President Obama has a reputation for talking, but not necessarily for saying much. He has achieved new levels of vagueness this election season. Beyond repeating that he's in favor of making the "rich" pay for more government "investment," he hasn't offered a single new idea for a second term. This is deliberate.

The core of the Obama strategy is to make Americans worry that whatever Mitt Romney does, it will be worse. That's a harder case for Mr. Obama to make if he is himself proposing change. And so the Obama pitch is that this election is a choice between stability (giving Mr. Obama four more years to let his policies finally work) and upheaval (giving Mr. Romney four years to re-ruin the nation).

The pitch is profoundly dishonest. While the choice between four more years of Obama status quo and Mr. Romney is certainly vivid, it isn't accurate. The real contrast is between Mr. Romney's and Mr. Obama's future plans. And while the president hasn't revealed what those plans are, there is plenty of evidence for what a second term would look like.

Let's dispense with the obvious: An Obama second term will be foremost about higher taxes and greater spending. The president has been clear about the former and will consider victory in November a mandate to raise taxes on higher-income Americans and small businesses—at the least.

Meanwhile, no matter how the coming budget sequester sorts out, nobody should forget why it came into being: It was the result of Mr. Obama's refusal to consider any real changes to Social Security or Medicare. There will be no reason to budge in a second term. Absent reform to these drivers of debt, and given Mr. Obama's ambitions to further "invest" in education, energy and infrastructure, a second term means proposals for even broader and bigger tax hikes—and not just for his favorite targets. Continued and growing deficits are likely as well

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Yet since the probable outcome of his approach would be continued gridlock, his real efforts will be devoted to fine-tuning the regulatory apparatus he has designed specifically to go around Congress—as the administration has done the past two years. The Environmental Protection Agency in particular will resurrect rules it delayed implementing before the election (see: costly ozone regulations) and move to take over new areas like natural-gas fracking.

The same goes for other agencies, from the Labor Department to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The National Labor Relations Board will continue to cement union dominance over employers. The Solyndras will continue. What Mr. Obama cannot accomplish via regulation, he will attempt through executive order—much as he did with his recent immigration directive.

Most voters understand that a second Obama term means the continuation of ObamaCare and the Dodd-Frank financial regulations. But there is also the carte blanche that re-election will give the president to supercharge those laws, which are only now entering key rulemaking periods. The same Obama appointees who have already taken vast liberties with these laws (see: HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius's ObamaCare slush fund) will be crafting the new regulations.The bureaucrats will also have four more years to put in place key civil servants who can be counted on to keep the rules going even past an Obama administration.

It is likely the Supreme Court will offer up another vacancy, and Mr. Obama might finally have his chance to shift the balance of the court. A slew of appellate-court positions are also in limbo as the campaign proceeds; they would be filled by a second-term Obama.

Just as important are the things Mr. Obama will not do. His record gives no indication he will revive America's leadership in free trade...


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None of this is hyperbole. Mr. Obama is open about his tax aims, is proud of his spending and has never apologized for his regulatory ambitions. Despite a shellacking in the midterms, he moved left, and a November victory will reinforce his sense that he was correct to do so. {Read More}

What a depressing choice the American people are being presented with this year. We are at a point in our history where we desperately need a change of direction in the White House, and we are guaranteed that we are not going to get it. The Democrats are running the worst president in American history, and the Republicans are running a guy who is almost a carbon copy of him. The fact that about half the country is still supporting Barack Obama shows how incredibly stupid and corrupt the American people have become. No American should have ever cast a single vote for Barack Obama for any political office under any circumstances. He should never have even been the assistant superintendent in charge of janitorial supplies, much less the president of the United States. The truth is that Barack Obama has done such a horrible job that he should immediately resign along with his entire cabinet. But instead of giving us a clear choice, the Republicans nominated the Republican that was running that was most similar to Barack Obama. In fact, I don't think we have ever had two candidates for president that are so similar. Yes, there are a few minor differences between them, but the truth is that we are heading into Obama's second term no matter which one of them gets elected. The mainstream media makes it sound like Obama and Romney are bitter ideological rivals but that is a giant lie. Yeah, they are slinging lots of mud at each other, but they both play for the same team and the losers are going to be the American people.

Republicans are being told that they have "no choice" but to vote for Romney because otherwise they will get another four years of Obama.

This "lesser of two evils" theme comes out every four years. We are told that we "must" vote for a horrible candidate because the other guy is even worse.

Well, millions of Americans are getting sick of this routine. Perhaps that is why it is being projected that as many as 90 million Americans of voting age will not vote this year.

Yes, Barack Obama has been so horrible as president that it is hard to put it into words.

But Mitt Romney would be just like Barack Obama.

Those that are dreaming of a major change in direction if Romney is elected are going to be bitterly, bitterly disappointed.

The following are 40 ways that Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are essentially the same candidate.... {Continue Reading}

Fox News - ... Among undecided voters Romney is viewed more negatively than positively by 28 percentage points, while Obama is viewed more negatively by 12 points.

The poll shows Romney supporters are more enthusiastic. By an 11 percentage-point margin the challenger’s backers are more likely to be “extremely” interested in the election, and by 10 points they’re more likely to think it’s “extremely” important their candidate wins.

Meanwhile, voters think neither candidate is sticking to the high road. Small majorities say Romney (58 percent) and Obama (57 percent) will say and do just about anything to win in November.

On the big issue of last week, slightly more voters trust the Democratic ticket (by three points) to do a better job protecting Medicare and ensuring it’s there for future generations.

When asked who they trust to improve the economy and create jobs, voters favor the Republican ticket by two points -- a surprisingly slim margin in light of President Obama’s negative ratings on the issue.

By 54-42 percent, more voters disapprove than approve of Obama’s handling of the economy. His overall job performance stands at 46 percent approve and 50 percent disapprove.

In addition, by a 17-point margin voters say the country has changed for the worse in the last four years rather than for the better (46-29 percent). One in four says it hasn’t changed much either way.

A slightly larger number of voters say they will be more confident their financial situation will improve if Romney (38 percent) is elected than if Obama is re-elected (33 percent). Still, majorities don’t have confidence things will get better for their family either way.

All in all, 51 percent of likely voters view Obama favorably and 46 percent unfavorably. For Romney it’s 49 percent favorable and 44 percent unfavorable. {Read More

Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism. It is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man’s genetic lineage—the notion that a man’s intellectual and characterological traits are produced and transmitted by his internal body chemistry. Which means, in practice, that a man is to be judged, not by his own character and actions, but by the characters and actions of a collective of ancestors.

Racism claims that the content of a man’s mind (not his cognitive apparatus, but its content) is inherited; that a man’s convictions, values and character are determined before he is born, by physical factors beyond his control. This is the caveman’s version of the doctrine of innate ideas—or of inherited knowledge—which has been thoroughly refuted by philosophy and science. Racism is a doctrine of, by and for brutes. It is a barnyard or stock-farm version of collectivism, appropriate to a mentality that differentiates between various breeds of animals, but not between animals and men.

Like every form of determinism, racism invalidates the specific attribute which distinguishes man from all other living species: his rational faculty. Racism negates two aspects of man’s life: reason and choice, or mind and morality, replacing them with chemical predestination.

What about black children? As an adult, my pulse grew more rapid and I began to feel that someone was standing on my chest as I read through this site. What about black children who stumble across sites that proclaim that they are not human and which cite to studies by Arthur Jensen featuring his declarations that blacks are inherently intellectually inferior to whites? What psychological damage is wrought by exposure to these unrelenting racist lies?

Sites such as these may make an argument for their right to exist as a first amendment issue. I suspect that they continually assert that the site is not about hate to protect themselves against a possible challenge of their 1st amendment rights based on the use of hate speech to incite violence against a protected class--race, religion, national origin, etc. I lack the skills to mount a cyber attack against the site as one of my friend suggested. Besides, it would accomplish nothing; they would still be slithering around corners fomenting racism.

What I would like to see is a lot of attention focused on these people. Turn the spotlight on their sickness and expose them for the rotting carcasses that they really are. They are vampires; they don't feed on blood but on ethics, on morality, and everything that makes us decent. A stake through the heart isn't the only way to end a vampire; dragging them into the light will render them into a pile of dust.

So pass along the information about these sites. Tell your friends. Tell anyone who insists that the only issue with race is that black people keep playing the race card. No matter how well intentioned, burying one's head in the sand and pretending that the monster doesn't exist never works out well. To save the day, the heroine must kill the monster and destroy its lair.

The Neanderthal Party of 2012

BuzzFeed Politics - The Republican National Committee's Rules Committee voted to require written certification that a presidential candidate has a plurality of delegates from five states in order to get a space on the convention ballot — a move intended to provide a warning in the event of floor movement toward an insurgent candidate.

Tennessee committeeman John Ryder push the rules change to eliminate "distractions" on the convention floor, in an effort to "try to create a more streamlined convention procedure, that better reflects the realities," he said.

"The focus is to get away from some of the residue of the 19th century," he added.

Ryder also proposed raising the threshold for inclusion on the ballot from winning a plurality of 5 states to 10 states, a thinly-veiled move to make it harder for an insurgent candidate like Ron Paul to come up for a vote at the convention. Paul has urged his supporters not to disrupt Romney's nomination, but his delegates have also bitterly battled Romney supporers for tickets to Tampa.

"Unless you've got a real contest, where you have two candidates or three candidates who actually have a mathematical chance of winning, then why do we want to go through the exercise," Ryder said.

"It's not an intent to block a specific candidate," Ryder said when asked about Paul, but said it's meant to prevent a future candidate who wins between 5 and 10 states from earning a spot on the ballot.

The threshold change was rejected by the rules committee after the loud objections by Ron Paul supporters and by committee-people from states with significant Paul contingents, but the notification requirement made the party's rules.

BuzzFeed Politics - The Republican Party platform will strongly oppose the Obama administration's decision not to defend the Defense of Marriage Act, the federal law that bars recognition of same-sex couples' marriages, in court and will support "a constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman," according to the draft platform language approved by subcommittees today.

The language must still be adopted by the full committee on Tuesday and then by the convention delegates in Tampa next week. According to the draft documents obtained by BuzzFeed from two subcommittees, the Restoring Constitutional Government subcommittee and the Health, Education and Crime subcommittee, the platform will take those two positions, as well as "support[ing] campaigns underway in several other states to" amend their constitutions to recognize only marriages between one mane and one woman.

As BuzzFeed first reported, the platform also includes language about "respect and dignity," which a gay Republican group, the Log Cabin Republicans, cast as an olive branch.

But social conservatives ended the day claiming victory.

Family Research Council president Tony Perkins told BuzzFeed: “You should read the entire plank on marriage, which I wrote. I feel very happy about it. I feel pretty optimistic about the outcome here.”

Calling out "an activist judiciary," the draft document blasts "court-ordered redefinition of marriage" before taking on the Obama administration.

"We oppose the Administration's open defiance of this principle [of separation of powers] — in its handling of immigration cases, in federal personnel benefits, in allowing a same-sex marriage at a military base, and in refusing to defend DOMA in the courts," the draft states.

Finally, after praising the benefits of marriage, the draft documents state, "[W]e believe that marriage, the union of one man and one woman must be upheld as the national standard, a goal to stand for, encourage, and promote through laws governing marriage."
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There were 14,000 supporters in the 20,000 seat Schottenstein Center at Ohio State University for the rally, according to the local fire department, ABC News reported. While the campaign was prepared for overflow crowds in Ohio, none materialized.

The Washington Times - The presumptive GOP presidential and vice presidential nominees Mitt Romney and Rep. Paul Ryan are attracting thousands of supporters to their campaign rallies since Mr. Romney named Mr. Ryan to the bottom of the ticket. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has taken notice of the massive crowds at the Romney Ryan stump speeches and sent out an urgent e-mail to their supporters, reported The Washington Examiner last week.

However, President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden are not drawing the crowds they once could.

New York Times - “We have plenty of time for big rallies,” a campaign spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, said between the rallies on Thursday. “Our focus right now is on exciting our supporters and winning over undecided voters and the smaller and medium-size events are the best venue to accomplish that because the president can closely engage with the crowd."

Big rallies are expensive, especially given the logistical and security challenges for a president as opposed to a mere United States senator. And Obama campaign operatives, both at the Chicago headquarters and in swing states where Mr. Obama recently has stumped, say the campaign intentionally limits crowds by restricting tickets. The reason is to allow the president to better connect with supporters, aides say.