COULTER: OK, it's offensive and you're going to come up with 20 different ways to tell me it's offensive. It's offensive according to whom? Moron, idiot, cretin, imbecile. These were exactly like retard, once technical term to describe people with mental disabilities. Changing the word doesn't change the condition.

I was not referring to someone with Down syndrome. I was referring to the president of the United States.

COULTER: I didn't call the president a Down syndrome child. I used the word retard the same way people use idiot, cretin, moron and the rest of them which were all once technical terms and I had it with the language police. You were wrong that no one else is laughing. Everyone is fed up with the language police.

MORGAN: Final point on it. A little part in your brain cell should go off and say you know what, Ann, I just overstepped the mark.

COULTER: OK. Explain to me what -- why that is different, again, from cretin, moron, idiot.

COULTER:
Retard is the same as idiot, cretin, moron. It means loser. That's what it's meant for 30 years. And the word police come in five minutes ago and say no, we're going to be bossy and tell you what to do. They're the biggest bullies of all, these self-appointed victims.

http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1210/26/pmt.01.html

idiot (id-ee-uh?t )
noun

1. an utterly foolish or senseless person.

2. (no longer in technical use; considered offensive) a person of the lowest order in a former and discarded classification of mental retardation, having a mental age of less than three years old and an intelligence quotient under 25.

http://m.dictionary.com/d/?q=idiot&o=0&l=dir

Idiocy shares with idiom and idiosyncratic the root idios, which means private, separate, self-centered -- selfish. "Idiotic" was in the Greek context a term of reproach.

When a person's behavior became idiotic -- concerned myopically with private things and unmindful of common things -- then the person was believed to be like a rudderless ship, without consequence save for the danger it posed to others.

This meaning of idiocy achieves its force when contrasted with polit(macroñ)es (citizen) or public. Here we have a powerful opposition: the private individual versus the public citizen.

http://paws.wcu.edu/churley/9_2_parker.pdf

Mississippi Article 12, Section 241

CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI

Qualifications for electors.

Every inhabitant of this state, except idiots and insane persons, who is a citizen of the United States of America, eighteen (18) years old and upward, who has been a resident of this state for one (1) year, and for one (1) year in the county in which he offers to vote, and for six (6) months in the election precinct or in the incorporated city or town in which he offers to vote, and who is duly registered as provided in this article, and who has never been convicted of murder, rape, bribery, theft, arson, obtaining money or goods under false pretense, perjury, forgery, embezzlement or bigamy, is declared to be a qualified elector, except that he shall be qualified to vote for President and Vice President of the United States if he meets the requirements established by Congress therefor and is otherwise a qualified elector.

SOURCES: Laws, 1935, ch 117; 1950, ch 569; 1952, ch 441; 1968, ch 614; Laws, 1972, ch. 626, eff November 22, 1972.

http://www.mscode.com/msconst/12/12-241.html

Kentucky Constitution
Section 145

Persons entitled to vote.

Every citizen of the United States of the age of eighteen years who has resided in the state one year, and in the county six months, and the precinct in which he offers to vote sixty days next preceding the election, shall be a voter in said precinct and not elsewhere but the following persons are excepted and shall not have the right to vote.

1. Persons convicted in any court of competent jurisdiction of treason, or felony, or bribery in an election, or of such high misdemeanor as the General Assembly may declare shall operate as an exclusion from the right of suffrage, but persons hereby excluded may be restored to their civil rights by executive pardon.

2. Persons who, at the time of the election, are in confinement under the judgment of a court for some penal offense.

3. Idiots and insane persons.

Text as Ratified on: November 8, 1955.
History: 1955 amendment was proposed by 1954 Ky. Acts ch. 2, sec. 1; original version ratified August 3, 1891, and revised September 28, 1891.

http://www.lrc.state.ky.us/legresou/constitu/145.htm

The Ohio Constitution

(The 1851 Constitution with Amendments to 2011)

§ 5.06 Idiots or insane persons

No idiot, or insane person, shall be entitled to the privileges of an elector.

http://www.legislature.state.oh.us/constitution.cfm?Part=5&Section=06

Dog Debarking Policy At AVMA Raises Activists' Howls Of Protest


Karen Mahmud, 43, of Long Island, N.Y., holds her long-haired Chihuahua, Lola, who barks in a squeaky whisper after surgeons cut the dog's vocal cords.

By JoNel Aleccia, NBC News

When Porter, a 123-pound black Newfoundland, attempts to bark, it comes out as a raspy cough. When Lola, a 6-pound long-haired Chihuahua, tries, she emits only a whispery squeak.

Both dogs have been “devocalized," or surgically muffled, using a controversial procedure regarded as either barbaric mutilation by lazy pet owners -- or as the last resort of animal lovers desperate to keep their furry companions.

Porter’s owner, Sue Perry, a 58-year-old Connecticut bookkeeper, and Lola’s owner, Karen Mahmud, a 43-year-old New York nutrition blogger, fall squarely into the first camp. They’re part of the Coalition to Protect and Rescue Pets, an activist group that helped get the practice known as “debarking” or "devoicing" outlawed in Massachusetts two years ago. Now they have set their sights on the American Veterinary Medical Association. “I was just horrified by this,” said Perry, who adopted Porter from a rescue agency five years ago. “When he tried to bark, I was, like, ‘What the heck?’”

Though they’ve never met in person, the two women have joined to launch an online petition demanding that the AVMA, the nation’s leading group of veterinarians, condemn devocalization when the organization reviews its policy on the procedure later this year. So far, more than 125,000 people have signed onto their cause.

More: http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/25/14677222-dog-debarking-policy-at-avma-raises-activists-howls-of-protest?lite

Online petition: http://www.change.org/petitions/tell-veterinarians-devocalization-is-mutilation

General Elections, 6 November 2012

Following an invitation from the United States Mission to the OSCE to observe the 6 November 2012 general elections and in accordance with its mandate, the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE/ODIHR) undertook a Needs Assessment Mission (NAM) from 23 to 27 April.

The OSCE/ODIHR NAM recommends the deployment of a Limited Election Observation Mission (LEOM) to observe the general elections.

http://www.osce.org/odihr/90651

=snip=

In contrast to Mitt Romney's used-car salesman approach in which he stabs you in the face but does so in a way that makes you thank him and shake his clammy hand in the end, Barack Obama's natural and authentic -- underscore authentic -- style might've seemed like he wasn't as polished.

No, the president wasn't as energetic as he could've been. Yes, he was far too kind and deferential to an opponent whose entire goal is to roll back every Obama administration achievement. But there was zero chance that President Obama would appear in Denver last night and suddenly reveal himself to be a snappy, idealized Aaron Sorkin character. Furthermore, many of my friends on the left lapsed back into this weird chronic amnesia in which they forget how Barack Obama carries himself, how he debates and who he is. With a few exceptions, the Obama you watched last night was the same Obama we watched win all three debates against John McCain four years ago, say nothing of all of the various town halls, press conferences and Question Time forums he's hosted. He's thoughtful and deliberate and, yes, he sometimes stammers during pauses, but that's no reflection on his leadership qualities or unrivaled intelligence. For the most part, this is how he's always comported himself. The problem, however, was that it might've come off as too deliberate and thoughtful when contrasted against Romney's caffeinated morning zoo deejay persona.

Speaking of which, let's talk about Romney's performance in terms of what he said.

Romney -- not the president -- made the biggest mistake of the night and almost everyone missed it....

Continues: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/bob-cesca/mitt-romney-won-the-debat_1_b_1940025.html