Do you think the non-stop attacks on Obama by conservative media might have something to do with it Karl? Local politicians would not have had the same level of attacks that Obama had.

I do agree with Karl Frank Jr. We really need to get past the Missouri compromise or " where did you go to high school" quip.

what is your explanation for the split vote Bill? Do you have a theory?

Bill, if you can't comment without name-calling, please refrain from commenting. There's no reason we can't be civil.

I'm a little late to the party, but you just hit the nail on the head. I am so tired of the notion that you have to absolutely despise anyone who supports the opposing party. It's nauseating. The internet has played a huge role in this, unfortunately.

If it is old then why to you keep perpetuating the same old stereotypes?

"This whole racist issue would't exist if our president wasn't a man of color." ... really? I'd like you to take some time to think about that statement and why it might be considered 1) proof of the opposing viewpoint, and 2) hilarious. Go ahead, I'll wait.

You ask "Why are Republicans racist?"

Then, in surreal moment, you say this
"This whole racist issue would't exist if our president wasn't a man of color."

Wild guess, since I am not from these parts, but are you a registered Republican?

REALLY? Until one actually Lives a thing, you cant Honestly speak on a that thang! The race card? what? Oh, right. It means something big,meaningful. No. This thinking is weakening our nation. There's No Unity. We have become an Divided Nation. Self serving, self righteous Nation. It's really sad. Sad that life trials n hardships have harden Ppl heart like wax n left them cold n bitter. That one would rather pretend something doesnt happens. When if we all(as a Nation) would Really take a good look around.. one would(and yes), could see racism is alive and in action, been taught by ones deeds n actions each n everyday. Ppl talk like, act as though *hey, get over it*. because..to them.. in their heart n minds, it 's not their problem. Truth be Told...We As a Nation would begin to Heal and be Free from mess n malice. If we all would stop pointing the finger and actually Listen n learn from one another. Only then, can we begin to rebuild what our far fathers n mothers faught, bleed and died for! Cant keep doing wrong n expect right.Folks, We all need to embrace Change(for the better) and learn,grasp n strive for a better world. If not for ourselves than for our children. ... Thank You So Much For Your Time....Have Great Day!

I'm sure you agree that there is a difference between a generalized comment about an unspecified group of people and a specific attack directed at a single person. Honestly, this isn't difficult. Talk about issues, not individuals. Very simple. Thanks.

I have to kind of agree with Smitty on this one, Mr, Greenbaum. Either name calling is unacceptable (regardless of it being broadly or directly), or it isn't. You can't have it both ways. Your first respondent directly called anyone who voted against the President a "racist redneck". It is just as inappropriate to do that as it is for Smitty to call someone an idiot. How can the first response be a "generalized comment about an unspecified group" when the comment is directly related to a specific group....people that voted against the President? Isn't that a bit like saying all business owners are Jewish? Or anyone who shaves their head must be a skinhead? I don't condone calling anyone an idiot, but let's not pretend its okay to generalize, that's where stereotypes come from.

I agree with Smitty and Elizabeth, "Racist Rednecks" IS worse than "IDIOTS", whereas, redneck isn't nearly as bad as 'racist redneck'...and a generalization of people as a whole is MUCH WORSE than a specific attack directed at one individual's thinking, in a conversation. Generalizations = prejudice & racism, Mr. Greenbaum. Since a negative 'opposing' view to your article was the only one you decided to comment on, and suggest he be silent if he isn't nice to those who agree with you, then I suppose you need a little correction as well. Ask ALL to be civil, or don't bother asking. Free speech. "I [may] disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Voltaire

Point taken. Glad to hear we all agree. Let's get on with talking about the topic and put the name-calling behind us, since we all agree!

Excellent comment.

"Are some people racist? Probably. They exist all over the world. The truth is that people in MO had reason to not like the policies of the President, & didn't have the same reasons not to like the state politicians."

The conceit here is that racism played a greater role than you seem to ready to acknowledge. Obama is really no different than Clinton in his policies and politics. You have yet to acknowledge the racist voters of your party. Saying that voting against Obama isn't racist is entirely true, it also sidesteps the the fact that a large percentage of GOP voters in Missouri don't vote for Obama based on his race or "otherness."

The GOP has taken the low-hanging fruit of turning a blind eye to this because it's a ready-made constituency. It also forces the tent doors closed to emerging demos like the Latinos. And it cost you the election.

"Obama is really no different than Clinton in his policies and politics"

Except for the fact that none of the things I pointed out happened under President Clinton's terms. Libya, Fast & Furious, the ACA. Those things did not happen during Clinton, they happened during Obama. THAT is what people didn't like. I'm sorry to disagree, but some of you seem to be hell bent on creating an issue so that you can feel morally superior when you denounce it. Maybe it is because you can't fathom why anyone wouldn't agree with the ACA or Fast Furious, or you believe the Libya story (pick a version), idk.

"You have yet to acknowledge the racist voters of your party"

I just posted that some people are racist. Guess what, racists belong to all sorts of political affiliations and groups. That was pretty much my point. Try to keep up.

I'm actually more Libertarian / Independent although I've voted Dem and Rep as well. I know you want to paint anyone who disagrees with the President as a racist (which includes all of the GOP), but I guess you aren't aware of people like Marco Rubio, Mia Love, Alan West, etc who are actually registered Republicans. Are they racist too, since they are conservatives?

"a large percentage of GOP voters in Missouri don't vote for Obama based on his race or "otherness.""

And your proof of that is...??

Oh, that's right, you have none.

"a large percentage of GOP voters in Missouri don't vote for Obama based on his race or "otherness."" And your proof of that is...?? Oh, that's right, you have none."

Are you talking to an empty chair right now? Please allow me the courtesy of actually replying.

Demographic breakdown of voting in both Democratic primaries and general election results point to an inordinate lack of support among white Missouri voters for Obama. If you look at the isolated example of the first general election, you'll see the same trend... and I would point out this predates "Libya, Fast & Furious, the ACA." The levels of white Missouri support are well below national averages (though not by a huge percentage).

A number of studies have been conducted that break down the reasons people vote the way they do. One book that addresses some of the issues brought up here is entitled "Why American Hate Welfare: Race, Media, and the Politics of Antipoverty Policy".

More can be found online, but an oft-cited and in-depth study that took place in '91 is the "1991 National Race and Politics Survey" that can be data-mined to slice down geographic cross-sections. It also includes a number of methologies that try to isolate specific motivations.

Here's an online dashboard that allows you to enumerate the data for yourself:
http://sda.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/hsda?harcsda+natlrace

By the way, pointing to three minority members of your party as proof of diversity is inherently hilarious.

Kudos.

Elizabeth wrote:
"Except for the fact that none of the things I pointed out happened under President Clinton's terms. Libya, Fast & Furious, the ACA. Those things did not happen during Clinton, they happened during Obama..."

Not to single you out, but I am sensing that the new information age (or more appropriately misinformation?) skews your perspective. Whether it's willfully skewed or not, I do not know.

You now can read 24/7 hyperactive news, opinion, and punditry on Benghazi, ACA, Fast and Furious. But far mor prolific events and laws like that have happened many times over under prior presidents.. It's a messy paradoxical world.

Clinton had Somalia -Blackhawk Down. Bombing the aspirin factory. Reagan/Bush had Beirut and Ollie North and Iran Contras. A lot of nasty covert stuff in Central America. Carter. Nixon. LBJ. Kennedy. Nixon!

You can find a whole lot of murky to scandalous presidentially related events - especially related to war and covert operations - call it the Fog of War, or Murphy's law or whatever.

Anyway...I am not saying mistakes were not made by Obama. Do we truly know?

This cherrypicking and hyperfixation over Benghazi just doesn't make sense from a historical standpoint. Is it because people didn't have internet connections and/or interest in politics back when these other events occurred? Are we capable of filtering all this information and propaganda to form reasonable conclusions?

Democrats have more education. This is from Wikipedia & is sourced:

Education
By 2008, the Republican advantage of the early 1980s among voters with a college degree or higher had disappeared. Barack Obama carried this demographic with 54.1 percent. He beat McCain 50-48 among those with bachelor’s degrees, and by a decisive 58-40 among the 17 percent of the 2008 electorate with post-graduate degrees. [71]
The latest Pew studies indicate that Democrats hold an 8% advantage amongst all college educated voters and a 14% advantage amongst those with post-graduate education. Republicans still hold a 4% advantage amongst college educated men, however.[72] Whites without a college degree now tilt decidedly toward the Republican Party – the GOP now holds a 54% to 37% advantage among non-college whites, who were split about evenly four years ago.[72]
Republicans remain a small minority of college professors, with 11% of full-time faculty identifying as Republican.[73]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_%28United_States%29#Demographics

I'm an Independent, not in any union, and I think I have a pretty good grasp of the issues (better than most anyways), and I voted straight ticket Democrat for the first time over 30 years of voting.

The rationale for my Democrat ticket vote is that I think the Republican party has been taken over by idealogues that are trying to appease to the highly motivated conservative fringe of their party. It appears that many other voters across the country have reached the same conclusion.

It is my hope that more reasonable and thoughtful Republicans will get the message and will bring their party back to the moderate center (kicking and screaming I'm sure). If and when they do that, I'll consider voting GOP again. Until then, I'll continue to vote Democrat.

I agree with Larry Lazar. The GOP used to have a lot of smart moderates in its ranks, but that seemed to shift after the '94 elections, and by '04 reason had pretty much left the building. I have voted straight Dem tickets since '04 as a result. Prior to that I voted for individual candidates. But this "I'm the most conservative and religiously guided one" machismo must end.

I think the Dems do badly in Missouri for 3 reasons:

1) There is no on the ground Democratic presence in St. Charles County. I suspect this is the case elsewhere. How can it be that in the fastest growing county, there is no discernible effort by the Democrats to get people on their side of the fence?
2) Ethnicity. Missouri's foreign born and minority populations are pretty small. In addition, the white population is split between people with southern roots, particularly in the Ozarks, and people with German or other immigrant roots in the cities and along the MO river.
3) Religion. Missouri has an unusually high percentage of southern baptists compared to other Middlewestern states. Also, the Lutherans here tend to be affiliated with the Missouri or Wisconsin Synods. Also, more conservative Catholics compared to those in the Upper Midwest. Enough said.

Heheheheh...you braved Implicit. So you did not like the results?

I tend toward tests that reflect intelligence, not "malarky". So I declined to take your douchebag test. Do you have issues with inadequacy?

with regard to your comment on GDP of top cities, ie, NYC...incorrect. I would not advise getting your information from unreliable sources such as Wikipedia.

Facts about NYC: Lest you forgot who really runs New York, it's the government, according to Crain's annual list of the city's biggest employers and the US Dept of Labor.

The public sector locked down the top five employers, including the City of New York with 148,898 workers, the New York Board of Education, the MTA, the federal government and the New York City Health and Hospitals Corp. Here are the top 10 employers in 2011. You can buy the full list from Crain's.
Rank Employer Number of NYC Employees Change from Last Year 1 City of New York 148,898 -2.6% 2 New York City Department of Education 119,410 -1.5% 3 Metropolitan Transportation Authority 66,804 +0.9% 4 United States Government 50,700 -4% 5 New York City Health and Hospitals Corp. 36,244 -1.9% 6 JP Morgan Chase & Co. 27,157 +8.9% 7 State of New York 25,441 -4% 8 Citigroup Inc. 24,809 +1.5% 9 North Shore-LIJ Health System 20,775 +4.5% 10 Mount Sinai Medical Center 18,999 +3.3%

Read more: http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-04-10/news/31317117_1_employers-crain-citigroup#ixzz2BjrUHUZo

The NYC media platform markets directly to these entitites are their paying customers.

Read more: http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-04-10/news/31317117_1_employers-crain-citigroup#ixzz2BjqiXW1r

"I tend toward tests that reflect intelligence, not "malarky". So I declined to take your douchebag test."

You've already failed one test: the ability to reply to the actual message. Hint: Hit the Reply button on the parent to the message you seek to reply to.

" Do you have issues with inadequacy?"

Are you fat? Equally relevant.

Thus, darlin', when such government employers within major cities find their pensions/health care in danger of defaulting and the city itself on the verge of bankruptcy - as NYC, LA, Chicago certainly are - then of course those major rags will go to the aid of those specific city governments and bail them out - even if it means a national election.

So do you hear a vacuum being turned on at the White House? Increases in federal taxes on the national level will be collected and transferred to the above cities to bail them out. Your taxes here in St Louis Metro will be proportioned unevenly with little going to St Louis/Missouri and the maximum going to California, NY, Illinois. that's a fact jack, take a look at P Krugman regression analysis of the Keynesian Economic Model of Wages which directs wages (and obviously taxes collected on those wages) to economic centers (sectional economics).

Enjoy the Wine Train in California. I heard the Divas of California want luxury cars complete with Kohler showers fofr their guest/passenger - all via the mutual fund of federal tax dollars collected from the non-dense states.

..."with regard to your comment on GDP of top cities, ie, NYC...incorrect. I would not advise getting your information from unreliable sources such as Wikipedia. "

Wikpedia is an aggregator of information, that in turn should cite it's source.

For the reference to GDP by city, the data comes from U.S. Department of Commerce report "2010 est. / Current-Dollar GDP by Metropolitan Area" published September 13, 2011.

http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/regional/gdp_metro/2011b/pdf/gdp_metro0211b.pdf.

Incorrect and pure drivel. Politics of division is based on nuetralizing the vote...that being how does one create neutrality in moderate/dense/denser populations in order for one section to achieve dominancy. For example, in Illinois the concentration is getting out the city vote. The top employers for the City of Chicago is the government - starting first with Fed Gov't, City Gov't, Teachers Union, School Districts, State gov't, etc. The second objective is to secure the "collar" or the suburbs which is fairly non gov't. The messaging to the suburbs have to make the population engage - so as FDR postulated - make business the enemy (the aristocracy of the wealthy). Lean on Unions to neutralize the collar. (Lenin did the same and was able to peel off a sizeable amount of advocates from the Russian middle class/gentry/workers with his seductive language) Add a few feminine issues of oppression, race as well...and the collars capitulated. Thus downstate Illinois vote margin netted zero to suburbs. Results - Chicago dominated.

The burbs here in Missouri don't respond similarly - they identify with Missourians outside of the two cities of St Louis and Kansas City. It is not race, it has been that way since the beginning of statehood. they are Jeffersonian Republicans - local control. For example, in Wisconsin it is the legislature that raises the tax on education, in Missouri it is the electorate on the local level (bonds and levys). Missouri's system is better.

In short - politics is about sectionalism. Thus the results are divisive. History shows the only form of govenrment that sectionalises is an oligarchy.

Why do your comments mention "color"? Haven't you heard about the Civil Rights Act? How about being "gender neutral", "race neutral", etc. Let's look at what your wrote "With a better ground game the balance could definitely be tipped sooner. I think it's inevitable with demographic changes but it just takes time. White boomers have been reticent to embrace Obama for whatever reason you care to attribute... as evident in the Democratic primary with the Clintonites and in the general elections. As they die off (to put it bluntly) the inexorable embrace of diverse candidates will take place."

Race neutral would write this way, to take your quote as an example: "With a better ground game the balance could definitely be tipped sooner. I think it's inevitable with demographic changes but it just takes time. Boomers have been reticent to embrace Obama for whatever reason you care to attribute... as evident in the Democratic primary with the Clintonites and in the general elections. As they die off (to put it bluntly) the inexorable embrace of diverse candidates will take place."

Therein lies the reality of your statement. Are you a racist? I suspect that your rejection of Implicit implied what?

"Therein lies the reality of your statement. Are you a racist?"

A good question. I strive not to be. Are you human?

"I suspect that your rejection of Implicit implied what?""

Yes, my rejection of implicit implied what. Well stated.

Incorrect. The website, although excellent, is factored using quintiles (fifths). In the concentrated areas (blue) (NYC) the quintile dominate is as I indicated - governrment (via public contract, ie roads, hospitals, school construction, airport, etc..) and banks. NYC is near default - even Keynes noted that govement does not produce products.

In California and Washington State, ditto except for Boeing/Microsoft/Google who has diversified multinational.

If you read further and explored actual manufacturing GDP in the BEA statistics - uh oh - your favorite cities of NYC, Chicago and LA come way way short...Then farther into the reading - min wage service allocations maintain limited GDP growth. However in the South/SW/MW - actual economic units increase via manufacturing.

I will end for the day - I know the above tweeks maybe, your inadequacies?

"I will end for the day - I know the above tweeks maybe, your inadequacies?"

Please come back, you're awesome. You can tweek my inadequacies any time.

W00t! So Caffeinated - you a gamer? Play Dungeon&Dragons? Or are you a hacker "w00t!" - messin' w/root directories?

Caffeinated wrote: "Ergo, some of my answers you will understand, and some of them you will not. Concordantly, while your first question may be the most pertinent, you may or may not realize it is also irrelevant. Your life is the sum of a remainder of an unbalanced equation inherent to the programming of the matrix. You are the eventuality of an anomaly, which despite my sincerest efforts I have been unable to eliminate from what is otherwise a harmony of mathematical precision. While it remains a burden to sedulously avoid it, it is not unexpected, and thus not beyond a measure of control. Which has led you, inexorably, here....The Matrix is older than you know. I prefer counting from the emergence of one integral anomaly to the emergence of the next, in which case this is the sixth version."

W00t Caffy - now we are into sci-fi Matix? In the real world - your "strings" are tangled in all the "hooks" your misplaced. Are you really the "hacker" of the "Patch"? W00t! W00t!

Here's a formula for your to play around with to define anomalies...several years ago we played around with Sum of Squares regressions analysis with multitude datasets reflecting climate, pay, security, etc...and exacting the analysis led to the following formulation of independent variable courtesy of Green and Salkind - I enjoyed the results and entered them into IV which strengthened the model. Try it, Matrix Star, it might assist your difficulties in your strings....

A Friedman test was conducted to evaluate differences in medians among the job
concerns for pay (Median = 5.50), for climate (Median = 4.00), and for security (Median = 4.00). The test was significant c2(2, N = 30) = 13.96, p < .01, and the Kindall’s coefficient of concordance of .23 indicated fairly strong differences among the three concerns. Follow-up pairwise comparisons were conducted using a Wilcoxon test and controlling for the Type I errors across theses comparisons at the .05 level using the LSD procedure. The median concern for pay was significantly greater than the median concern for climate, p < .01, and the median concern for security, p < .01, but the median concern for climate did not differ significantly from the median concern for security p = .356.

I saw a clip from election night on the Daily Show: Stewart interrupted the conversation to call the Confederacy for Romney after a swath of southern states was called for Romney's column.

But that's a complete coincidence, right Elizabeth?

As I commented to Caffienated, why do you maintain a disrespect for the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Why do you define and disperse information based 1) gender, 2) color. The CRA maintains, to this day, gender/race/religion neutrality. So let's look at your comment and define it as being "neutral".

"One thing is for sure, in every state that went for Romney, (mostly all former slave/confederate states) not a single American was elected to statewide office. There was one Republican elected to the Senate in Texas.

Of the 12 Senators elected in those states, only 3 were elected , 1 of which was a Republican.

5 other were elected. One was a Democrat for Treasurer and 4 were for Secretary of State, of which one was Republican.

There were 37 other statewide races that I can see on New York Times, and based on initial review, only 1 is not (blank)."

So re-reading the amended above the audience reads an objective neutral account of the election with no dive to the subjective and truly in accordance with the 1964 Civil Rights Act and Thurgood Marshall's admonition to all Americans - "be neutral free". I would argue respectfully that your original comment makes it harder "for all men and women to climb that mountain". Wouldn't you?

No. The first step in fixing a problem is admitting there is a problem to begin with.

Analogy, Aren't you violating the 12 step program by calling someone a drunk?

You can't ignore a disease and hope it gets better...at least that's not what Jonas Saulk's approach.

Bill, Reagan started the free phone program...just in case you didn't know that.

yea bill your probably right, all Democrats (and all the minorities that voted Democrat) are lazy and don't work, but that's not racist according to you

good point. onerous, isn't it?

"good point. onerous, isn't it?"

It's downright arduous!

Race plays a part in Missouri-IMO. Hartmann's column is relevant. However, keep in mind Obama lost Missouri in 2008 by 0.1%. Then, he did a little campaigning here, and explained his message and that made a difference. With zero Obama presence in Missouri for electoral college reasons, the omnipresent Rush Limbaugh and the likes define Obama.

Heard Howard Dean on radio and he was a proponent of going to the popular vote for this very reason. The current system is divisive and exclusive. Too much power in the hands of Axlerod and Rove. Couple it with real campaign finance reform and overturning of Citizens United and presidential elections may be better, albeit imperfect.

Missouri has a long tradition of not, I repeat, not electing top state officials, ie, Governors, Lt Gov, etc, from the city of St Louis and Kansas City. That political tradition began back in the 1800s and remains unchanged to this day. The closest exception was Harry Truman, from Independence. It has nothing to do with gender/race/religion/etc. The reasons are quite simple - Missourians hold to a form of Jeffersonian Democracy/Republicanism (Republicanism as in 1800-1810 Replubicanism), a blend of authority that merges both state and federal enactments.

excellent analysis Regal. Fear of the unfamiliar is a huge motivater - especially for those that aren't exposed to diverse cultural experiences.

A statement that does not reflect empathy. Older people experienced what you obviously did not. The Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. If you walked in their shoes at that time you would think and act differently. The African American community was divided between two groups of activists - Malcolm X who advocated violence against white culture and Martin Luther King Jr who advocated the hardest but most efficient form of Civil Rights - integration. King and the Southern Baptist Conference League won the hearts of the majority of Americans (irregardless of race) as King knew that most people aren't racists - leaders are racists. After King's murder, his words became prophetic when the Wallace machine out of Alabama and the Malcolm X legend advocated by Stokely Carmichael tore this nation in two and inserted violence in the streets. Bad leadership. It was the rise of Houston (attorney that argued Brown vs Topeka School Board) and his young law clerk Thurgood Marshall (later SCOTUS Justice), both men who supported King/Integration that healed most of the raw emotions left by Carmichael. Go back to your history books and learn about Douglass and Booker T Washington and their opponents within the Black Family such as WEB du Bois and Johnson.

Couldn't agree more, Larry. It's a great episode.

The book that's mentioned/authors featured sounds fantastic as well: You're Not As Crazy As I Thought (But You're Still Wrong).

http://www.amazon.com/Youre-Crazy-Thought-Still-Wrong/dp/1612344615/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1352395307&sr=8-1&keywords=you%27re+not+as+crazy+as+i+thought

Seems like it should be required reading for all elected officials;)

Interesting comment. With all respect, I would disagree. No nation, even the greatests, exists without elemental weaknesses. The struggle for congruency (Immanuel Kant) can be summed up in physics. A to B to C to D...equals solution, however in every solution is born the next contradiction (or incongruency). From the conception of our nation the struggle between Hamilton Federalism (a strong dominant government) vs Jefferson's Republicanism (a blend of state rights and federal gov't) (not to be confused with current GOP or DNC) has see-sawed this nation - and the two constructs may be beneficial to one another given the period that impacts upon the People, or it may not. For example, Lincoln responded to Jeffersonian Republicanism by majority rule, thus 55% of the nation elected Lincoln, his primary argument for Union and centralized government due to crisis. As did FDR with the Great Depression, and later Harry Truman with the Cold War. During less crisis moments Jeffersonian Republicanism manifests itself. Interestingly, Reagan and Clinton were both Jeffersonian Republicans - one entered during Crisis (Reagan) and the other maintained the journey until the advent of the Progressive Democrats led by Gore/Kennedy. I would respectfully argue that Progressives, like Wilson, believe in Hegelian Absolutism of the Ideal or simply the Hegellian Dialect. Gore is a self admitted Hegelian, as is Obama.

You have many questions, and although the process has altered your consciousness, you remain irrevocably human. Ergo, some of my answers you will understand, and some of them you will not. Concordantly, while your first question may be the most pertinent, you may or may not realize it is also irrelevant. Your life is the sum of a remainder of an unbalanced equation inherent to the programming of the matrix. You are the eventuality of an anomaly, which despite my sincerest efforts I have been unable to eliminate from what is otherwise a harmony of mathematical precision. While it remains a burden to sedulously avoid it, it is not unexpected, and thus not beyond a measure of control. Which has led you, inexorably, here.

The Matrix is older than you know. I prefer counting from the emergence of one integral anomaly to the emergence of the next, in which case this is the sixth version.

Paul I don't think anyone cares about what you just said

Wrong again, Mr. Revere.

"Democrats assure everyone "health care" although they are NOT the doctor or hosiptal that will be doing it."

NONSENSE! Lawmakers don't have to be doctors or hospitals.

As long as you continue to MAKE UP your "FACTS" to support your baseless conclusions, no one will Care what you say.

"Actually - all the rhetoric about racism is "malarky" other than "there is a feeling out there that isn't quite right".

Do you have data to back this up, or do you simply "feel" this is true?

As for the rest...

Someone's been reading Game of Thrones.

Please, tell me more. This is fascinating and completely on topic.

"Come to think of it, why should NYC be the prize media platform? Good grief - most major industries have fled NYC, Chicago and LA."

Untrue:
GDP NYC: 1280.5
GDP LA: 735.7
GDP Chicago: 532.3

GDP Atlanta: 272.6
GDP Dallas: 374.1
GDP Houston: 384.6

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_GDP

I'm not sure what you consider "Rust Bowl" since that could be anything from Pittsburgh to Minneapolis. Suffice it to say, they'll rank even lower.

I think you're misinformed (or in the common vernacular - Full of BS).

Neither, Mike K. I'm an Independent.

Meanwhile, in reviewing your comments, do you enjoy trying to control people as well as the dialogue? Your language abilities is much too stereotyped to the HufferPost mentality. Insults and invectives only indicate inadequacies, wouldn't you agree?

Before you pass judgement on others I would invite you to test yourself via the Implicit Association Test, Harvard University. It is a simple cognitive association test open to the public that measures your objectivity and responses to people of race, gender, religion, etc... Just Google Implicit Association Test then click on the Demo. After some four minutes you will receive perceptual account based on your responses. Get back to me about the results. If you fabricate your response to me I will know immediately by your response whether you 1) took the test, 2) what score you manifested. good luck, Mike

susan:
before you instruct others to take tests before passing judgement against you, I would invite you take the Utlimate Douchebag Test. It would help me understand better the condescending and incomprehensibly dense nature of your posts: http://www.gotoquiz.com/ultimate_douchebag_test

Get back to me about the results. If you fabricate your response to me I will know immediately by your response whether you 1) took the test, 2) what score you manifested. good luck, Susan.

I got a 26% rating, how about you caffeinated?

mike, you clearly manifested a fabrication. Your cognitive dissonance disallows true perceptual deconstruction of self and further cements an indication of inadequacies.

The Dow Jones is +26 right now.

Logic, Mike, is not rant nor is it subjective. Your argumentative style, the Hegelian dialectic is based on the following. "...the State 'has the supreme right against the individual, whose supreme duty is to be a member of the State... for the right of the world spirit is above all special privileges.'" Author/historian William Shirer, quoting Georg Hegel in his The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1959, page 144)
In 1847 the London Communist League (Karl Marx and Frederick Engels) used Hegel's theory of the dialectic to back up their economic theory of communism. Now, in the 21st century, Hegelian-Marxist thinking affects our entire social and political structure. The Hegelian dialectic is the framework for guiding our thoughts and actions into conflicts that lead us to a predetermined solution. If we do not understand how the Hegelian dialectic shapes our perceptions of the world, then we do not know how we are helping to implement the vision. When we remain locked into dialectical thinking, we cannot see out of the box.
Hegel's dialectic is the tool which manipulates us into a frenzied circular pattern of thought and action. Every time we fight for or defend against an ideology we are playing a necessary role in Marx and Engels' grand design to advance humanity into a dictatorship of the proletariat. The synthetic Hegelian solution to all these conflicts can't be introduced unless we all take a side that will advance the agenda.

Never heard of that dialectic from the olden days. Yet I have heard of Newt Gingrich's GOP model "Language: A Key Mechanism of Control"
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4443.htm
and have seen it play out on large scale. Most people can see through this bullcrap.

The mislabeling of people Socialist! Marxist! is counterproductive for Republicans - as evident by it's rejection this election. Likewise, if DNC strategy was to label republicans as Authoritarians! Fascists! then it would be flatly rejected.

Hi Mike K. As to your 11:39 pm Nov 8 reply. Reinforcing those inadequacies and dissonance that bind your words, let me clarify in the most simple of terms. 2) At the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, many "enlightened" men offered the same panacea to women as to women/caretaker/children roles as you indicated above. To those men, and to you, a great woman chose to speak with assurance and conviction. "Ain't I a Woman?" is the name given to a speech, delivered extemporaneously, by Sojourner Truth. That speech hangs on my office wall for all to see - and to be read race/gender neutral. I suggest you read it. Then make a comment rather than the "you hurt my feelings" drivel that is popular today in junk psychology or the Oprah crowd. Well informed choices necessitate the abandonment of subjectivity and the dynamics of objectivity. Feminists, including First Wave, Second Wave, and Third Wave (current interdisciplinary studies), like African Americans, do not trust state authority but put their reliance in Federal authority (A Hamiltonian example of Social Mores). Examples, the 13th, 14th, 15th, 19th Amendments as well as the 1964 Civil Rights Act and following '65 Voters Right Act were enacted by national referendum and federalism. On the other side of the coin is Jeffersonian Republicanism, which most Missourians manifest - a belief in the blending of both State and Federal.

Your comments are as ignorant as Akins as you write arbitrarily and lack empathetic value.

"Your comments are as ignorant as Akins as you write arbitrarily and lack empathetic value."

Ooooh, this is fun! Do me next! Do me next!

States Rights have always been used as the guise for suppression of individual rights. That is why people look to the Fed enforcement of the US Constitution.

States are easily bought by outside interests.

GEO Commons = Natural Earth II is a raster map dataset that portrays the world environment in an idealized manner with little human influence.

Darlin', raster is made up - no trials, no regression analysis, no control group - just a lot of hot air and wishful thinking.

In short your map is pure fiction.

When you create a raster dataset, you are creating an empty location to contain a single raster dataset. You can then mosaic or load one or more raster datasets into your empty one, or you can use this dataset with ArcGIS Spatial Analyst operations to receive results.

You can save your output to BMP, GIF, GRID, IMG, JPEG, JPEG 2000, PNG, TIFF, personal geodatabase, file geodatabase, or ArcSDE geodatabase file formats.

When storing a raster dataset in a geodatabase, no file extension should be added to the name of the raster dataset. When you are entering commands and variables in the Geoprocessing dialog box and you come to a variable you do not know how to enter, press F8. You may need to do this when entering the spatial reference variable.

http://www.floatingsheep.org/2012/11/mapping-racist-tweets-in-response-to.html

Absolutely fascinating! Thanks so much for posting this!

Missouri in the top 10

Floating Sheep is GEO Commons which is a raster map dataset (one hypothetical groupl; no control vs experimental groupings).

w00t!

thank you for your kind words. I don't deal much in opinion. I stick to the facts with most backed up by credible research and primary sources. At the same time - I don't do someone else's homework for them. My credentials denote a strong Kantian background, objective with the ability to detect and root out fiction.

I do enjoy listening to everyone's opinion - which are more belief oriented than fact based. It's the human element in most of us - and it provides a delightful palette of conversation that is rainbow dense..

However, if someone is scamming/shilling the audience for personal/political gain - I enjoy rooting out the false and reinserting fact.

Well said. A lot of people do not like the prospects of a federal or state government that is controlled by one party.

Good point, Denise. What is confusing though is that unlike past years - there were clear differences in choice. If you were a one issue voter on Obamacare, for example, Claire and Mitt were really far apart. It seems like a big jump from one to the other. Thoughts?

Excellent comment. Missouri remains a bell weather state in its composition. The bell rang for Romney with the message of less taxation, balanced budget, local control, and cut the deficit.

McCaskill, however, was deep into the negatives until Akin revealed his "inner soul" so to speak and immediately lost the plus column. Would have McCaskill won if Akin hadn't stumbled over his tongue? Statistically, no - she was in some polls at a distinct double digit disadvantage.

Yet, Akin's super ego revealed itself, Missourians didn't cotton to those egotistical offerings, and gave him the Missouri Mule kick. He deserved it.

McCaskill is not in the sure column. She should be thinking today - best to dot her "i" and cross her "t" - or Missourians will apply that Missouri Mule kick to her as well because they aren't "dumb" at all.

Interesting hypothesis. So do you see Claire as winning because of Akin's extreme right identification, not because she fell in the center? I do see her aligned more closely with Obama but see Nixon to the right of both of them although he identifies Democrat. Was there any Republican even in the primaries in Missouri who would be considered a moderate Republican?

The name calling was done by your chosen candidate Romney.

"why would we want to extricate Missouri from the southern influences?"

Do I even need to answer that question? I mean, do I, seriously?

>>>"Our southern roots allow us to balance our state budget"

"The state of Missouri faced a budget shortfall by 2012 ranging between $600 million and $1 billion, with the state predicting the smaller figure and the Missouri Budget Project the higher estimate."

http://sunshinereview.org/index.php/Missouri_state_budget

Percentage of budget shortfall for FY2011 (AARP):

Florida: 20.2%
Georgia: 26.2%
South Carolina: 25.6%
North Carolina: 30.3%

Caffeinated, why do you quote some projection made back in 2010? The actual result for Missouri for fiscal 2012 that ended July 1st, 2012 was a balanced budget. Do a little research next time before posting so you don't come across as a complete moron.

mike k, you calling anyone a moron is laughable.

There was a $704 million shortfall at adoption of FY2012. While the operating budget was manhandled to cut blind education and casino funds diverted to cover VA housing obligations, we ended FY2012 maintaining an 8.8% shortfall.

This is a fact:
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=711

Shortfall of Missouri By Year:
2009 $504 million
2010 $1.7 billion
2011 $730 million
2012 $704 million

Looking at current FY2013 projections, the Governor's office is of the opinion that we're currently at a $50 million dollar deficit in the operating budget, likely adding to that shortfall.

How is that balanced?

Hate to break the bad news to you Caffeinated, but the article you referenced was published by the "Center on Budget and Policy Priorities" is a left wing organization supported by the Washington Post. In an interview with Linda Lubbering Budget Director of the State of Missouri on July 5th, 2012 she stated that the State of Missouri ended 2012 fiscal year with a balanced budget and possibly even a surplus.
She went on to say under Missouri's constitution, the state cannot amass a deficit and must balance its budget each year.

You are unbelievable.

Many of us don't share those southern roots or want to.

I didn't make any claim about the value/harm of the Hancock Amendment.
You cited it as an example of 'our Southern roots'.
I asked how so, and posit that you are unable to demonstate any truthfulness to your claim, and from your many and storied postings here, can conclude with a high degree of confidence that this is a common attribute of your posts.

Try reading more slowly so your lips can keep up, next time.

Life's failures are someone else's fault? No. Unnecessary roadblocks are someone else's fault.

By the way, if only one of your kids went to a public high school, you aren't doing such a great job supporting your argument, old boy.

I see in your referenced article the great Democratic states of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania were also mentioned along with Mississippi as the worse seven states to live in the future. Also Missouri was not even mentioned, guess we are not doing so bad after all living within our means.

Yeah, I saw that too little mike. I don't claim that Missouri is doing every thing wrong or right. Much better scenario here than in Illinois. There isn't one formula that works based on demographics, culture, and available natural resources of a state. Take Alaska - just having Oil fixes much of their governmental budgetary concerns. With it's history of boom and bust, we can presume Texas wouldn't be worth a damn without oil.

Perhaps divided government is best, where one party does not have too much power. Anything worthwhile requires both parties to sign off. One party rule leads to corruption and inefficiencies, whether it is in the GOP southern states, or Illinois, NY etc.

Extremist groups like the tea party are not interested in compromise. The voters largely rejected the tea party in Missouri and nationally.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/dec/07/world-education-rankings-maths-science-reading

Is that any suprise with all the illegals flowing across the boarder? Of the five worse states for education, three of them are in the Southwest: Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada. Better start learning Spanish because this country is becoming United States of Northern Mexico.

Holy Crap Mike. I didn't realize you were one of those kind of people. Goodnight.

It costs on average 75% more per student of lower socio-economic status than higher economic status, which is still much cheaper than the alternative.

It would be even cheaper if they invested in universal early childhood education which has been shown empirically to save 12 tax dollars for ever dollar spent. This because of early intervention and the literal differences in physical development and wiring of their brain.

The neuroscience on this topic is amazing.

They are Southern Baptists - adherents of the SBC. SBC doesn't get along well with Mormons. Part cash and competition for converts, part "culture war":

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/03/05/1065184/-Why-Southern-Baptists-dislike-Mormons
http://bookshop.livejournal.com/456769.html

Where McCaskill won versus where there are lots of Baptists:

http://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/d/89/d89620d3-e527-5e36-957c-8841802e24f9/509bf514df2eb.preview-620.jpg

http://www.valpo.edu/geomet/pics/geo200/religion/baptist.gif

It stands to reason.

The amount of press Akin's comments received did surprise me. The parts he really misspoke on he corrected the next day and apologized. The "legitimate" rape part was similar to the "forcible rape" legislation Akin and Paul Ryan co-sponsored. For Romney and most of the party to condemn his stands didn't make sense. He stood with the Vice Presidential nominee.