The Ruptured Duck

A vintage C-47

Happy Thanksgiving

First and foremost, I hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving. We still have a lot to be thankful for. There are many throughout the world who wish they could be so fortunate as to be in the bottom rung demographic in this country.

There’s something else I would like to say on this Thanksgiving. I direct this to all of the so called experts, consultants, pundits and other assorted professional talking heads who, since the election have bemoaned the fate of our republic. Who have accepted that there has been a major demographic shift. Who fear that this country has irreversibly shifted to the left, or that we now live in a ‘post constitutional’ country, based on this past election. To them I say, sit down and shut your bleating pie-hole!  Quit crying and act like grown men (or women) for God’s sake.

Before I go further, let’s look at some numbers.  Below you see the voting results for three elections, 1972, 1984, and 2012.  In 1972 and 1984 there were resounding republican victories, while 2012 was a narrow victory for the democrats. Also note that the ’72 and ’84 percentage of population shown below was for the entire population because I couldn’t find figures for the voting age population like I did for 2012.

                         1972                    1984               2012

Rep	47168710	54455472	59,634,071
Dem	29173222	37577352	63,448,632
Other	1402095	620409
Tot.	77744027	92653233	123,082,854
Pop.	209896021*	235824902*	234,564,410**
% of Pop.	37.04	39.29	52

*indicates the entire population
** indicated voting age population only

Sources:
 http://www.npg.org/facts/us_historical_pops.htm
http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/national.php?year=1972
http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/national.php?year=1984

First, note that according to the 2010 U.S. Census, the total population was 308,745,538.  So the number who voted, were approximately 39.9% of the total population. That’s roughly equivalent to the ’72 and ’84 turnouts.

Second, the number of votes difference between Obama and Romney was 3,814,410, that's 1.63% of the eligible voting population.  The difference in ’72 was 17,995,488, and the difference in ’84 was 16,878,120. Both ’72 and ‘84’s amounts are over five times greater than the 2012 difference.   

Yet here sit the republicans walking around shell-shocked, or crying and blubbering silly shit like this quote, “I am not alone, I know, in sensing a fateful shift in the temper, the emotional weather, of America. I cannot pretend to know what it portends.”  

Give me a break. How do you think the democrats felt after the far worse ass-kickings they got? Did they decide that the best course of action was to cave-in on the important issues and act more like republicans?

The cold hard facts are that this election was against a weak president with no accomplishments and a gob-smacked economy, it was the republican’s for the taking, and they didn’t just lose it, they threw it away. Two easily winnable senate seats, (Missouri and Indiana) were lost because the republicans nominated two of the stupidest candidates they could have found. Todd Aiken and Richard Mourdock were utterly stupid and clueless.  A weak field of presidential candidates devolved into the least unpalatable candidate.

The other hard fact the republicans do not want to face is that in this fight, the other side wanted it more than they did. The other side saw its objectives and went after them, with a will to win. The other side was willing to fight harder & dirtier and do whatever it took to win. Period. The democrats analyzed the electorate and what it would take to snag a sufficient majority in the key states to win sufficient electoral votes. They did their demographic homework, mobilized their ground game and ran the nastiest, most negative, issues free  campaign in recent memory.  Not only that, but over the years, they didn’t just sit and bemoan their fate, they built their base, they organized. It was a long march and it enabled them to pull out an election they should have taken a drubbing on similar to the ’72 and ’84 ass kickings they got.

The republicans, while talking a good game, were out hustled and out fought and lost an election that was ripe for the taking. (Let me have men about me that are fat, Sleek-headed men and such as sleep a-nights. Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look. He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous.)  They got what they deserved. When you listen to them, you get this sneaking suspicion that they really don’t believe what they’re saying. They don’t really share the values they talk about. They’re just saying it because they think it’s what you want to hear. In the country clubs, senate drawing rooms and elsewhere, where the public usually isn’t around to hear, they really agree with and have more in common with the democrats than with the citizenry.  They seem resigned to the democrats vision of America as a sinking ship and their main objective is to ensure they go down first class.

 Just remeber one thing, in spite of a lackluster republican campaign, inspite of a mainstream media that was the defacto publicity arm of the democrat party, despite the rampant vote fraud, the democrats only won by 1.63% of the votes cast.

I won’t go into what I think they need to do to re-tool their brand and get back in the game. There are others who have far more eloquently delved into those issues. But do it, either the republicans or a new party, must. I wonder how many have the sand for it?

Go eat some turkey, we’ve all had enough crow to last us for a good long time.

Please watch this it's worth a few minutes of your time. hat tip: Instapundit


Hat Tip: Protein Wisdom:

 

 

Finally, some more Spiderbait

The Leaf

Food for thought;

Hat tip: Newsalaert.blogspot.com

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that in 59 Philadelphia precincts, Mitt Romney did not receive a single vote. So Ward Room decided to look at the results in the president’s hometown, and see if he won as many shutouts here. The answer: no. Romney was rejected by every voter in only 37 Chicago precincts, an embarrassing result, given that segregation and Machine politics are two of our city’s most notable qualities.

Any doubt there was some vote fraud? Check out this comment on NBC Chicago's website:

In critical swing states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois there are a lot of precincts in Philadelphia, Cleveland, and Chicago which reported 100% of their votes cast for Obama. These add up to many 10's of thousands of votes for Obama and 0 for Romney. I repeat, 0 for Romney. I have read a number of articles about this and people knowlegable in Political Science and Statistics are starting to take notice of this.Statistically, even if among 10's of thousands of voters all wanted to vote for Obama, it would not be possible to receive 100% of the vote because at least a few would make a mistake and vote incorrectly for Romney. Not to mention the fact that a least a few of those 10's of thousands might actually disagree with Obama. These types of election returns are only seen in countries run by dictators.

Just a reminder to those who want to get rid of the electoral college: corrupt Chicago voting practices could and would determine an election. Vote fraud occurs in Chicago because the U.S. Attorney doesn't want to conduct a simple investigation of those 37 precincts. Is there similar hand writing on any of those ballots ? Did any dead people vote ? Since Chicago lost 6.9% of its population in the 2010 Census : were any of those 37 precincts in the declining population wards? Maybe, if Chicago had a legitimate U.S. Attorney some of these questions would be answered. No word on this story from "alleged" former crime fighter and Obama "protector" Patrick Fitzgerald. Is Barack Obama and the U.S. Attorney's Office afraid of this milk story???

One more item to chew on, 

Sandy Daze Sees The Future: "They will move faster now.... They are not bound by any law."

November morning in Ohio

Taken last week while in Ohio. Walking on the old towpath trail north of Canal Fulton.

In other news, the replacement at the CIA for General Petraeus is to testify CIA never requested military assistance in Benghazi.

How curious, (quoting from the above referenced article) since Fox news' "Jennifer Griffin reported on October 26th, citing sources that were actually “on the ground” in Benghazi during the attack, that the CIA contingent repeatedly requested assistance — but were told to “stand down” twice by officials in the CIA chain of command."

 OK, is it me, or does Petraeus's replacement ( Michael Morell) bear a startling resemblance to Lavrenty  Beria?

Photo Friday Challenge

Constructed

Taken in Ohio during a recent trip back there.
I have no idea what these buildings were for.
Nor was I able to get inside as they were locked up tight.

Vacancy!

Hope & Change

The Resie Falls

This is a photo of the reservoir in N.E. Massillon, Ohio where Sippo creek originates. I grew up near here and can remember when I was 8 years old, walking across the top of the falls. I and a friend were about 5 feet back from the edge. We took off our shoes and were walking on the slimy and slippery rocks of the spill way from the left to the right. The water was about four to six inches deep. It seemed so much bigger then. 

Late Afternoon in America

First, today is Vetran's Day. A thanks to everyone who has served their country.

Took a trip to Ohio this past week, to visit family. This is I an HDR image of the courthouse in Millersberg, hand-held.  My old stomping grounds of Wayne, Holmes, and western Stark counties.

Being back in Ohio for the election was quite interesting, and depressing. The majority of the area in Ohio was solid Romney country, or should I say, anti-Obama country. However, once you went into large cities, you were in solid Obama country. Not so much the suburbs, but especially in the poorer sections and campuses. In all my running around the countryside, I saw very few Obama signs in rural areas or small towns. I saw no Romney signs in poor sections of Canton, Akron, etc.

I think we've reached a tipping point in this country where the takers now outnumber the makers.

As the famous quote goes, 

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess of the public treasury. From that time on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship....

The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from great courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependence; from dependency back again to bondage." 

:	Sir Alex Fraser Tytler (1742-1813) Lord Woodhouselee, Scottish jurist, professor and historian
Source:	supposedly from The Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic, c.1799 but no book has been found.

Elsewhere, I saw this attributed to Alexis De Tocqueville.  Authentic or not, it aptly describes the situation today.

Then there is  this.

To loosely paraphrase from another famous quote, "For the first time in my life, I am not optimistic about the future of this country."