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Barack Obama Retains US Presidency
Fox News, NBC, and CNN have called the U.S. election for incumbent Barack Obama. Of the so-called 'battleground states,' Obama carried Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin, and New Hampshire, which, along with all of the solidly Democrat-leaning states, was enough to push him beyond the 270 required for victory. You can check this chart to see the full list of states that have currently been called, and by which news networks. The NY Times has an excellent interactive map showing all election results updated in real time, as does CNN. It's currently projected that the Republicans will retain control of the House of Representatives, and the Democrats will retain control of the Senate.
Not really. Two sources of data I user are electionprojection.com and electoral-vote.com. One is run by a liberal, the other by a conservative, but both are data driven based on several polling services. Both has Obama winning 303 electoral votes, Both sources have predicted correctly each state, and I see the possibility of two states going against their prediction (Florida, they predicted for Romney, Va they predicted for Obama). Based on the polls, this election has really been over for a couple months. So, only a media wanting a major even was predicting a long, drawn out affair.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
But is there any difference ?
Yes.
Now my turn for a question: do you pay the slightest attention to what our politicians do?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
And both seem to want to increase government surveillance and trade freedom for safety.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Then you'll see a huge difference.
In your opinion, do you think an Al Gore administration would have led us into war with Iraq?
1. Declare a national holiday so all can vote on a day off to eliminate the lines.
2. Get rid of the electoral college.
3. Get Congress to override Citizen United.
4. Take the money out of the electoral system.
Funny, I'd put "educate the voting public" ahead of any of those.
Of course, it will never happen, since it suits both major parties perfectly well to keep the voters ignorant.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
Please, let's stop pretending that Bush started anything.
1) He started the invasion of Iraq.
2) He started torture as official US policy.
His predecessors were hardly any better.
After World War 2, the USA convicted several Japanese soldiers of water boarding American and Allied prisoners of war. The US government hanged them for that crime.
George W. Bush will forever be known as the President who first sanctioned torture in the USA.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Ok, honestly, I wish people could try to be a little less partisan. Both men were good men and would try to serve this country. Sure they both have selfish motivations for some of the things they do but, seriously, who the hell wouldn't in that position???.
Let's all agree that, though Obama may do things differently than you personally think he should, he's going to lead America as best he can.
I'm generally conservative/libertarian in my politics and most of my friends align in that direction. I infrequently use Facebook and when I looked this morning I was disgusted with the ridiculous epithets and flat out doucheiness of a LOT of people who call themselves "Christians" or at least moral people.
Obama is a good man. I would lead a bit differently than I but he's NOT a "Baby Killer", the "Antichrist", the "Nigger in the White House", or any other hateful and decidedly unchristian thing so many morally ugly people are saying about him.
He's your president. He's your supreme leader. He's under tremendous pressure and stress to serve America and her interests. Speak of him that way or shut the hell up.
...Thankyou American voting public.
Please mod the parent up. I remember back during the Clinton days in a red state the amount of vitriol and extremely vile and vulgar things said about Clinton. Then in the Bush days, particularly in the second term, it happened all over again. Remember the stupid "miserable failure" campaign to manipulate Google's search? If I recall at the time many slashdotters thought it was pretty clever. Some people went so far as to claim Bush would hold onto power somehow (watch the same things will be said of Obama now).
Now again we see the same crap uttered by those who voted for the other team.
It's this behavior that's destroying America as much as any party or policy. It's time to stop it. No, just because the majority of Americans voted a different way then I did, it doesn't mean democracy has failed and the country is going to self-destruct. And no, just because the majority of Americans *did* vote the way I think they should have doesn't mean that those who didn't are somehow less important than I am.
Yeah, Clinton with his 3.5% unemployment, 3 years of balanced budgets and 8 years averaging 3.7% GDP growth really sucked. I'm glad those days are gone.
[/sarcasm]
At lest we wouldn't still be stuck there a decade later. When Democrats go to war, they tend to strike surgically based on the advice of expert strategists who actually went to school to learn how to do these things. They don't tend to crow about mission accomplished before we've even gotten started.
Fuck man, I would have campaigned for him....
Can you say Telecom explosion? Clinton prospered because our ability communicate went supernova.
Good-bye
In contrast, there was 9/11 - sure, most people think it was the Saudis, but there are too many questions unanswered, like the lack of debris, lack of video, lack of an airplane at the Pentagon
Lack of debris? Lack of airplane? If you believe that, I'd seek a second opinion if you said the sky is blue.
but not to make Obama look bad. They should obstruct his "agenda" because it is the wrong direction for the country.
Yes, it would be bad form for the country to help veterans find jobs. I am sure every single one of the republicans that voted against this bill had also opposed the unfunded wars that created these veterans in the first place
Oh, wait...
They didn't vote for Romney, they voted republican and Romney was the name next to the (R). Even saying that they "voted" is kind of a stretch, it implies a decision with at least some consideration behind it. People have their favorite brands, and for some people that brand is republican.
After World War 2, the USA convicted several Japanese soldiers of water boarding American and Allied prisoners of war. The US government hanged them for that crime.
US justice consistently ruled waterboarding a crime from the time of the Spanish-American War until this century. We have convicted foreign troops for doing it to ours, our own troops for doing it to foreigners, and even civilian law enforcement agents for doing it to criminals or suspected criminals.
But no one has the political courage to slap a President and Vice President in prison for it. We'll impeach a president for lying about an illicit blowjob, but not for authorizing war crimes.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
It is easy to look back now and say that they are both good people with the best interests of the country in mind, and that is probably true. But elections and candidates are not mirror images and there are not two equal sides; this election was Dreams From My Father versus No Apology. After John McCain corrected an audience member that called Obama an Arab, the response from the electorate was a net negative; Obama supporters were mad about the comment and McCain supporters were mad that he looked "weak." That was the exact moment that truth-telling became a liability in the eyes of political advisers and name-calling whisper campaigns came back into fashion.
This year, the Romney campaign decided that intellectual honesty and demonstrable facts are no longer important in presidential politics and almost managed to win the White House with that strategy. All politicians lie at times, to various degrees, often by omission, but the Romney campaign correctly observed that the resulting sound bites are a net positive, e.g., the first debate.
Neither man is Hitler, but during the post mortem, which will be all about demographic shifts, business cycles, and the "ground game," everyone will pretend not to notice Romney's flaming pants. Nixon would have been embarrassed by the GOP campaign this year (including all the talk about "legitimate" rape and the complete abandonment of science and observation.) And it's our fault because, over the next four years, we will let the Obama administration lie to us and equivocate over everything from regulatory reform to drone strikes while FOX News tries to drum up another faux scandal. People will put their partisan blinders back on and pretend that it's ok when "our guy" lies--and besides, Romney was so much worse.
I'm happy to see Obama back in office and I'm relieved that there won't be a republican in the White House to acquiesce to this bat-shit crazy House, but I don't buy the argument that Romney would have done a good job as president; he would have tried, but he is a self-obsessed moral relativist that is too comfortable with lying to be the figurehead of (what is still) the most powerful nation on Earth. He further damaged political discourse, further legitimized the fringe, ultra-right-wing of the party, and did nothing to discourage the hate-filled name calling to which you refer. Childish name-calling serves no purpose and denigrating the president just further polarizes the country, but lies are lies and we shouldn't be afraid to call Obama out on them and hold his administration accountable when they will inevitably start oozing from the White House.
Actually, I wrote my thesis on life experience.
It's a shame we learned so little from Vietnam. Yes, I was there in '68.
No fair, my post used actual numbers and yours are complete baloney.
... that would be the appearance of safety. I don't think anything that has been done has actually added any significant safety.
LBJ made a grave mistake in Vietnam. Now look at who seems to have learned from that mistake and who still wants to blunder in against the best advice available.
Either party is deeply toxic towards America with their own unique blend of anti-freedom, anti-citizen agendas.
FTFY. Replacing the word citizen with consumer in public discourse is one of the toxic things they have done.
one that wants to make the country beholden to christian interests (pretty much above all, other than the almight dollar).
the other is nearly neutral (as neutral as you can get these days) on the subject.
in obama's speech, he talked a lot about inclusion.
in romney's speech, he said he'd 'pray' for the other side.
if you don't get that they are *worlds* apart, you have your head hidden somewhere dark.
we got the right guy. luckily, we avoided giving mandate to the american taliban party.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
I think Nixon would be saddened to see what his Southern Strategy has morphed into.
One thing is clear, the Republicans have to recognize now that they have a serious problem. Yes, they've still got the House, but so weak, fractured and dominated by fringe special interests is the Republican Party that they could not even push over a President mired in economic woes, and whose major policy initiative (Obamacare) is still distrusted by over half of Americans.
To Republicans I say this. You will hear Tea Party and social conservative types blame Nate Silver and the other pollsters, talking about media conspiracies and so forth. It's time to tell Donald Trump to form his own party, time to tell the Tea Party that they're influence has been purely malign, a tumor on the Republican Party that is forcing poor compromise candidates who are then further shackled by having to try to find some way of convincing Americans they aren't social Neanderthals while still maintaining the support of these social regressives. If you cannot purge the party of these types, or at least put them back under the stone from whence they came, you will be denied the Presidency again in 2016. You have to decide what core conservative values are, and if you cannot align them with the national mood, then you're going to come back disappointed.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Police/TSA officers are more of a threat to US citizens compared to Osama ever was.
I saw that too. McCain did multiple appearances on The Daily Show over the years. Before his nomination, he sounded sane and thinking and even justified some of the "maverick" label he had acquired. After he "won" the nomination, the money people of the RNC completely hosed him. They told him what to say, what to wear, what to eat, what to think, and none of it was him. It was some neocon wetdream that is such a tiny minority it continues to astonish me how much power they've acquired over the Republican party, at all levels.
We know where that power comes from, too: money. There are a few completely insane exceedingly rich people who basically control the Republican party lock, stock, and barrel, because of their money. They "donate", they call the shots. And they're NOT conservative. They're ridiculously regressive. Conservatives like to keep things more or less the way they are. That's the definition of the word. Don't rock the boat if the boat is floating and making progress. The people that control the Republican party are anything but conservative. They want to change everything, starting with Roe vs. Wade and working their way down a very long list that would push us back to as close to pre-Civil War society as makes no difference. Even further, in some cases, to pre-Revolutionary War. I swear their ultimate goal is to engender a literal American aristocracy, with themselves as the aristocrats. It's sick, and it's un-American, and they should be stopped.
It isn't the terrorists that will bring down the US...it will be our mismanagement of the economy, and I'm afraid we as a country put a few nails in the coffin with the re-election of this guy. Sad day for the US....
I don't see it. It took Bush's economic policies (tax cuts for the rich, getting our country attacked by not listening to the previous adminiatration or his own FBI agents), and starting two very expensive wars to nearly bankrupt us. Bush went into office with a balanced budget and a booming economy, and left it with the largest defecit in US history and the economy in ruins. You expected Obama to fix in four years what Bush took eight to destroy? Are you mad?
When your wife leaves you broke and in debt, what do you do? You cut spending as much as you can, get a second job if you have to (increased revenues), and guess what? You're going to go even deeper in dept before you can get out of it. You gotta eat. That's where the country is now.
Unemployment is lower than when Obama took office, there are far more jobs available than when he took office (Bush is still history's only President to leave office with fewer jobs than when he was elected), the Iraq war is over and Afghanistan winding down. Things are getting better, fool. But Romney's plan is to go back to the Bush policies. All I can say is WTF?!?
Free Martian Whores!
I don't think anything that has been done has actually added any significant safety.
How about ending our presence in Iraq? Do you think that has anything to do with your safety? It does. Allow me to explain.
Check out this wiki page. Give it a good once-over, then let's talk about the contents.
You'll find that a good base number for civilian deaths in Iraq is a little over 100,000. That seems to be the average agreed upon number. We'll go with the AP number, 110,600 deaths. AP is reliable, and it's a decent average for the most conservative estimates for loss of life. Now note the time period. "March 2003 to April 2009." That's 6 years and one month. Are you with me so far?
On 9/11, the terrorist attacks accounted for the loss of 2,977 lives. Now let's look at those numbers and see what they mean.
110600 / 2977 is 37.15. So what that means is that we have killed 37 times more civilians than the 9/11 attackers did. The 9/11 victims and the civilians in Iraq are alike - all innocent people that did not deserve to die.
March 2003 to April 2009 is a period spanning 6 years and 1 month. That's 73 months. And 73 / 37.15 is 1.96. That's almost exactly two months. That means that what we've done to Iraq is like a 9/11 style attack every two months for over six years. Remember how pissed off we were after 9/11? Imagine that every two months for six years running.
110,000 families missing a loved one. A child they raised, a mother they loved, a father that will never come home. 110,000 families that have a good solid reason to absolutely poisonously passionately hate our guts.
Still feel safe? It took only 19 guys to carry out the 9/11 attacks.
My point is that it absolutely matters who is President. Decisions will be made that will affect your safety directly. You need someone at the helm that makes good decisions.
It matters. A lot.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.