Free Republic

Time to start a petition to have the signers of that petition publicly mocked for thinking it’s unpatriotic to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

I hear that a lot, and I don’t doubt it’s true. But I wonder where is the money going?

If it’s going to large military bases, those will be radically changed by any secession. If it’s going to military contractors, those will become a source of revenue as the US will continue to buy from them, at least temporarily.

If it’s going to supporting infrastructure or welfare, then that’s a bigger problem as any new governments would face a lot of wrath if they tried to change it. (Though, I suspect a number of bums would leave if it came down to it.)

You're absolutely right. Zero's antics really makes it seems like he thought he was behind. And the low rally attendance and lack of yard signs sure made it look like he was behind.

Either the Dems play a really deep game, pretending to be weak when they are strong in order to make Romney complacent. Or they really believed same things Romney's camp did and it just happened that the level of fraud matched what the polls predicted.

I suspect he played it safe in the last weeks in order to avoid losing a lead that he never actually had.

He seems to have spent the last six weeks of the campaign looking presidential and coasting to “victory”. If he realized he was losing, he might have been more aggressive—hit hard on Libya, etc. And he probably would have spent less effort mandate hunting (by winning PA, WI, etc) and more time focusing on states he needed to win.

The lack of turnout really is a puzzle. Perhaps the energy and excitement was too localized. Perhaps the fair-weather conservatives did not feel the energy that we felt, and thus they didn’t think it was worth their time to vote. Perhaps if the Tea Party rallies had been going on throughout the summer and fall, more people would have been energized enough to turn out.

I don’t think there was much energy on the Rat side either. How did they manage to turn out +6 more than us? They must have a very workman-like attitude, where they show up to vote even if they don’t care enough to go to rallies or put up yard signs.

I’m not so sure we need too many more minority votes. If Romney won the midwestern states of MN, PA, IA, WI, and OH, he would win even without FL, CO, NV, NM, and VA. Those midwestern states are 85% non-Hispanic whites. If Romney won just 60% of the white vote in those states, he would be President-Elect today.

We can’t ignore the latino vote, but I also don’t think we need to pander to them either.

I think we have a serious problem with the voting process in general. We can't vote for who we actually want, we have to vote for who can win. That problem is the reason Slick Willy managed to win despite over half the electorate voting for a conservative in both 92 and 96.

I wonder if the primaries would be a good place to experiment with a "preferential voting"-type system.

Running as a third party would make life difficult for Rand Paul. (Does Rand endorse the GOP pick or his father?) Hopefully that will make Ron think twice about causing too much trouble.

That's not the issue. The issue is changing the taxes collected based on what someone says, in order to discourage them from saying it.

What was the point of your original post? If the point was to say "all religious organizations should pay taxes", I can respect that regardless of if I agree with it. However, if your point was to punish people you disagree with by singling out non-profit organizations they work for, without any reason to believe that the organization is involved; then you've got to be kidding me if you don't see how that's a loss of freedom of speech.

I apologize if I’ve misinterpreted your comment.

You seemed to imply that the churches that those pastors worked for should lose their tax exempt status. However, there is no indication in the linked news story that those people, who happen to be pastors, are using the church resources for politics.

So, either:
A) I’ve misinterpreted what “Howz about” implies.
B) You know more details of the situation than I do.
C) You believe that churches can/should lose their tax exempt status for the things that their clergy do and say on their own time. In which case, it seems to me that clergy wouldn’t have freedom of speech.

(By “permanently” I meant “when outside of work”. From my understanding of the rules, the churches can’t advocate politics nor can the pastors advocate politics while representing the church. But pastors are free to advocate politics on their own time just like anyone else. If my understanding is in error, I would appreciate learning more.)

When was it decided that clergy permanently lost their freedom of speech? I don't see anything in the article about this being done from the pulpit.

I don't think they will split any conservatives, but I they would split Republicans. There will be a lot of Republicans who will vote for the GOP nominee simply because he's the one with the R after his name.

Moreover, I suspect the MSM will do everything in their power to portray a third-party conservative as a crazy spoiler with no chance of winning. That will push some of her base to the GOP nominee simply because they view him as having the better shot of winning.

Palin as a third-party would just weaken the conservative vote. But I would love it if she reenters the GOP race. Anyone over Mittens. I don’t want to have to vote Ron Paul just because he’s the last non-Mittens candidate standing.

Wiki says that it happened two days ago. I’m shocked they could keep it wrapped up that long. Had anyone heard any rumors before an hour ago?

I was thinking back to this. Now that I re-read it, it's hard to say how much of that was genuine support for Romney and how much of it was just anti-support for McCain.

She did, but it was an obvious joke. She said that a national sales tax would become expanded over time. "When you take the 9-9-9 plan and turn it upside down, the devil is in the details" (laughter)

I wish I knew more about this, but from what I gather he didn’t use the Nuclear Option to change the filibuster rules. Rather he used it to change the rules on amending bills.

Still the precedent is there for some future Senate to use for changing filibuster rules. It’s unfortunate in a way. Needing 60 votes helps to give the Senate consistency from one election to the next. (If 60 Senators support it today, odds are that you won’t get 60 to repeal it next year.)

Hopefully we can get enough Dems to support repealing Obamacare without needing to change the filibuster rule.

It’s not just history either. Marxists are killing North Koreans right now.

PA has been a blue state for a long time. Unless there has been a sudden sea-change that has made it more conservative, odds are that if we win PA, we’ll have also won Ohio, Florida, Iowa, etc., and so we won’t need the extra votes.

It might also help the residents get their voice heard if the candidates stop by the swing districts.

I haven’t listened to Rush in years. Is he backing Cain now or still Romney?