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There's a disconnect there, somewhere, and you don't see it. Are you willing to betray some core values you have to support ones you disagree with simply because it didn't work out?

Actually, I would love to vote Republican -- if they actually believed in the core values they claim to. They simply don't. Based on *results*, the Democrats are actually more fiscally responsible than the Republicans. I'm done listening to what Republicans say they believe in.

And you know what I've (finally) figured out? They've *NEVER* believed in what they say they believe in, all the way back through Reagan, who presided over a huge expansion of government (and yes, I know there was a Democrat congress, but Reagan didn't exactly stand in their way).

And you know what else I've lately found out? Historically, the United States since the 50s has consistently done better under Democrat administrations than Republican ones. Check this out, as one reference. Look for others if you don't trust that one.

I can only conclude that the Republicans talk about freedom, but actually take it away (see also: The SS, I mean, the DHS, torture, Palin mocking constitutional rights in her speech, etc etc). And while the Democrats talk about taking away freedom, they *actually* take away less than the Republicans.

Then when you combine that with the fact that I *DESPISE* the theocratic wing of the Republican party and I think they should mind their own business, you come up with me: a man sick of the Republican hypocrisy, and concluding that the Democrats actually end up doing the least amount of damage. Results, my friend, results. They're all that matters.

There simply is no reason to vote for the Republicans these days. They have all the religious nuts combined with the neocon belief of interfering in every country combined with spenders drunk with their own power combined with the absolute corruption of letting Wall Street manipulate the financial markets.

But I understand your point of view. My hard-core Republican brother is also holding fast to his perception of the Republicans being the "smaller government" party. I'm currently having this same debate with him. :)

The Republicans suck. And they may have *always* sucked.

First of all, Socialism is a big umbrella term that you should just think of as "expensive social programs." If we raise taxes and build more public schools, if we raise taxes again and have free healthcare, if we raise taxes again and make university-level education free... that's Socialism. Not saying all those are good ideas (though Europe seems to like them). It's about wealth redistribution, to try to flatten out the natural tendency of wealth to concentrate and destroy the economy.

Socialism has nothing to do with price fixing whatsoever. Price fixing is closer to Communism - or more simply a command economy - another proven failure.

Second of all, you're being kind of vague about your "Great Depression" theory. You've said something about price fixing and something about the world wars...

Nothing to do with oligopolies, or such a great percentage of the U.S. capital being concentrated in so few hands that the market no longer functioned effectively?

Would you say the regulatory regimes enacted since the Great Depression were a failure?

Lastly, bad welfare and housing policy don't prove Socialism a failure any more than Debbie Gibson proves pop music a failure. Public schools failed because we weren't Socialist enough - we stopped adding money and kept adding children. The Jimmy Carter economy... interesting term. More popularly known as the Oil Embargo, I believe?

I'm surprised anyone but Democrats (which I'm not, incidentally) still play the president/economy game, since the economy very consistently does better under the helm of American Liberals (citation) - at worst, you can chalk it up to coincidence.

When was the last time that the board of directors of Time Warner, General Electric, etc. were writing the on-air scripts and editing film clips and audio?

Straw man. Ever hear of delegation?

The people who do those tasks overwhelmingly identify themselves are liberals

Conservative urban legend. "Studies" that demonstrate this are notoriously flawed.

They'll interview a lawyer/PR spokesperson from the pro-gun control or pro-choice side but not interview a lawyer/PR spokesperson for the other sides,

When. And being pro-choice should be a conservative position as well as a liberal one, as one of the long standing positions of conservatives and the GOP is that the government should stay out of people's private lives. But of course the GOP is now built on top of the God-gun nut-free market jihad, so you'll see this kind of double standards and hypocracy all the time.

And besides if you want to talk about how media covers stories, remmber that the media was overwhelmingly pro-NAFTA and pro globalization, as well as pro-deregulation and pro-big business. CEO's and other businesspoeple outnumber workers interests, such as unions, by thirty to one for media appearances. There are many television programs devoted to business, but not a one to workers or consumers.

rather they'll go find some fool wearing a bit too much camoflauge

Well, that is a rather accurate chariacature of the NRA. Rather than talking about gun education and the responsiblities of gun ownership, all of their political efforts focus on fighting off all forms of gun control. They talk about firearms as if they were magical firearms, guranteed to keep away robbers and evil governments. Speaking of evil governments, they complained about that a great deal during the Clinton years, going so far as to call federal agents "jack-booted government thugs". They've been oddly quiet during all of Bush's shenanigans, however. There's that hypocracy thing again.

Click here to read about it. (which is a link to an older Slashdot comment regarding this nonetheless) or just jump right straight to it.

Fair question. Let me educate you ;-)

One of the quick easy charts to give you the idea.

A much more detailed break down of the numbers.

Your welcome ;-)

The methodology used by the authors for assessing media ideology is completely untenable. There are three principal reasons for this:

(a) The approach G-M use establishes media ideology indirectly, by using the media's think-tank citations and comparing those to think-tank citations by legislators in order to find the legislator whose citations are the closest match. Thus, if a legislator is liberal and the media's think-tank citations match that of the liberal legislator, they would declare the media to be liberal. Momentarily setting aside the fact that this definition of media bias is itself incorrect, their claim would make sense only if it can be independently proven that the think-tanks cited by the liberal legislator are actually liberal. Their study does not prove this at all, considering that their methodology to establish think-tank ideology is itself deficient. Thus, at a fundamental level, their entire conclusion on media bias breaks down. (NOTE: It is not at all implausible that left-leaning legislators may cite more centrist think-tanks in public than progressive/liberal ones, especially considering how the liberal advocacy groups and think-tanks are tarred negatively by the GOP in the illiberal conservative media).

(b) The use of weighted-average ADA scores (for the House and the Senate) is slightly more meaningful than the Median (which they used in the original version of their paper), but even this is completely deficient and incorrect because the ideological center is set not using an independent, objective measure of ideology but based on the (political) positions of the people in Congress at a given point in time. Thus, their model simultaneously assumes that ADA scores can provide an absolute picture of a legislator's ideology but that media and think-tank ideology should be determined not using the same absolute reference but a relative, moving reference that is highly dependent on who's the majority in Congress and how they think or vote. This is not an acceptable model, for, if the minority party becomes the majority party in the next election, the derived ideology of think-tanks or the media could change significantly even though their actual positions underwent ZERO change.

Put another way, if the Republican majority suddenly decides to become 100% conservative, guess what happens. The weighted-mean ADA score would drop, even if the Democrats in Congress DID NOT change at all, and even if the media outlets that are considered "liberal", by the G-M definition, remain STATIC (i.e., no change in their think-tank citation ratios and that of the corresponding "liberals" in Congress). In this case, even though the media's ideology has NOT changed at all, it's adjusted ADA score(s) will artificially look more liberal compared to the lower weighted-mean ADA score. (BONUS FOR LEFTIES: This is right in line with one of the long-time Republican strategies of declaring the media (and Democrats) to be too "liberal" by moving the country to the Right). This is not a partisan issue though. The opposite could occur when we are talking about media outlets that are considered "conservative" because they match the citations of conservative Republicans and if the Democrats decide to become 100% liberal.

(c) The final, and perhaps most serious, problem with their analysis is their attempt to derive a conclusion of media bias using this study - because their definition of media bias, is in itself, completely flawed. Their confident conclusion that they have demonstrated "liberal" media bias is wrong because the study

President.

House and Senate show similar trends, but not as pronounced. Actually, the worst possible scenario is for one party (either party) to control both, which supports my own pet hypothesis that a gridlocked legislature benefits everyone ;)

Various people have been taking a close look at the historical data over the last year or so, and there were a few stories on slashdot about it maybe 6 months ago. I used to have a great link that laid everything out quite clearly, but I lost it during my recent move. The data is all publically available.

Anyway, from memory, looking at the averages over the last century or so (or as far back as information was available), here's how it plays out:

GDP average annual growth was over 5% under Dems, about 1.6% under GOP.

Dow-Jones average annual growth was about 12.5% under Dems, and about 8% under GOP.

S&P500 average annual growth was about 13.5% under Dems, 8% under GOP.

Jobs: the worst Democrat was better than the best Republican, and not by a small amount IIRC.

Spending: Republicans spend more, even if we ignore defense spending (which is indeed lower under Democrats).

Taxes on average were lower under Republicans, but only by about 0.5%

Average individual income over the last century was slightly higher under GOP, but if we only look at the years since Reagan took office the Dems claim this one as well.

Anyway, a quick googling didn't turn up the page I was looking for (at least not in the top results), but I did find this interesting discussion which IMO does a good job of putting it all into perspective, and especially with regards to the fatal flaws in supply-side economics.

Start a war and I'll be first in line to stop you with all necessary force.

Why? At some point, shouldn't reasonable people realize that they share different value systems and agree to split up -- amicably? If it weren't for the fact that the blue states essentially subsidize the red ones -- best link I could find was here -- I'm sure they'd be happy to see us go.

But as I've said before: I'm sure that with strong morals, a lot of prayer and -- this is the most important part -- no gay marriage, the red states could make up for the lost income in no time.

You jest but...

From what I can tell, for the most part the "red states" care more about religious values than anything else. Evangelical Christians were one of the strongest voting blocs in Bush's base, according to what I saw on CNN last night. Gay marriage is more important to these people than the US's financial future, safety, etc.

The "blue states", IMO, have different agendas. I'm in California, and I'm not that overjoyed by the ideas of the Christian right running my life. Similarly, the voting population of the red states probably doesn't like the thought of all us heathens out here.

At some point, why not just call it an amicable split? Of course, the blues most likely contribute a higher percentage of US GDP than the reds. (Best link I could find was here.) But I'm sure that with strong morals and a lot of prayer, the red population could make up for that in no time.

Really? Looks a little different here. I see an awful lot of reports of Republican shenanigans on that list.

Sweet jesus, that list is terrifying. Mod parent up.

Parent AC's link:

a list of known voter fraud this election. A very _long_ list. What's really scary is how many of them are being perpetuated by actual, official party members and reprasentatives - its disgusting the teflon coating some of these people have.

If Drudge is reporting it I would suspect Democratic fraud is alleged.

Meanwhile, the Republican party is engaged in massive, organized vote fraud. Does anyone care?

Piece of cake

Come on now. A bunch of veterans take it personally when one of their own comes out against the Vietnam war and you don't even take the time to do a simple Google to check if they make any misstatements. What's wrong with you?

"How Many Swift Boat Vets does it take to tell a lie?"

Well, one to claim he was not in Cambodia, one to claim he was not within 50 miles or so of Cambodia, one to claim that he was within 100 yards of Cambodia, one to claim he was in Cambodia, one to claim there is no "watery border" between Vietnam and Cambodia, one to claim that there is, one to claim that no Swift Boats could have entered Cambodia, one to claim that they did. And all of this just from one Swift Boat Veteran from Texas.

http://swiftvets.eriposte.com/sbv_v_sbv.htm#4_1

However, it doesn't take much to stumble upon well researched information concerning the Swift Boat Veterans themselves, nor the actual photocopies of the citations for John Kerry. I present the following URLs for you to make up your own mind, and I welcome any other URLs:

FactCheck.org
Disinformation.org
Washington Post
Swift Boats Eriposte"
... there are so many more I can't even count, just Google for yourself.

I must admit, I find it amazing that people continue to attack Kerry's role in Vietnam, while seemingly at the same time perfectly able to ignore the ample facts that George W. Bush didn't make it anywhere near Vietnam, and Vice President Dick Cheney managed to skirt the war entirely. Those are indisuputable facts.

The SBLfB are at odds with people who actually served with Kerry, official US Navy records, their own past statements, and cold hard reality.

A systematic take-down of Swift Boat Liars. They don't even past the laugh test.