Friday Open Thread [9.21.12]
First Read reports that the actual election (i.e. the casting of actual votes) begins in half the country tomorrow.
“Idaho and South Dakota today are the first states to begin early-in-person voting. Also today, absentee voting begins in Minnesota, West Virginia, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Georgia, Arkansas, Idaho, and Maryland. This brings the total number of states already accepting ballots to 12. Thirteen additional states (South Carolina, New Jersey, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Delaware, Virginia, Louisiana, and Missouri) will begin absentee or early voting on Saturday.”
Nate Silver points out that a simple average of the four national tracking polls put President Obama 3.4 points ahead of Mitt Romney, essentially no different than a week ago, when the same technique gave him a 3.5-point lead.
“It’s at least possible that Mr. Obama’s bounce was fading — but that the attention to Mr. Romney’s ’47 percent’ comments has since given Mr. Obama renewed momentum. It will take a few more days before we can come to any sort of conclusion about this, however, especially since some of the tracking polls use long field periods and have only conducted a fraction of their interviews since Mr. Romney’s remarks were uncovered.”
| The Daily Show with Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Exclusive – Bill Clinton Extended Interview Pt. 1 | ||||
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| The Daily Show with Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Exclusive – Bill Clinton Extended Interview Pt. 2 | ||||
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Jon Karl reports that at one recent Texas fundraiser for Mitt Romney, a donor told the GOP nominee, “I am happy to write a check, but why are you here? Shouldn’t you be in Ohio?”
For those of you using the new iOS6 maps feature, the world is working on accommodating your pain:
http://craphound.com/images/io6mapstfl.jpg
Paul Ryan emerges from his bunker, tells a bunch of lies to some folks who weren’t born yesterday, gets booed for his trouble. Don’t miss the video, it’s short and brutal.
It gets better… At 3pm today Romney releases his 2011 taxes, along with (his own) summary of his effective tax rates back to 1990.
Who cares what your rate is if you shelter your income. Something is being hidden. There is the possibility he took advantage of the amnesty program for people who illegally hid money in swiss banks.
No… apparently he overpaid in 2011 because he’s running for office, for Pete’s sake. Reportedly his 2011 taxes worked out to 9%, but he cooked his returns by giving up charitable deducations until he got up to a rate of 13% (Romney had previously stated he had always paid 13% or more, so he was locked in). So he’s a reverse tax cheat.
Remember Mitt said if he overpaid his taxes he wouldn’t be qualified to be President.
I wonder if it was his church donations that got left off the return?
http://gawker.com/5945362/jill-bidens-long-unintentional-description-of-joe-bidens-penis-earns-cheers-from-crowd
everyone go watch this. RIGHT NOW.
Hahahaha. Poor Jill. She tried valiantly to recover…