Republicans Panic! | The Republican Culture War

Republicans, time to panic!


Two controversial amendments from Republicans go down in defeat.

In Ohio, the controversial SB-5, a law that strips the public sector of their collective bargaining was defeated by the voters.

In Mississippi, the controversial "personhood" amendment was defeated also. The amendment was to make an embryo or fertilized egg a living being. It would put a hold on abortions and cause a threat to the landmark decision of Roe v. Wade.

These culture war battles were defeated by voters. The most important things that came to most voters, jobs.

A sign of disappointment in the public sector. Most voters are rejecting school levies. The voters can't afford paying more for schools. And with Republican governors cut funding for schools and public transportation, these sectors are going to make difficult cuts.

Republicans are not polling well. According TPM, President Obama and the Democrats have succeeded at convincing voters that Republicans are trying to delay economic recovery, according to a series of recent polls.

The new data suggests that about half the country, including a majority of self-identified independents, believe that congressional Republicans are using their political power to thwart Obama’s efforts to reduce unemployment, presenting Democrats an opportunity to make this argument more explicitly as the 2012 campaign moves forward — to undercut Republicans’ claims that Obama and the Dems bear full responsibility for the economy, and to make their pattern of obstruction a real liability for them.

Suffolk University polled registered voters in Florida and found that nearly half of voters, including large minorities of conservatives and Republicans, believed “Republicans are intentionally stalling efforts to jump-start the economy to insure that Barack Obama is not re-elected?”

On Monday, a nation-wide Washington Post/ABC News poll yielded similar results. The question in the Post/ABC poll was different — it asked respondents to choose between “President Obama is making a good faith effort to deal with the country’s economic problems, but the Republicans in Congress are playing politics by blocking his proposals and programs,” and “President Obama has not provided leadership on the economy, and he is just blaming the Republicans in Congress as an excuse for not doing his job.”

Once again, half of their respondents went with option one. But as Greg Sargent noted, that’s because Republican voters overwhelmingly disagreed. By contrast, a healthy majority of moderates and independents agree with the economic sabotage premise.

Also on Monday, liberal blogger Markos Moulitsas publicized the top lines of a PPP poll he commissioned, which closely mimic the the Post/ABC survey: “50% think GOP intentionally stalling economy, incl 51% of Indies, & 15% of GOPers. Details Tuesday.”

It’s not all good news for the Democrats. Polls still suggest Obama hasn’t opened a big gap between himself and the GOP on the question of who’s a better steward of the economy. But if the notion that elected Republicans are blocking economic recovery for political gain becomes a mainstream proposition, they’ve got big trouble — particularly if small but substantial numbers of their own voters believe this to be the case, and disapprove of the strategy.

White Nationalists Want White Women To Trap White Men With Oops Pregnancies » Pro-Male/Anti-Feminist Technology

White Nationalists Want White Women To Trap White Men With Oops Pregnancies » Pro-Male/Anti-Feminist Technology: A White Nationalist said this on Dalrock’s blog:
Here is a somewhat unusual, anecdotal point of view on this subject. In my professional millieu, I am around a lot of smart, attractive late 20s / early 30s girls who have long term boyfriends that to my best judgment are greater betas to lesser alphas, but no marriage or children on the horizon. Further, those girls are really wanting to get that ring and start a family. I talk to a few of them, and overhear conversations of others. The boyfriends won’t shit or get off the pot. And I want those girls to have children.
Now, I understand the legal perils and other things that are causing those guys to hold off on getting married, or having a kid. But somethign must give, or entire crops (LOL at my econ-speak) of smart, beautiful girls will not have children like themselves.

Report paints 'An Unsettling Profile' of Native Americans in Multnomah County | OregonLive.com

Report paints 'An Unsettling Profile' of Native Americans in Multnomah County | OregonLive.com: One in five Native American children in Multnomah County is placed in foster care, often with non-Native American guardians, one of the highest rates in the country, according to a densely-detailed profile of the county's Native population released today.

That compares to one in 63 for Native children across the country and one in 18 for those in Oregon, says the 113-page report, "An Unsettling Profile," produced by the Coalition of Communities of Color, Portland State University and the Native community.

NYPD COPS CAUGHT DIRTY DANCING AT WEST INDIAN DAY PARADE

NYPD Police Officers Bump and Grind at West Indian Day Parade Video

Conservatives Create Class Warfare Game| Republican Culture War In A Board Game!

Jillian Rayfield October 27, 2011, 5:55 AM 4300 69

There is no “Go” space in the anti-welfare board game “Obozo’s America,” but rest assured — you can still collect welfare benefits as you pass the “First Of The Month” space.

The game is called “OBOZO’S AMERICA: Why Bother Working for a Living?” with the tagline “The Most Timely and Original Board Game of the Decade!” The website describes it as “a fun fantasy board game based on the preposterous notion that a Marxist clown, running on the vague and shaky platform of hope and change, could become President of The United States.”

The object is to keep collecting benefits while avoiding the “Working Person’s Rut.” From the rather embarrassingly low-tech website:

Get your initial $1,000 cash grant at the First of the Month, then maneuver along Obozo’s Welfare Promenade. Get cash for your out-of-wedlock children. Draw from a stack of Welfare Benefit Cards. Get extra cash from Saturday Night crimes: Gambling, Armed Robbery, Drugs, and Prostitution. Play the lottery and the horses. Get your live-in a job on the Government Cakewalk. Experience the Jail Jaunt. Avoid landing on one of those dreaded “Get a Job” blocks forcing you onto the Working Person’s Rut (Somebody has to pay for Obozo’s Welfare Promenade). 50 Welfare Benefit Cards. 50 Working Person’s Burden Cards. Lots of funny money.

The site features the game’s mascot “Obozo The Marxist Clown” — who also graces the game’s fake currency — and boasts of the “welfare benefit cards” like “you lose perspective and apply for a job, but are denied it. Oboze says: Scream ‘racism’ until welfare lawyer gets you $1,000 settlement.”

In the Economy version of the game, you get “a stack of over a half-a-million dollars in play money (we’re talking serious welfare fraud here), 50 Welfare Benefit Cards, 50 Working Person’s Burden Cards, 30 Out-of-Wedlock Children.” The Deluxe version has a spill-proof surface and the out-of-wedlock children are easier to cut out of the paper they’re printed on.

Here’s the play money:

And the board game:

You can see the full-size board as a pdf here.

The game was created by Ron Pramschufer and Bob Johnson, who run Hammerhead Enterprises in Maryland, and was originally released in 1980 as “Public Assistance: Why Bother Working for a Living?”

“We didn’t invent this game, government liberals did,” Johnson said then. “We just put it in a box.”

In a press release Wednesday, Johnson announced that the game was coming back, claiming it “was forced off the retail market in the 1980s by government officials working with the NAACP, NOW, and other welfare ‘rights’ groups.”

“We intended the game as a parody of government liberalism, with a special focus on the able-bodied loaferism, welfare fraud, and social chaos its domestic policies promote,” Johnson wrote in 2009. “Threatened by the game’s popularity, embarrassed liberals successfully implemented a nationwide government plan to ‘remove the game from the marketplace.’”

The game was entangled in a number of lawsuits after several government officials and the NAACP criticized it as racist and sexist for its depiction of “welfare queens” and other stereotypes. Pramschufer and Johnson first sued (sub req.) a New York City official who sent a letter to retailers urging them not to sell the game, saying “keeping this game off the shelves of your stores would be a genuine public service.” They lost the case and their ultimate appeal was rejected by the Supreme Court, but they also filed a suit against the NAACP and NOW, according to the AP (sub req.).

But in the 90s when they re-released the game — complete with a new “Criminal Justice” side of the board — and claimed it had been banned, the Attorney General of Maryland said there was never a ban on the game. “The state wouldn’t have had the authority to ban this game whatsoever,” then-AG Kathy Schultz said (sub req.), according to the Washington Times.



Via Ashley Lopez of The Florida Independent.

U.N. Experts to SEC: Conflict Minerals Bill is Working in Congo | Enough

U.N. Experts to SEC: Conflict Minerals Bill is Working in Congo | Enough: The United Nations Group of Experts on Congo wrote to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday to say, in sum, “Since the signing into law of the Dodd Frank act, a higher proportion then before of tin, tungsten and tantalum mined in the DRC is not funding conflict.” The full letter is posted as a pdf here.

This is a significant statement, coming from an internationally mandated group that has done in-depth research at hundreds of mines across eastern Congo over the past year. The group highlighted several key points: