Puterbac News Network and Political Discussion Thread

[Professor Tiger]

Why Michigan’s GOP Primary Won’t Change Anything for Romney

A question: Does it matter who wins the upcoming Michigan primary? I can only foresee two scenarios in which it does: First, if Romney were to lose to Santorum decisively, one could imagine the GOP establishment waking up the next morning and scouring the country for a white-knight alternative. At that point all hell breaks loose, and you and I are as likely to be the GOP nominee as Mitt Romney.

Alternatively, if Romney were to beat Santorum decisively, finally making inroads among the conservatives that have eluded him all primary-season long, one could imagine the party pretty quickly consolidating behind him. In that case, he could effectively lock up the nomination on Super Tuesday and turn to the general election.

But I don’t think either of these scenarios is very likely. Michigan is Romney’s home state, after all, meaning he probably starts with some sort of floor. Meanwhile, he’s likely to outspend Santorum by a margin of 3-to-1 or 40-to-1 or 1,700-to-1, depending on which reports you believe. So it’s hard to imagine Santorum getting too much daylight on him.

On the other hand, the polls—both in Michigan and elsewhere—have consistently shown deep conservative skepticism toward Romney. I have a hard time imagining him dispelling it between now and February 28, notwithstanding his recent claim to have suffered from severe conservatism (covered under Obamacare, fortunately).

Which leaves two probable scenarios: Either a single-digit Romney loss or a single-digit Romney win. If it’s the former, the GOP establishment will no doubt wake up on February 29 with persistent indigestion. But it’ll just be a slightly more advanced form of the same malady they’ve been suffering since South Carolina. I doubt it’ll be acute enough for them to want to blow things up and place all their chips on the next Rick Perry (which is to say, an untested candidate who looks good on paper but could easily self-destruct). In that case, we’re almost certainly still looking at a long, ugly slog to the nomination for Romney.

And if Romney wins by single-digits, it won’t be because the party has suddenly decided he’s a dreamboat, but because he deployed his millions to make mincemeat out of yet another conservative challenger. In that case, the only thing we’ll have learned from Michigan is that Romney can win when he presses his financial advantage, but not when he doesn’t, which of course we already knew. We’ll still be looking at a long, ugly slog to the nomination because—as we saw last week in Missouri, Minnesota, and Colorado—Romney is likely to lose again the second he eases up on his opponents, something a de facto nominee typically prefers to do in the spirit of party unity, and so that he looks big and confident heading into the general election.

So my guess is that Michigan changes nothing. Win or lose for Romney, we’ll still be stuck in the same pattern: Romney pulls out victories when he spends a lot of money and when the demographics tilt in his favor (i.e., proportionately fewer conservatives and more affluent people), and loses when he either doesn’t spend enough money or the demographics aren’t sufficiently in his favor. Unfortunately for Romney and the GOP, that’s a hell of a depressing way to win a presidential nomination.

[Big Orange Junky]

Your gubment at work.

So I get a call tonight while out coonhuntin inviting me to go rabbit huntin in the morning. I don't have a rabbit gun so I went to get one.

I find out that for some idiotic reason I citizens are only allowed to buy guns until 10pm and not at all on holidays. Well that makes sense.......................NOT.

Anyway, I'm OK I've got about 20 minutes to get it and they have a nice Mossberg 12 ga pump that I like.

But nooooooo the gubment employees won't answer the phone for the background check after about 9:30 even though the law says they are supposed to be able to sell guns until 10. They go home early or something the store employee tells me. They never answer the phone.

So you bedwetting liberals should be happy. Your idiotic gun laws prevented a law biding citizen from buying a hunting gun within the legal hours to purchase one because the gubment employees that are supposed to run the background checks won't answer the phone if it gets close to the time for them to go home...

Typical gubment for ya.

[Jungle Rat]

It's the end of the fucking world I tell ya!

[bluetick]

See, who says there can't be bi-parisanship in congress. This should make bluetick happy...

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0212/73006.html

Keystone is good for the country and is moving forward after initial concerns have mostly been addressed. Bully!

[Dr. Nostron]

Did you say wabbit??

[puterbac]

The South loves its government benefits

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012 ... tml?ref=us

Umm...more than half of that 17.6 percent (9.7) is social security and medicare which means we have more old people living in the south. Throw in another 0.4% cause more vets live in the South and it accounts for 10.1 out of the

Unemployment insurance is more clustered in the north and coasts and accounts for another 1.1%.

What can I say poor folk tend to live where its warmer and also immigrate where there is more opportunity.

BTW KNOX cty is exactly at the national average. Cuyahoga and Montgomery country in OH are above the national average. Slacker.

[puterbac]

Classic...touts the plant he fucking sued to have blocked from ever opening...

Obama touts S.C. Boeing plant that NLRB sued

http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer. ... ued/381216

[puterbac]

Heh...

Animal rights group says drone shot down

http://thetandd.com/animal-rights-group ... 3ce6c.html

[Dr. Strangelove]

Quick check at state unemployment rates, North versus South. Numbers as of Dec. 2011. I've bolded southern states

North Dakota: 3.3%
Nebraska: 4.1%
South Dakota: 4.2%
New Hampshire: 5.1%
Vermont: 5.1%
Iowa: 5.6%
Virginia: 6.2%
Kansas: 6.3%
Maryland: 6.7%
Louisiana: 6.8%
Massachusetts: 6.8%
Maine: 7.0%
Delaware: 7.4%
Pennsylvania: 7.6%
Arkansas: 7.7%
Texas: 7.8%
West Virginia: 7.9%
Missouri: 8.0%
New York: 8.0%
Alabama: 8.1%
Ohio: 8.1%
Connecticut: 8.2%
Tennessee: 8.7%
Indiana: 9.0%
New Jersey: 9.0%
Kentucky: 9.1%
Michigan: 9.3%
South Carolina: 9.5%
Georgia: 9.7%
Illinois: 9.8%
Florida: 9.9%
North Carolina: 9.9%
Mississippi: 10.4%
Rhode Island: 10.8%

Looks like the myth of the strong southern economy has drawn a lot of the poor and the deadbeats to the South. May that trend continue!!

[sardis]

That's ok. Let them keep coming down. More electorals for the red states...

http://www.thegreenpapers.com/Census10/ ... tors.phtml

[Dr. Strangelove]

That's ok. Let them keep coming down. More electorals for the red states...

http://www.thegreenpapers.com/Census10/ ... tors.phtml

As they move down there, they will increasingly vote Democrat. Just like Virginia and North Carolina flipped in 2008. A sign of changes in the coming decades.

[puterbac]

Overreach: Obamacare vs. the Constitution

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ ... story.html

.............................

A brilliant sleight of hand. But let’s for a moment accept the president on his own terms. Let’s accept his contention that this “accommodation” is a real shift of responsibility to the insurer. Has anyone considered the import of this new mandate? The president of the United States has just ordered private companies to give away for free a service that his own health and human services secretary has repeatedly called a major financial burden.

On what authority? Where does it say that the president can unilaterally order a private company to provide an allegedly free-standing service at no cost to certain select beneficiaries?

This is government by presidential fiat. In Venezuela, that’s done all the time. Perhaps we should call Obama’s “accommodation” Presidential Decree No. 1.

Consider the constitutional wreckage left by Obamacare:

First, the assault on the free exercise of religion. Only churches themselves are left alone. Beyond the churchyard gate, religious autonomy disappears. Every other religious institution must bow to the state because, by this administration’s regulatory definition, church schools, hospitals and charities are not “religious” and thus have no right to the free exercise of religion — no protection from being forced into doctrinal violations commanded by the state.

Second, the assault on free enterprise. To solve his own political problem, the president presumes to order a private company to enter into a contract for the provision of certain services — all of which must be without charge. And yet, this breathtaking arrogation of power is simply the logical extension of Washington’s takeover of the private system of medical care — a system Obama farcically pretends to be maintaining.

Under Obamacare, the state treats private insurers the way it does government-regulated monopolies and utilities. It determines everything of importance. Insurers, by definition, set premiums according to risk. Not anymore. The risk ratios (for age, gender, smoking, etc.) are decreed by Washington. This is nationalization in all but name. The insurer is turned into a middleman, subject to state control — and presidential whim.

Third, the assault on individual autonomy. Every citizen without insurance is ordered to buy it, again under penalty of law. This so-called individual mandate is now before the Supreme Court — because never before has the already hypertrophied Commerce Clause been used to compel a citizen to enter into a private contract with a private company by mere fact of his existence.

This constitutional trifecta — the state invading the autonomy of religious institutions, private companies and the individual citizen — should not surprise. It is what happens when the state takes over one-sixth of the economy.

In 2010, when all this lay hazily in the future, the sheer arrogance of Obamacare energized a popular resistance powerful enough to deliver an electoral shellacking to Obama. Yet two years later, as the consequences of that overreach materialize before our eyes, the issue is fading. This constitutes a huge failing of the opposition party whose responsibility it is to make the opposition argument.

Every presidential challenger says that he will repeal Obamacare on Day One. Well, yes. But is any of them making the case for why?

[puterbac]

So anyone got thoughts on hotels in vegas?

Best combo of price, min bet/odds in casino, and good bed and the bathroom/shower is up to wife par?

I much prefer a $5 table myself, but don't know who all even has those other than excalibur.

[Professor Tiger]

You should get advice from AA. He is the expert on these matters.

FWIW, I liked the Hard Rock Hotel when I was there.

[Professor Tiger]

As they move down there, they will increasingly vote Democrat. Just like Virginia and North Carolina flipped in 2008. A sign of changes in the coming decades.

I don't see the South going Democrat in any of our lifetimes. Although the 2008 VA flip may be permanent since northern VA has become a heavily populated suburb of DC, with a lot of transplanted federal workers who know which side of their bread gets buttered.

And indeed NC is probably the most liberal state in the South (not counting FL, which really isn't Southern). But 2008 was an outlier election year in the Tarheel State. The uber-liberal professors and students at Chapel Hill and Duke aren't quite as orgasmic about Obama this time around. And the RDC Research Triangle people are now realizing they are precisely the kind of people on whom Obama wants to raise taxes. Chang Li and Ramesh Chandraskarian want to keep their hard-earned money, black President or no black President.

[Toemeesleather]

That's ok. Let them keep coming down. More electorals for the red states...

http://www.thegreenpapers.com/Census10/ ... tors.phtml

As they move down there, they will increasingly vote Democrat. Just like Virginia and North Carolina flipped in 2008. A sign of changes in the coming decades.

Republicans gained a historic edge over Democrats in state legislature elections that will have national implications for years to come.

State legislatures in 44 states are responsible for one of the most important political processes: drawing district boundaries for the U.S. House of Representatives.

In a process that usually triggers partisan bickering, the reigning party usually has the upper hand, especially if the governor is also from the same party and cannot veto the legislature's decisions.

Republicans took control of at least 19 Democratic-controlled state legislatures Tuesday and gained more than 650 seats, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The last time Republicans saw such victories was in 1994, when they captured control of 20 state legislatures.




Somebody slept through last November.

[Dr. Strangelove]

It's still a two-party system and both parties will have their victories, but the point is that southern states will become increasingly liberal as they become more urban, as more people relocate there from the north, and as educational standards improve.

The South used to be automatically Democrat and after the 60's, automatically Republicans. The times they are a-changing.

[Dr. Nostron]

Puter - best places to gamble cheaply on the strip are OSheas and Bills Gambling Saloon. They are located midstrip so an easy walk from any of the nicer hotels.

You can also cab to Fremont street and find all the $5 and even $1 tables you want.

I would call the Venetian/Bellagio/Caesars Palace just to see if they have any deals going - wife will be very happy here.

Planet Hollywood is cheaper than these 3 but I've always had a good room there.

Avoid Flamingo, Ballys, IMperial Palace any of these places as the rooms are very hit and miss and these hotels are run down in places. Fun to gamble here though.

In other words - stay at a nicer place - but dont gamble there if you dont like the table minimums.

[sardis]

exactly

[It's me Karen]

I agree with Doc about Imperial Palace. Rooms are so so. Stayed at Harrahs last summer and liked it, are comping so we are trying those that come free. However, didn't seem to do so hot with the gambling there. Went to Imperial to gamble. It's more fun there too. Big party atmosphere. We don't do the tables, we stick with slots and video poker. I have to mention a buffet at Imperial Palace, the Emperor's Buffet. Really good food and a lot to choose from with good prices. Ate all breakfasts there and made sure we ate at least one dinner. Imperial also has a very good pizza place.