I don't know how you take out of context someone saying that he doesn't need to do anything if elected president because the economy will essentially fix itself at that point. Or some of the other things he said. He cannot have "misspoken" throughout that entire video ore else he's just plain dumb and shouldn't be in charge of much of anything.

I think the statement depends on what people see as federal taxes which apparently don't refer to personal payroll taxes. If personal payroll taxes are considered then that number is reduced. The bottom line though is that he inaccurately refers to them as those who would vote for Barack Obama when they in fact include people who are likely to vote for him. What matters is that he is dismissing a segment of the population as people he will never reach when they include people that are likely to support him and whose support he needs. That's not a very smart move on his part. Some of these may even be independents. But this almost seems like nothing compared to the rest of the stupid things he said on that video.

I came across a Gilbert O'Sullivan cd in my collection with that song a few weeks ago. This I love for the lyrics: "Darling I know I'm just another head on your pillow...." and "You say comfort me to anyone who approaches....but we've both lived long enough to know that we'd trade it all right now for just one minute of real love.." <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/-XDZjLAV66A" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> It reminds me of this: <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/4Zz8mbqtgO8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> which naturally leads me to this: <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/fEXWECGhVoA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

As I said in my response to you before. We obviously see things differently and should just leave it at that. I don't find it beneficial to engage in discussions or debates where I have to substantiate all my claims and the other person can pick and choose when to give a response and what constitiutes sufficient validation. It's kind of like my saying that I.D. would not help in instances of voter fraud where people are voting multiple times or in other instances where identifying the voter is not the issue and not having that acknowledged as a valid point. Since you've already stated that Mitt Romney never brought up race or ethnicity then his standing before the NAACP specifically referring to free stuff would mean nothing to you anyway as he goes around telling other groups of people he addresses the same thing. For anyone else who may be interested, I don't believe if a person refuses to meet with another once that it then constitutes turning his back on that person. I don't think blowing up Iran or whatever the plan is to pertaining to Iran has any direct correlation to the unrest that this anti-Mohammed video is being used to stir up. Oh and I have no idea what Barack Obama promised on energy but I doubt that he claimed he was going to fix America's energy dependency issues in less than four or even four years. And if he did, then whoever was naiveenough to believe him now knows better. Wasn't he basically saying the people who don't pay taxes are the people who vote for Barack Obama? Even if he was referring to those statitstics, he still implied that all those people are moochers. He must not use tax loopholes or anything to attempt to pay as little in taxes as possible. He hides his money in other countries and he's attacking a percentage of the population for doing essentially the same thing he does, only in their case they have less income and those loopholes keep them from having to pay. Plus I am not sure that I believe that many people paid no federal taxes at all because even under a meager income there are automatic deductions made to a pay check and it would have to mean that all those people received 100% of whatever was deducted back and that seems a more likely scenarion under EIC than it does in general. They may not have owed any money but I can't believe that many people would have gotten all their federal deductions back.

I don't see where Barack Obama is trying to be friends with terrorists, but we apparently see things a lot differently. I also don't see where he's turned his back on Israel and how bowing to Benjamin Netanyanhu would have changed any of what is currently going on. And now Barack Obama is the one who is responsible for making America dependent on foreign oil. So in under four years he was supposed to take office and change America's energy habits??? We obviously see things differently and I will just leave it at that. Thanks for your response. I don't know that this is true because there seem to be a fair share of delusional people in society. Mitt Romney's statements are in line with his position that black people want free stuff thus the dependency on the government. The problem is with his math because black voters don't make up that percentage of the population and he's not going to open his mouth and claim that any of these dependent people he's talking about are white because a percentage of the welfare recipients are probably some of those extreme patriots wedged into the Republican party. Then he tops it off by suggesting that Hispanic/Lationo voters would be squarely in his corner if his father had actually been a Mexican. America seriously needs a president who looks down on more than half the population. It's so truly American.

This may seem an odd question but I am curious about what is meant by the term "African-American" to those who use it. At first I thought it was one of those politically correct (but highly inaccurate) terms people used instead of saying "black," but I've since read online disputes about it being used to refer to black Americans who are descendants of the African slave trade. I personally don't use the term because I think it leads to a great deal of unnecessary confusion in a nation that already has more than enough confusion over racial issues. People tend to use it interchangeably with black which would imply that all black people are American, which is of course not true. I've even heard someone use the term "American African-Americans" as a way of make a distinction between black Americans and non-American black people. "African-American" is not a nationality since there is no such nation as Africa-America. It's not a race and mankind did not originate in America. It's not an ethnicity because those brought over in the slave trade were not all from the same place in Africa and Rwanda is an example of an African nation where the nationals are not seen as one people so it's highly unlikely that those who were sold into slavery from various locations all came from the same ethnic group. The slaves may have all come from the same continent but they didn't all speak the same language and weren't one people. African is used here as if it's synonymous with black and it's not because not all Africans are black--regardless of whether people want to debate over what constitutes a true African. Any person who was born in an African nation and lived his or her life in that nation is more of an African than any American whose only connection to Africa is being or believing (without complete certainty) that he or she is a descendant of Africans. Anyway, I am no fan of that term nor Asian-American or any hyphenated American term unless it is being used to refer to a naturalized citizen.

I know that the liberal media does not love him but that doesn't stop some of them from letting him dance around direct questions. I can't recall ever hearing a president be blamed for acts of terrorism. Even when Osama Bin Laden wasn't pursued when Bill Clinton was in office (after that initial attack on the World Trade Center) and the attacks on 9/11 took place, I didn't hear anyone suggest that it was Bill Clinton's fault for not having Osama Bin Laden captured nor did anyone blame George W. Bush for it being under his watch. I would like to know what botched foreign policy Barack Obama has in place that has resulted in what's been taking place in certain nations overseas. Please enlighten me.

This is how I feel right now minus the Coke

Where does that leave you and me because you actually quoted me?

In order for a person to be able to live an entirely race free existence in America, she has to shut the media out because for some people that's the only reminder. I first heard the "post-racial" term after Barack Obama won the nomination. I was watching one of those panel discussions and someone said that Barack Obama, Cory Booker and Deval Patrick represented "post-racial" politics and I figured that people in the media especially love to coin phrases that mean absolutely nothing to me.

There's no problem with guessing based on history. Assuming that a serial killer is likely to be a white male is radically different than believing that all white males are geneticaly disposed to being serial killers. Because they are white, society is more likely to profile a serial killer in general as iin what type of characteristics a serial has as opposed to basing it on race. Let me try another example. The U.S. Track and Field team has primarily black sprinters on it and they generally dominate in world competition. If the U.S. sprinters were white and won world events regularly, is it likely that anyone would question why white athletes are dominant in sprinting events and try to come up with some genetic reason why? I would say not because no one questioned when they won events before. Yet the question arises for black athletes which leads certain people to make it a genetic affair. So then you have people believing that slavery produced this master race of black American athletes even though every black American is not a sprinter or anywhere close to being one. Other athletes train to excel in their particular sport but black people are just naturally gifted because the idea of a black person having to work hard at something is unfathomable. Yet if a bunch of black American kids turned out b be geniuses, that wouldn't be blamed on genetics. And hard work would not be credited. In fact, there'd probably be some sort of inquisition made since some would be convinced that it't not at all possible that they could be geniuses. I work on my prejudices so little by little I make less assumptions about people I don't know. Things such as assuming that you know what a person looks like based on a name on a piece of paper or a voice over the phone. Or assuming what a person will be like based on the person's look. Our society encourages that sort of thing so it's harder to resist.

That may be true but people are also taught stereotypes. Kids are raised to believe that they are different from other people and that those people will either resent them or hate them because of those differences. It's no different from parents insisting their sons not cry because that will make a boy less of a man. Kids are taught to be racialists in much the same way with various justifications. It's one thing for someone else to believe stereotypes about certain individuals but quite another for those individuals to perpetuate stereotypes about themselves. Society likes to overlook the self-steterotyping because that truth would distract from the other. Your rebuttals are valid but I also happen to see some validity in those statements as well. I find race discussions non-productive because they usually amount to the blame game with one side pointing the finger at the other and neither being able to see an ounce of truth in the other's position. There is this insistence that there can only be one truth when it comes to racism, racialism et al and that's not the case. If one girl grows up in Beverly Hills and another grows up on the east side of Los Angeles, they're likely to have completely different experiences because of their different environments. In fact, two girls who live next to each other or in the same house can experience life differently but people will be adamant that if they happen to be black that they are the same. The ones who don't fit the stereotype are "accused" of not being black or "acting white." On the one hand you have stock responses from white people: --I am not racist because I don't see in color and I don't care if you're red, brown, black, white or piurple. --my neighbor (who I apparently allow to live near me) is black, or my co-worker is black or someone else with whom I don't normally socialize is black but I talk to that person so I'm not a racist --Barack Obama is president so racism is over (even though I would never have voted for someone like him) and when anyone claims that black people can be racist too then someone black may deny it on the basis that only people in positions of power can be racist and since black people are not in positions of power they cannot be racist which isn't true. Black racists do exist. They are usually referred to when white racists want to deflect so they point out that there are black people who are just as ignorant about race as they are--as if that's a good thing. Then you have black people who seem to believe that all white people do is sit around and plot the demise of the black man. I've seen some of the most ridiculous things blamed on white people and the first place some people go is not to the stupid thing they did to cause their problems but to white people and slavery is the root of every problem, according to some. There's plenty of blame to go around but that's been the way for quite a long time and where has that gotten anyone. It might help if people are honest about their own prejudices instead of keeping them at point just below the surface that causes them to go to that place first when they get a tad bit stressed or angry. This is why I love the movie Crash so much. It's a good depiction of how people walk around oblivious to their own discriminatory ways but are so easily able to hone in on someone else's and become outraged about the same fault as theirs in another because theirs is, of course, justified.

The whole sexism against women thing is pretty much the case though there are some old timer women still hanging around like Barbara Walters, Andrea Mitchell, and the ABC News anchor whose name escapes me at present. But they usually won't allow a woman who looks like she's pushing 90 a la Regis to co-host a show with a really young guy. Even though there are those who prefer any man over a woman for president, Hilary Clinton had other issues such as people who flat out don't like her or her husband and her campaign underestimated Barack Obama's campaign, so there is more to that story than one single obvious factor. Let's not kid ourselves and pretend that there aren't any black voters (besides Samuel L. Jackson) who voted for Barack Obama on the basis of race. There are voters who voted against him for that reason and there are white voters who voted for him for that reason to feel good about their charitable open-minded selves. People who assume that every black voter who voted for Barack Obama did so on the basis of race are wrong. Some did. I can reiterate that Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Carol Mosely Braun, Alan Keyes and whoever else may have run would have received a whole lot more votes if black voters only voted on the basis of race. We can acknowledge that some people did without falsely claiming that every one did. One of the things that makes the mention of race such a hot button topic is the continued insistence that black people operate off some shared brain cell that can only see in black. There have been a bunch of white serial killers in this society and no one has suggested that white people are genetically predisposed to becoming mass murderers. How long would it take for someone to get on television claiming that black people had a mass murderer gene if......? So no. All the black voters didn't go out and vote for Barack Obama on the basis of race....only some. And not that this has anything to do with anything but I won't let that stop me--I was watching a show on MSNBC last week and someone said something about slavery and the White House and how nice it is to see this first family. I get Michelle Obama's background but the whole idea that Barack Obama's mother allegedly had a blood tie to the first documented slave from the African slave trade is a bit funny. I mean if you can't tie the father to it then his mother will do.

Barack Obama is not proof that America is "post-racial," he's just evidence that some white Americans have no problem voting for a non-white American male for President (or a half-white one since he's biracial). The fact that he has to be identified as black and not accurately as biracial is a great indication that this country is stuck in a racialist ditch. If he "looked white" but had the same background, would people fall all over themselves insisting he was black because of a racist "one-drop rule," or would he be allowed the privilege of being white? This makes zero sense to me in terms of logic. If society hates women more than black men then the issue was sexism. He benefitted from the fact that people would rather embrace a man in a position of power than a woman. If he won because of his race then it would mean that people would prefer a black man over any other candidate which was not the case. Rejecting a woman is not the same as embracing a race. I find the whole argument about people not having qualifications to be president neither here nor there. I have disagreed with others on the topic of who is more qualified when it comes to comparison but there is no list of quallifications to be president other than age and citizenship. That's pretty much why some are able to look at Sarah Palin and claim that she's just like them and should be president on the basis of their commonality. Would I ever suggest that anyone who is just like me be president? No, because I would prefer to see a person who is extremely more knowledgeable and rational than I am in any public office. So if Sarah Palin is qualified then so is Barack Obama. This is head shaking worthy. Your co-worker sounds like one of those racialists who believe there is a special way for black people to act and speak and if they don't then they must not be black. C. Rice's father had a darker skin tone than she does. Whether that makes him white is beyond me but if there is a "gene" for that then everyone in a family would have the exact same skin tone if they have the same two parents. America is proably the only nation where race isn't just about what the naked eye can see but it's about speech, behavior, musical tastes, food, athletic ability, disposition, intelligence, and fashion. One of my high school teachers told me that she was shocked, when she went to England, to hear the little black children speak cockney. So she expected black children all over the wolrd to sound the same when all the black children in America dom't. But we pretend they all do. And we pretend that whoever does not is exceptional because this one individual has defied the racial boundary and has managed to construct a grammatically correct sentence. The irony in all of this is that people swear that either all people or just black people originated in Africa. Since when did anyone look at Africa and claim that there was any uniformity going on in terms of speech, behavior, food, intelligence, fashion, etc? How did black Americans become the standard for what constitutes black when there are more black people outside of this nation than in it? Sheer ignorance. We can accept that white people are diverse. We can even accept that there are various breeds of dogs. We cannot accept that black people are diverse in any way. In politics there is no break down of black voters because everyone knows that black people can only be black and gender does not matter, Age does not matter. Level of education does not matter. They are all the same rap loving, ball playing people. Oh and I am not at all saying that you think this way....it's just a general observation. And because of that abolishing DADT doesn't mean a thing. So if a new man comes in and gets rid of DADT plus doesn't support gay marriage, are they better off? I am not saying he's going to make it any better but he did take a step forward and is certainly unlikely to take them backwards which would make some better off than the alternative. I am just guessing though. This relates to what I said above. Black people are diverse as hard as it may seem. They don't all have the same problems and needs. I don't know what the plight is but there are more poor white people than poor black people in this country. It's logical because there are more white people in this country. People can argue that the rate of povery among black people is disproportionate but it is only that way because it's made in comparison to white people. So if Barack Obama cannot stop porverty for white people should he pass a special law directed to end poverty for black people only? How many people would find that racist? I read a blog in which the blogger suggested that there be reparations and that the prison system be abolished because it's unfair to black men. That sounds like a great plan right? Let criminals run around free because some feel that black men are in prison for crimes white men get away with regularly. It would not make sense to imprison criminals across the board? Technically, Barack Obama cannot do anything for black people in this country until white people in this country stop patronizing black people as some sort of charitable project and start treating them as equals. If that happens then I bet there will be less idiots on televison suggesting that Barack Obama hasn't done anything for black people. He hasn't fed them, hasn't given them jobs, and he hasn't kept them out of prison. They all went to the same school, they all have the same degrees, they all studied the same subjects, and they all have the same skill sets and qualifications so he's going to pass a national decree to make sure they all get the same job.

Concrete or not, news outlets are referring to it as a factor. The filmmaker is reported to have gone into hiding. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2202080/Innocence-Muslims-creator-Steve-Klein-said-felt-guilt-death-Chris-Stevens.html?ito=feeds-newsxml My position on voter identification hasn't changed. I have no problem with it but I think it should begin January 1st and not so late into this election cycle and registrants should be included in a national databse to prevent individuals from simultaneously being registered in more than one location. If a registrant moves, that information should be included.

A film that is deemed anti-Muslim sets off attacks against the embassies resulting in death/murder and somehow Iran's nuclear missile program is at the root of it. So taking a hard line against Iran and starting another war would fix the whole film protest? Diplomacy is even more convoluted than I thought.

That sentence seems a bit off to me. I don't know anything about the feud but clearly two Israelis (Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak are not in agreement with each other when it comes to relations. Also, I commented on information available at the time you made your post so if you're saying something happened today then I would have no way of knowing that it would but still the two Israelis see things differently. Please explain to me how Voter I.D. would have prevented this Wendy Rosen from voting in two different states. She probably has I.D. for both states. The problem in this case seems to be the ability to register in multiple states. If a person resides in more than one state then wouldn't it be up to that individual to designate one of those states as the primary residence for the purpose of voting? It seems that there needs to be a national system in place to verify that a person is only registered to vote in one state and that would have to include being able to distinguish people with the same names from each other.

I don't know whether Barack Obama will improve anything if re-elected but I do believe he won't feel the need to cave in to the Republicans if given another term. He won't be compelled to just accomodate them since he won't be concerned about running for office again. Those who want to keep their seats will probably end up backing off some of their tough talk since they will need to be more mindful of their constituents.