kamui

Definitely. Anyway looking from abroad this endless campaign becomes really disgusting. There is nothing of substance happing - just posture, demagogy, falsehoods, attacks and counter attacks - while _absolutely_ nothing is being getting done. Just to think, that this is just a preliminary phase of the election gives a really dark outlook for 2012. While the major parts of the Western world are imploding the US political elite is most busy with infighting, using up most of their resources and energy.

Support for Tea Party Falls in Strongholds, Polls Show By KATE ZERNIKE Support for the Tea Party — and with it, the Republican Party — has fallen sharply even in places considered Tea Party strongholds, according to an analysis of new polls. In Congressional districts represented by Tea Party lawmakers, the number of people saying they disagree with the movement has risen significantly since it powered a Republican sweep in midterm elections; almost as many people disagree with it as agree with it, according to the analysis by the Pew Research Center. Support for the Republican Party has fallen even further in those places than it has in the country as a whole. In the 60 districts represented in Congress by a member of the House Tea Party Caucus, Republicans are now viewed about as negatively as Democrats. The analysis suggests that the Tea Party may be dragging down the Republican Party heading into a presidential election year, even as it ushered in a new Republican majority in the House of Representatives just a year ago. Other polls have shown a decline in support for the Tea Party and its positions, particularly because its hard line during the debate over the debt ceiling and deficit reduction made it less an abstraction than it was a year ago. In earlier polls, most Americans did not know enough about the Tea Party to offer an opinion. “We know that the image of the G.O.P. has slipped, but to see it slip so dramatically in Tea Party districts is pretty surprising,†said Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Center. “You think of those as bedrock Republican districts. They are the base.†The number of people who disagree with the Tea Party has also risen among the general public, according to the most recent of the polls in the Pew analysis, taken this month. Among the public, 27 percent said they disagreed with the Tea Party and 20 percent said they agreed — a reversal from a year ago, when 27 percent agreed and 22 percent disagreed. In Tea Party districts, 23 percent of people now disagree with the Tea Party, while 25 percent agree. A year ago, 18 percent of people in those districts disagreed with the Tea Party, and 33 percent agreed. In another poll in the Pew analysis, conducted in October, 48 percent of people in Tea Party districts said they had a negative view of the Republican Party, while 41 percent said they had a favorable view. The favorable rating had dropped 14 percentage points since March. That drop was steeper than it was among the general public, where the percentage of people with a favorable opinion of the Republican Party had fallen to 36 percent, from 42 percent in March. Opinions about the Democratic Party have shifted less, nationally and in Tea Party districts. Among the general public, favorable ratings for the Democratic Party fell to 46 percent in October from 50 percent in August. In Tea Party districts, favorable ratings for the Democrats stayed about the same — at 39 percent in October and 37 percent in August. There was even some evidence that Tea Party Republicans were viewing Democrats a little less harshly. The share of people in Tea Party districts who viewed the Democrats unfavorably had fallen to 50 percent in October, from 57 percent in August. How much this affects Republican chances in the presidential contest next year, Mr. Kohut said, probably depends on which candidate wins the nomination. “If the candidate is of a more conservative bent, he or she will have to deal with this complaint about the Tea Party among the general public, of being too extreme and not willing to compromise,†he said. “The focus has been very much on the candidate and not on the party, but going into this election, the party has problems,†he said. “Which isn’t to say that people are wildly enthusiastic about the Democratic Party, but it hasn’t lost the kind of favor the G.O.P. has.†The analysis is based on polls conducted by the Pew Research Center from March 2010 through November. NYT

I guess it is too late for a white GOP knight, right?

US Congress rules that pizza is a vegetable Does this look like a vegetable to you?Image: Jyoti Das via Flickr PIZZA CAN BE classed as a vegetable – at least according to a decision made by the US Congress. Who knew? American lawmakers have ruled that the amount of tomato paste in pizza sauce means that pizzas can be counted as a vegetable. The bizarre move, which was decided in a vote on the annual spending bill for the Department of Agriculture, happened for purely political reasons. The crucial bill had oversight over subsidised school meals, and the department was seeking to restrict pizza, chips and starchy vegetables from the menu for school children in a bid to combat child obesity. MSNBC reports that politicians had been lobbied heavily by the frozen food industry who didn’t want to see a major revenue stream cut off given how often pizza is found on the menus of school canteens in the US. School meals subsidised by the government are mandated to include a certain amount of vegetables and the Department of Agriculture’s plan would have pushed pizza-makers at least partly out of the school lunch business. The salt industry, potato growers, and some conservative politicians who said that the federal government shouldn’t be involved in telling children what to eat, also lobbied against the change. After some debate, Congress voted that anything containing two tablespoons of tomato sauce can be labelled a vegetable, putting pizza into the vegetable categor The Obama administration is fighting to make school lunches healthier in the face of a growing obesity problem across the country. http://www.thejourna...282033-Nov2011/

Sometimes I think some you Americans are really small minded people. Complaining about the fact that the president is traveling too much... As if Obama and his family could - or even should - travel on the cheap. But this article doesn't come as a surprise, since it is not the first of this kind. Before there where complaints that his summer holiday was too expensive (Martha's Wineyeard) or the the stupid allegation by Fox and co. that Obama's trip to India last year did cost 200 mio USD _per day_. This would be more than the war in Tip to Mumbai Anyway, spending for Airforce One is just peanuts in the US government's budget. Compare this to the military budget of 663.84 billion USD (2010). In the year 2000 it was below 300 billion USD. Strangely most Americans seem to ignore the military budget when talking about exploding costs.

Newt has a company for historical advice to financial institutions? I am becoming even more jealous. Why did I not come up with this... I am just trying to figure out what advice he must have given to them just before they needed to be bailed out with billions of US taxpayer's money. It was probably on the level of "Pecunia non olet".

While I think that the president of the USA is much more powerful than many other heads of states, it seems that the system is so dysfunctional that even the strongest president can't win against the vested interests, the extremely powerful lobby groups and the corruption. The failure of the super committee has shown that there are extremely strong groups which are not interested in a solution which would pull the USA out of the mess. For those groups their own interests are more important than the fate of the USA.

Yeah, Newt, the one who started f@cking upcoming wife 2, while still being married to wife 1. He asked wife 1 for divorce while she was in hospital recovering of cancer. Next he left wife 2 with whom he was still married for wife 3. While being married with wife 2 and f@cking upcoming wife 3 (of course a House staffer and 23 years younger) Newt lead the impeachment of Bill Clinton because the Monica L. scandal. The Newt who received 300.000 USD from Fannie (or was it Freddie) for advice he gave as an historian for ca. 1 hr. a week? I guess that was the best paid job a historian ever had. Too bad that I did study history for just one year - I could have beene a rich man by now. I guess that's the candidate who represents the GOP's values best.

double post

How to make friends with the biggest investor in Alabama. By the way Mercedes intends to invest 2 billion USD in Alamba in 2014 - if Alamba is able to keep the German managers out of jail until then... Police arrest visting Mercedes executive under Alabama immigration law Published: Friday, November 18, 2011, 7:25 PM TUSCALOOSA, Alabama -- A German manager with Mercedes-Benz is free after being arrested for not having a driver's license with him under Alabama's new law targeting illegal immigrants, police said Friday. Tuscaloosa Police Chief Steven Anderson told The Associated Press an officer stopped a rental vehicle for not having a tag Wednesday night and asked the driver for his license. The man only had a German identification card, so he was arrested and taken to police headquarters, Anderson said. The 46-year-old executive was charged with violating the immigration law for not having proper identification, but he was released after an associate retrieved his passport, visa and German driver's license from the hotel where he was staying, Anderson said. It wasn't immediately known how long the man was in custody or the status of his court case. The law -- parts of which were put on hold amid legal challenges -- requires that police check citizenship status during traffic stops and take anyone who doesn't have proper identification to a magistrate. Anderson said that's what was done, but someone in the same situation wouldn't have been arrested before the law took effect. "If it were not for the immigration law, a person without a license in their possession wouldn't be arrested like this," he said. Previously, drivers who lacked licenses received a ticket and a court summons, according to Anderson. Mercedes-Benz spokeswoman Felyicia Jerald said the man is from Germany and was visiting Alabama on business. The company's first U.S. assembly plant is located just east of Tuscaloosa. "This was an unfortunate situation, but the incident was resolved when our colleague ... was able to provide his driver's license and other documents to Tuscaloosa police," Jerald said. http://blog.al.com/b...g_mercedes.html

Why do you think a change in the White House will change much? The current GOP candidates are as incompetent as an politician can be. While this doesn't seem to matter on state level (see Rick Perry), it would have severe consequences if one of the current GOP loonies would become president. You can say about Obama what you want, he actually knows what he is talking about, while McCain, Perry, Bachman, e.g. seem to have failed in high school latest. I am sure the 1% are feeling really terrible at the moment. GWB and the other GOP players kissed their asses for many, many years and now this: people demand that they pay as much tax as the middle class does. I guess the 1.000 USD psycho therapy sessions in N.Y. are booked out for months.

From an outside view it doesn't matter anymore whom to blame for the current crisis. What matters now is that the political system has become so dysfunctional that it is incapable of finding and implementing proper solutions to overcome the self-caused mess. First the Reps blocked any solution in spring, now the so called super committee failed completely with Dems and Reps blaming each other, and soon the election campaign will be in full swing. In the worst case there won't be a real solution until 2013. IMHO US politics are as deeply split as in LOS. Dems against Reps, like Red Shirts against Yellow Shirts. While the people in LOS can improvise and if they fail, no one outside SE Asia will really notice, an even more declining USA will have severe consequences all around the world. We will all have to pay for it. I guess the elite in the USA still doesn't feel enough pain to face the reality. Just compare this with Greece and Italy. In both countries the traditionally terrible and corrupt politicians who ran their countries into the ground have been fired and replaced by technocrats - but both countries had almost to declare bankruptcy until this could happen.

Not all of us fought is the Spanish-American War.

So the difference is, that they entered the building from the roof and killed Bin Laden. This fact is of course changing everything.

PS: After thinking about the movie a little bit more about the movie, it's clear that most part of the storyline is complete bullshit. That the hero is almost never being hit by bullets is action movie standard. But that he did a Heroin detox with Thail girl by strapping her one a pole for one night is really absurd. The next morning the girls wakes up looking much more fresh than a BG after a LT (no smeared make up, clean clothes, no vomit, no pee, e,g,). And the finale of the movie is equally stupid.

That's an old accusation by the Right. Like the right tried to paint Obama as the "Other", as un-american, Muslim, e.g., they try on Michelle Obama another negative stereotype, that of the "angry black women", who doesn't love America. Which means they try to paint her as un-patriotic as well. But since Michelle O. seems to be well respected in the USA I don't think that this will work. By the way, here is an "angry black women" ad by Pepsi: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mjRU6b4ecw PS: and WT included another attack: that the Obama's living a lavish life in the White House and making expensive holidays. Fox tried this several times by now, like when Obama went for a holiday to Hawaii, where he grew up, and scolded Obama for being elitist. Of course this shows how small minded some of the Right are. Do they expect that the most powerful man on the earth shall make holiday at Jersey Shore?

Didn't know about "Elephant White" and just downloaded it via Torrent. I have seen worse Bangkok movies. The storyline was somewhat mixed between a typical Western action B movie and Thai mysticism.

Huntsman has the most beautiful daughters (the three on the right).

I don't think so.

While the protest widened, and some media figures joined... ...police got more aggressive

The Dems will be sad.

If people could learn to be like Steve Jobs, we would have thousands like him. As someone wrote today: many imitated him but no one was able to surpass him.

I guess my text got scrambled up. Doesn't matter, it was just about the Tea Part, the constitution and taxes...