I'm not so sure that moving on is a part of the vocabulary or part of their reality! Even those who voice a "we have to change" there are those who's world view are skewed by religious addiction and a sense of redemption that reinforces it. They view them selves as the present day martyrs that will be swept away and saved from a world that is going to hell in a hand basket. After being raised among those with that mind set and now living in the buckle of the bible belt, I can attest that anything that does not reinforce thier beliefs simply is not heard. The only solution to this problem is our votes and willingness to truly fight and support those who honestly understand that we are all in this together. That will take persistance and the willingness of every critical thinking individual to not lay back and think that "we won" means that we can now lay back and relax.

Perhaps this applies: "People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest."--Hermann Hesse

No I don't think so.

But Rachel, the wing nuts believe that it is absolutely impossible for the US to re-elect a democrat as president and if it is a black democrat then it is "double secret" absolutely impossible. Therefore if one were so re-elected, fraud, lies, mistakes and/or the like were involved.

Notice that his "fraud states" are black. Dog whistle anyone?

His head is as fat as his ass.

I believe the projected Romney win by landslide was a set up to justify the flipping of votes which did not happen thanks to the group anonymous.

Rove had guaranteed Romney the votes would flip at the last minute...and when they didn't Rove had a meltdown on national TV. Romney did not have a concession speech prepared because he was assured the fix was in...he hadn't even provided himself a ride home expecting to be driven by the Secrfet Service.

Had anonymous not hacked into Roves servers and blocked the vote flipping when the votes got sent to be tabulated Romney would have been president claiming he always knew the polls were wrong and his pundits were right all along...the set up was already done to justify a Romney win...the fix was in...but thanks to anonymous, stopped and anonymous claimed that Roves team used a 150 passwords to try to get by the closed doors and just couldn't succeed...you can almost time them by watching Rove melt down on FOX as he claimed any minute now the votes totals will change to Romney...any minute now...lol. Thank you Anonymous.

It isn't just his fraud states are black, but those are the same 4 states that the anonymous hackers are claiming the computer program ORCA (employeed by Romney, Rove, and the Republicans) had created backdoors into the tabulation computers. Maybe this idiot was in on the fix and was sure Romney was going to win these states because the fix was in until it was blocked by the hackers who closed their back doors.

They love feeling angry and paranoid. When the current crisis is over, they will have moved onto a new one -- or manufactured it wholesale. It is not only wingers who do this. They probably cannot change but they may be marginalised.

It's not so much that "they love feeling angry and paranoid", it's more that the GOP knows keeping their base feeling that way makes it easier to continue to manipulate them. People are not at their most rational when angry, paranoia eliminates a lot of reality. The GOP has been using fear successfully for a long time but must continue to change the target and focus to keep it effective. They'd started the voter fraud line to justify their vote suppression efforts and are using it now as a place holder to keep their base engaged...until the next theme is determined.

I think the real problem is there is NO news anymore. It's politics 24/7. Even if by chance they do manage to report some real news, they twist it into politics before the two minute report ends.

Spot on!

Madison Avenue has been gaining market share of campaign money, and gullible politicians believe their pitch. A J.D.Powers "best in class" can be purchased for just about any product.

What they do not understand is that the "Plop! Plop! Fizz! Fizz" of Alka Seltzer is NOT counteracted by a Pepto Bismol commercial saying, "Alka Seltzer is a dangerous chemical compound that will kill you, while Pepto Bismol is gentle to the stomach and brings eternal happiness."

Because MadAve knows that negative advertising does NOT work.

Phenner & Day you're both right. We have been seduced ever so slowly both by a lamestream media that hasn't been reporting news but regurgitating talking points along with Madison Ave slick and sleek advertising, oh and don't forget the "illusion" put out by Hollywood - it's all been to dumb us down and make US fearful of everything and everyone. And far too many have fallen for it, the slogans about "freedoms & rights" even as the Plutocrats and their minion politicians have been plundering the treasury.

The first election of Barack Obama was probably seen as an anomaly due to the epic failure that was the Bush Presidency; the reelection of President Obama has sent the right straight off the cliff! The powers that be see the failure of Rawmoney to capture the White House not as a failure of the policy positions positions along with a repudiation of their ideas (or lack of them), but they must see it as a theft of the vote on the part of the left because after all who would deliberately choose the black man over the white guy with the money?! Since money = power, the fact that the "money backed" people didn't win, automatically means there was "voter fraud" by the left.

Well said, Zora. In their minds the only way to be beaten by a Black man is if he cheats.

I think it’s good when people point out the confirmation bias of others, and there’s no question that many conservatives suffer from it, like everyone else. What I object to is
the argument I sometimes hear from liberals that conservatives are somehow
inherently more susceptible to confirmation bias than liberals. This conceit - with its unstated premise that the basic problem with our political system is that liberals are factual and objective, while conservatives are not – is ironically in itself a form of
confirmation bias. I don’t dispute that conservatives cling to some beliefs despite the evidence (the stimulative effect of continued tax cuts is a good example), but I think this tends to be true over pretty much anyone with deeply held convictions. A
couple of prime examples of liberal confirmation bias are funding for the poor
and for education. We’ve all seen the charts showing per-pupil spending and test performance, and despite a 300% increase in 40 years, there’s almost no change.
The same with poverty – nearly a $1 trillion per year spend on anti-poverty programs, yet the poverty rate is pretty much where it was when Johnson started the “War on Poverty” almost 50 years. Yet it is an unquestioned moral imperative among liberals that government must spend even more on education and anti-poverty, despite the evidence.

"Conservatives" - especially the southern variety - are independently factually, demonstrably STUPID; they are as stupid as they sound when they open their mouths. It has been demonstrated that those who watch Fox News are far more likely to be misinformed on important information than those who don't.

@sam - Let us talk about "confimation bias"

You state that "We’ve all seen the charts showing per-pupil spending and test performance, and despite a 300% increase in 40 years, there’s almost no change."

First while there has been an increase let us look at where the money is going, how it is apportioned within the states (property taxes) - so increases in spending on the federal level have not trickled down into the states, and because many states use that money not necessarily on school budgets but to shore up their own state budgets. Also, "teaching to the tests" which is what happened under "No Child Left Behind" hasn't been a complete and utter failure! We send our children to school not just to learn reading, writing and arithmetic but to learn how to analyze critically & independently, to assess the facts and make certain conclusions, to prepare them to join the working world - but that isn't happening and charter schools aren't the answer to making them happen.

As for "poverty" if people are NOT educated then they do end up in "poverty" )unless they're lucky enough to have a "trust fund" and then it doesn't matter) - which brings us back to education. And just in case you haven't been paying attention over the years - the cost of college has risen to a point that you almost need to sacrifice your firstborn to be able to attain it; and moving up in "class" isn't nearly as easy as it was 40 years ago.

Yes, while I advocate for spending money on education, I think that we need to spend it more wisely, and children in lower income schools need to get a bit more of it than they are currently receiving. And while there are many more issues that go into "education & poverty" programs than I have space here to discuss, I'm just touching on surface issues.

I am a progressive so when I ridicule those on the right for their willful ignorance it isn't because they haven't given me the ammunition by their refusal to accept reality, by their total lack of even trying to hear more than just the silly sound-bites - and while it may not be "nice" or even further conversation at this point, I see that more than a few conservatives are on the border of insanity and it's just best to let them have their meltdown and then maybe they can recover enough to begin deep discussions on the issues that need to be discussed.

samw2012- the problem I see with your example of the 300% increase in education spending is that you didn't link it to the population growth. We've almost doubled our population in the last 40 years. The same thing is true about poverty. What might be more informative would be how education and anti-poverty spending rate as a percentage of GDP. Also, during those same 40 years, we've seen houses go from $30,000 to $300,000 for the same home. Forty years ago I rented a 4 bedroom house in a prime Seattle neighborhood for $100 a month.

I think it could be fairly said that we are actually getting less "bang for our buck" now. A lot of the education money is now going to charter schools, instead of improving our public schools, but most testing is still concentrated on the now underfunded public schools. Many charter schools are exempt from the same requirements that public schools face. Bear in mind that today's $8000 per student is 1970's $1500 per student.

samw2012- In 1972 I rented a 4 bedroom house in a good neighborhood in Seattle (near the University of Washington) for $100 a month. Gas was around $.35 a gallon, and McDonalds still sold their burgers for $.19.

Not only have prices gone up, but we've also added 140 million Americans to our population. Top that off with the dilution of aid to public schools in favor of private, charter schools and you have a recipe for stagnation.

Actually, that's inflation-adjusted per-pupil spending, so population growth and inflation have nothing to do with it:

http://mattison0922.wordpress.com/2011/06/23/federal-education-spending-vs-us-student-performance/

Prices of stuff (housing, college, health careetc.) have gone up, but many consumer goods have gone down (thanks to Wal-Mart and China - the undeniable benefits of free enterprise). And wages have risen significantly. Median income was about $46k in 1972, about 50k today. So it's really a wash, and people overall are actually slightly better off: http://www.davemanuel.com/median-household-income.php

So according to you incomes have gone up by 4k in 40 years and that's supposedly enough to offset the increases in costs and therefore make people better off? But more importantly how would federal spending have anything to do with these numbers? I don't even get how or why you're bringing up the issue of median household income when it comes to schools and poverty- how is any of that relevant? And how does any of what you said refute what rwsgate said?

Bingo!

National Inquirer Reality TV Judge (Insert name) Plastic Surgery Astrology Scientology Mormonism Buy one get one Free Fashion UFOs Good Morning America

Look at the careers of Dennis Miller and Ted Nugent as prime examples.

Bingo. this is a fact. the Repubs know this and design their messaging accordingly.

here is a guy who has spent most of his academic career studying this type of mindset and here is his explanation:

http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/

also check out any articles online by George Lakoff to further explain how messaging works on a neuroscience level and why they simply will not accept reality. ever.

"Fringe Wing-Nuttery" is now the Republican mainstream.

I'd hate that - I can never sign my name the same way twice.

So sad. The only instance of voter fraud this election had to do with a company hired by the RNC to register voters. The well documented long lines and voting problems in Florida, created by design by the FL GOP as well as all of the antics of the Ohio Secretary of State Husted were voter suppression. True the Vote people were there for voter intimidation. Obama won in those states despite this for at least these three reasons: 1) the blatant voter suppression tactics backfired and it led to outraged voters making sure they voted; 2) Romney was such a lousy candidate that people made sure they voted to keep him out of office and 3) people felt Obama did as good a job as possible in light of the obstruction and deserved another term.

Just because he won doesn't mean there wasn't voter suppression or intimidation; in fact, as you note with the prior posts, they have been reported on often. What this hack website is saying is that Obama had to have won these states by fraud and the proof is that he won. One is real and the other isn't. Sad that you can't tell.

Ah, the wasteland that is the liberal mind. "If we say it, it's true, if you say it, well that is just silly now."

You really don't get it, do you? There's PROOF of voter suppression in republican controlled states. Pennsylvania republican official: "Voter ID laws, which will allow governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania? Done!". And don't even get me started about John Husted and Rick Scott.

These people were bragging about their voter suppression rules on video. They were passing laws. There is a QUANTIFIABLE DIFFERENCE between this and the voter fraud nonsense coming out of the right. In person voter fraud simply DOES NOT HAPPEN. It's been proven by countless studies.

You guys seriously don't understand the concept of evidence, do you? One side of this argument has it. The other side has wild unprovable conspiracy theories and gut feelings. These things don't have equal weight. At some point your claims have to comport with reality. So sick of this willful ignorance.

lol

Ah, the wasteland that is the liberal conservative mind. "If we say it, it's true, if you say it, well that is just silly now."

There. I corrected it for you.

Go pee on the fire hydrants somewhere else, you worthless southern proof of what happens when ten generations of transported felonious English sheep fornicators propagate with their sisters.

1. We have evidence that votes were suppressed and that many voters were intimidated. In the case of intimidation it does seem that the media gave at least enough of a heads up to let people know that if they were encountered by people testing their eligibility to vote then those people should be ignored since they weren't operating under any authority (thus reducing the likely impact of voter suppression). But we do know that there may have been a million or more votes cast had voter suppression not taken place and had Republicans not passed these strict laws. The irony is that besides students voter restriction laws ALSO effect the elderly who were Mitt Romney's most solid demographic. It is likely that at least some of those million or so votes were going to be cast for Mitt Romney and had those votes all been for Romney it may have even tied the election or at least brought it much, much closer. Republicans very well may have shot themselves in the foot because of their antics and as a Romney supporter I'd suspect that you- pasco- should be very concerned about this issue going into the future. Remember when you pass policy at the national level it isn't just Democrats who will be effected by it.

2. All Americans should care about voter suppression, voter intimidation, and yes voter fraud. Voter fraud does happen, but it is usually so miniscule as to not be a big deal. What happens far more often are the other two instances: legitimate voters being turned away from voting places for illegitimate reasons OR legitimate voters being confused and discouraged from voting to the point that they don't cast a ballot. Remember that the Republican Party decries voter fraud under the premise that every single fraudulent ballot cast by a non-US citizen costs a legal, legitimate ballot cast by a US citizen to be negated. The same goes if a vote is not cast because of restricted laws OR if a person is turned away from the booth for illegitimate reasons. It denies a citizen their chance to give consent to those governing them and to participate in their own democracy. Remember we had a revolution over the lack of representation from our British government because our ancestors were being taxed the equivalence of about 1$ in today's money (when adjusted). Just imagine how those whose votes were denied feel about any and all taxes being cast. And just think that if ALL of those votes had gone to Romney then these policies you are so mocking cost you your victory. It should make you humble as a Republican and somber as an American.