Fuck the Republican Party.

[HotHamWater]

Would it have been less funny if he specified that the binders contained NAMES of women? The internet is just always looking for the next meme, funny or otherwise.

[sonnyboy11]

Good debate. Glad to see Obama back in force.

[Robin]

I'm finally watching the debate. The had to laugh when Romney said he wants to eliminate taxes on capital gains, interest and dividends, considering most of his income comes from those three. I looked it up, and came across an article that said under that plan, Romney would pay a total of 0.82% in taxes.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/...-plan/261027/#

[guedita]

Mittens had to practice sitting on a bar stool.

[Robin]

Am I the only one that got pissed when Romney pretty much said that women need flexible working hours so they can go home and get in the kitchen?

[bmack86]

Can someone give me a good, honest description of this whole binder thing? I was working at a fundraiser during the debate and missed the context. Now it's all just angered women and internet memes, and I have no clue what's going on.

[TomAz]

Can someone give me a good, honest description of this whole binder thing? I was working at a fundraiser during the debate and missed the context. Now it's all just angered women and internet memes, and I have no clue what's going on.

Romney, during his debate with President Obama at Hofstra University in New York, recalled that when he assembled his Cabinet when he was governor of Massachusetts "we took a concerted effort to go out and find women who had backgrounds that could be qualified to become members of our Cabinet.

"I went to a number of women's groups and said, "Can you help us find folks," and they brought us whole binders full of women."

Romney added that after he filled his Cabinet and senior staff, the University of New York in Albany did a survey of all 50 states, and concluded that his staff had more women in senior leadership positions than any other state.

[Miroir Noir]

I actually thought the binder thing was only maybe the third or fourth most clueless/sexist thing he said about women.

[HotHamWater]

The binder thing seemed pretty harmless, honestly. Other than the fact that it seems like it didn't happen the way he described. Apparently he didn't take as much initiative as he suggested. But that's not what the memes are about.

[guedita]

It's important to note that that binder full of women was already ready and waiting for Romney upon him being elected Governor.

[TomAz]

Man, I wanna be governor.

[guedita]

I actually thought the binder thing was only maybe the third or fourth most clueless/sexist thing he said about women.

Yes. Single parent (coded for single mothers) as a crucial reason that there's gun violence? Ugh, and the whole "letting women get home to make dinner for their kids AND work....." Oof.

[TomAz]

[gaypalmsprings]

Like this....

https://www.facebook.com/romneybindersfullofwomen

[chairmenmeow47]

I'm finally watching the debate. The had to laugh when Romney said he wants to eliminate taxes on capital gains, interest and dividends, considering most of his income comes from those three. I looked it up, and came across an article that said under that plan, Romney would pay a total of 0.82% in taxes.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/...-plan/261027/#

but don't worry, the middle class will save so much in taxes on their stock investments!!!!! which is obviously how most middle class people make their money.

Am I the only one that got pissed when Romney pretty much said that women need flexible working hours so they can go home and get in the kitchen?

me too. some of us can work until 7 or 8 and want the opportunity to be treated equally in the office for equal pay. i was more offended though by the implication that shootings wouldn't happen if there weren't single mothers.

and i completely missed the binder thing first time around. i was not that offended; however i heard someone on the news today (al sharpton i think, lulz) that the remark would be a lot more damning if he had asked for binders of muslims or black people. what's the most hilarious is he was essentially supporting affirmative action with that utterly false and retarded statement.

also...

[ramblinon]

Man, Arizona is governed by a bunch of total douchebags.

http://www.abc15.com//dpp/news/regio...voter-ID-cards

PHOENIX, AZ - The Maricopa County Elections Department mistakenly listed the wrong date of the upcoming general election on an official government document.

The error appears on a document containing a voter ID card.

In addition to the ID card, the piece of paper it comes in lists other information such as important election dates.

In the corner of the document, it says November 6th in English but in Spanish it reads 8 de Noviembre, the 8th of November.

Election day is November 6th, not November 8th.

Charlotte Walker of Sun City received one of the voter ID documents with the incorrect date.

Typically the documents are mailed out to voters but Walker picked hers up in person at the Maricopa County Recorder's Office in downtown Phoenix.

A spokesperson for the Maricopa County Elections Department said they've traced the mistake to those documents distributed over the counter.

The Elections Department spokesperson assured ABC15 the only people affected by the mistake are those who received their voter ID card document in person at the recorder's office and not through the mail.

The Elections Department spokesperson estimates fewer than 50 people received a document showing the incorrect date.

Walker believes the mistake could have serious consequences.

"It could have a significant impact on the election outcome because they'd go to the polls on November 8th and they wouldn't be open," said Walker. "They wouldn't be able to cast their vote this year."

In a press release, the Elections Department claims to be basing the number of 50 on what they've distributed over the counter in previous years.

The press release doesn't indicate if those were election years.

Read more: http://www.abc15.com//dpp/news/regio...#ixzz29cGPHtdz

=================================================

Honest mistake, I'm sure...

[Starraven]

No shit?

[ramblinon]

Doesn't surprise me. I can't say I ever think about that state and consider it some sort of model for good governance. It seems the "meth lab for democracy" moniker is well deserved.

[theresalwaysone]

Can someone give me a good, honest description of this whole binder thing? I was working at a fundraiser during the debate and missed the context. Now it's all just angered women and internet memes, and I have no clue what's going on.

Romney, during his debate with President Obama at Hofstra University in New York, recalled that when he assembled his Cabinet when he was governor of Massachusetts "we took a concerted effort to go out and find women who had backgrounds that could be qualified to become members of our Cabinet.

"I went to a number of women's groups and said, "Can you help us find folks," and they brought us whole binders full of women."

Romney added that after he filled his Cabinet and senior staff, the University of New York in Albany did a survey of all 50 states, and concluded that his staff had more women in senior leadership positions than any other state.

What actually happened was that in 2002 -- prior to the election, not even knowing yet whether it would be a Republican or Democratic administration -- a bipartisan group of women in Massachusetts formed MassGAP to address the problem of few women in senior leadership positions in state government. There were more than 40 organizations involved with the Massachusetts Women's Political Caucus (also bipartisan) as the lead sponsor.

They did the research and put together the binder full of women qualified for all the different cabinet positions, agency heads, and authorities and commissions. They presented this binder to Governor Romney when he was elected.

...According to MassGAP and MWPC, Romney did appoint 14 women out of his first 33 senior-level appointments, which is a reasonably impressive 42 percent. However, as I have reported before, those were almost all to head departments and agencies that he didn't care about -- and in some cases, that he quite specifically wanted to not really do anything. None of the senior positions Romney cared about -- budget, business development, etc. -- went to women.

...a UMass-Boston study found that the percentage of senior-level appointed positions held by women actually declined throughout the Romney administration, from 30.0% prior to his taking office, to 29.7% in July 2004, to 27.6% near the end of his term in November 2006.

http://blog.thephoenix.com/BLOGS/tal...he-binder.aspx

[jackstraw94086]

yes He was talking about containers for resumes goddammit. this is so not fucking interesting.

The statistically insignificant drop in female employees throughout his administration isn't even interesting.
The underrepresentation of females (as compared to the general population) in politics is not even a partisan issue. It's actually far more complicated than that, and not a discussion that any office-seeking dipshit is prepared to engage in anyway.

This is all just stupid distraction from actual womens' issues.

[suprefan]

http://mashable.com/2012/10/18/romney-binder-game/

[obzen]

The internet can be a bit overcaffeinated when it comes to this kind of shit but the "binders full of women" moment was amusing when you consider how desperate Romney sounded in his attempt to avoid answering a question pertaining to equality.

[amyzzz]

but don't worry, the middle class will save so much in taxes on their stock investments!!!!! which is obviously how most middle class people make their money.

That pissed me off too, since I am not really savvy with investing.

[sonnyboy11]

More interesting was the focus group on MSNBC immediately following the debates comprised of <ahem> undecided voters. The women in that group were leaning Romney and the moderator pressed them on the issue of equal pay. Watching them struggle to reconcile their desire to vote Republican with something clearly not in their best interest was extremely frustrating and perplexing.

[jackstraw94086]

The internet can be a bit overcaffeinated when it comes to this kind of shit but the "binders full of women" moment was amusing when you consider how desperate Romney sounded in his attempt to avoid answering a question pertaining to equality.

It was a retarded question.
I wish folks would see the irony in a "equality" issue being addressed by desperately searching for female applicants. Yes, Mitt's a dipshit for answering that way, but America are dipshits for thinking that the particular issue was a real "womens' issue" and especially the suggestion that government should bear responsibility for solving it.

[TallGuyCM]

I heard a disturbing fact on ABC news late last night - they said that in a poll taken of likely voters, Romney is at 50%. And that no one who has ever reached that 50% mark at this point in October has ever gone on to lose the election.

If this was Fox News, I'd just cast it off as skewed reporting. But it was ABC News.

How is that possible? Has he really had that big of a surge?

[theresalwaysone]

I heard a disturbing fact on ABC news late last night - they said that in a poll taken of likely voters, Romney is at 50%. And that no one who has ever reached that 50% mark at this point in October has ever gone on to lose the election.

If this was Fox News, I'd just cast it off as skewed reporting. But it was ABC News.

How is that possible? Has he really had that big of a surge?

I wouldn't put much stock in it.

[mountmccabe]

I heard a disturbing fact on ABC news late last night - they said that in a poll taken of likely voters, Romney is at 50%. And that no one who has ever reached that 50% mark at this point in October has ever gone on to lose the election.

If this was Fox News, I'd just cast it off as skewed reporting. But it was ABC News.

How is that possible? Has he really had that big of a surge?

That isn't much of a surge. Also there are a lot of national polls; some of them have shown Romney up and some have shown Obama up. This article from FiveThirtyEight lists six polls released on Tuesday and they are split.

More importantly: it does not matter. Not one little bit. The winner of the national popular vote gets nothing. State by state is all the matters.

538 still has Obama winning, their Now Cast is 281 to 257. But yes, it was 338 to 200 at the end of September so Romney has been making gains there, too.

Real Clear Politics has Romney up 206 to 201, with 131 EV as toss-ups. FL and CO are barely Romney (giving him 244) with NH, VA, WI, IA, OH, NV, MI and PA all barely Obama (giving him 294).

(The difference between 538 and RCP's EV counts is VA's 13).

[Miroir Noir]

Part of the issue is this: in (most) years past, the polls of the swing states and the national polls tend to converge. In September, Obama held a modest 2 to 3 point lead in the national polling, and more substantial average lead in most of the swing states. The fallout of October polling -- including Romney's well received first debate performance -- seems to be that Romney has closed the average gap in both national and state polling by 3 points or so. However, there is still a gap between the two sets of polling data: Romney now enjoys a narrow lead in the national polling (punctuated with an increasingly large -- and increasingly outlying -- lead in the Gallup tracking poll), but Obama still clings to an equally narrow lead in a band of key swing states sufficient to give him the electoral votes to win. The view of a lot of poll analysts is that something will have to give, and that the national polling and state polling will again converge. There's another view -- which I am largely sympathetic to -- that argues that Romney may be running up the score in red states and even possibly improving his standing in deep blue states, all of which has an overall effect on the national polling that obscures Obama's better position in the states that will actually decide the election (and where Obama is actually running an aggressive paid media campaign). Really, who knows.

I think by most accounts, this is the map we're realistically looking at right now. Obama seems to have a sustained (if narrow) lead in each of WI, NV, and OH, which gets him to 271. If Romney closes in Wisconsin, Obama can pull the same trick with IA and NH's combined 10 EVs (both states I also get the sense that Obama is in the lead, though the polling has been more sporadic here), but under that analysis, he would still have to win Ohio, and its unlikely to think of a scenario where Obama loses WI but somehow wins (the slightly more naturally Republican) OH.

We'll see if Obama's polling improves over the weekend and next week thanks to his much better second debate performance. But at this point, it's more white knuckled that I thought it would have been since at any point when the general election campaign started in earnest this summer.

[Starraven]

u mad?

Debate Moderators May Be Affecting the Election

Actually, yes, I'm mad. Bitch shouldn't have opened her mouth. Just gives credibility to that whole 'liberal media' / 'leftist agenda' thing... that I hate hearing... It also gives legitimacy and a need for things like Ann Coulter & Fox News. It's actually WORSE because Ann Coulter is never going to be a goddamn moderator for a presidential debate.

Yeah, Romney is lying through his teeth. But keep your goddamn mouth shut and let Obama worry about it. That's his job not yours.
Be a fucking professional.

/rant (sorry about the response time I've been busy)