This is a perfect representation of the campaign: an old white man arguing with an imaginary Barack Obama.
— Jamelle Bouie (@jbouie) August 31, 2012
"We were then treated to a very special performance from the greatest bullshit artist in politics today, and therefore not coincidentally the special honoree of the evening, one Paul Ryan. Think a young, crooked Nixon channeling the theories of Ayn Rand, putting it through the sausage grinder of Orwell's worst fears, and delivering it with the smirking assurance of a Baghdad Bob. Obama closed a GM plant in Janesville, he snarled, not mentioning that the time-traveling plant had shuttered before Barack Obama ever entered the White House."The lies are spelled out further in this account. Worth a read to understand what the President and Dems are up against: a Rethug ticket and a party unafraid of boldly lying to the public, backed by hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign funds, much of it unaccountable.
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"Gov. Mitt Romney’s campaign toasted its top donors Wednesday aboard a 150-foot yacht flying the flag of the Cayman Islands.
"The floating party, hosted by a Florida developer on his yacht “Cracker Bay,” was one of a dozen exclusive events meant to nurture those who have raised more than $1 million for Romney’s bid.
"The event, attended by no more than 50 people, along with Romney relatives, including older brother Scott, appeared on no public calendars. ABC News obtained a schedule of the Romney campaign’s 'Victory Council' and waited dockside to speak with members.
“'It was a really nice event. These are good supporters,' said billionaire Wilbur Ross, an energy industry executive." (our emphases)
"But how is it that the South has come North in today’s GOP? The fact that Barack Obama is our first black president coincides with the United States’ transformation from a majority-white nation to a multiracial country no longer destined to remain the world’s hegemon. Augmented by an intractable recession rooted in a crisis of capitalism, this epochal shift has summoned the shades of racial resentment. To the extent that Republicans can depict government as the servant of this rising non-white America (precisely the purpose of Romney’s ads), the South’s antipathy toward government can find a receptive audience in other regions."
You might think that someone at the RNC For Life event would offer a pregnant lady a seat, but you'd be wrong.
— Michelle Goldberg (@michelleinbklyn) August 28, 2012#GOP2012
Do it nice and easy, now, don't lose control:
A little bit of rhythm and a lot of soul.
So come on, come on, do the Loco-motion with me.
"The Roman Catholic archbishop-elect of San Francisco was arrested for investigation of driving under the influence, San Diego police said Monday.
"The Rev. Salvatore Cordileone, a vigorous supporter of California’s same-sex marriage ban, was taken into custody after being stopped early Saturday at a checkpoint near the San Diego State University campus, said Detective Gary Hassen, a police spokesman. He declined to comment on whether Cordileone took a sobriety test." (our emphasis)
"You've got a great boss, he runs a great operation here."
“You can play your games and giggle about it but the fact is your side playing that card. When you start talking about work requirements, you know what game you’re playing and everybody knows what game you’re playing. It’s a race card and yeah, if your name’s Romney, yeah you were well born, you went to prep school, yeah, brag about it. This guy has an African name and he’s got to live with it. Look who’s gone further in their life. Who was born on third base? Making fun of the guy’s birth certificate issue when it was never a real issue except for the right wing.”
"..an element of [the Republican Party] has pitched so far to the extreme right on issues important to women, immigrants, seniors and students that they've proven incapable of governing for the people. Look no further than the inclusion of the Akin amendment in the Republican Party platform, which bans abortion, even for rape victims.The Crist endorsement is important in Florida, not only because he is still popular among moderate voters in Florida, but because he can articulate what's wrong and destructive with the agenda of the party he was once a key figure in.
The truth is that the party has failed to demonstrate the kind of leadership or seriousness voters deserve."
"Taken as a whole, the platform makes the Republican Party appear angry, inward-looking and more than a little paranoid. No less a Republican than Reince Priebus, the national committee chairman, tried to insulate the party’s nominee from the GOP’s own policies. 'This is the platform of the Republican Party,” he told MSNBC. “It’s not the platform of Mitt Romney.'”
"For those who may ask what they can do to honor Neil, we have a simple request: Honor his example of service, accomplishment and modesty, and the next time you walk outside on a clear night and see the moon smiling down at you, think of Neil Armstrong and give him a wink."
"The level of vitriol and personal animus that exists on both sides over the flap is truly discouraging."
"1. Donald Trump. The famed billionaire/birther king Donald Trump has been the most vociferous — and most closely connected to Romney — person alleging that the President wasn’t born in the United States.
"2. Actress Janine Turner. The Northern Exposure star who has her own conservative radio show wrote a long screed titled 'Reasoning "Kenyan Born."' In it, she complains that anyone who questions the president’s citizenship is deemed a racist: 'If this were a legal case in court, [Obama's] book bio stating that Obama was "born in Kenya" would be taken into consideration.'
"3. Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens. During a town hall captured on video (at 3:5), Olens said, 'You know the state of Hawaii says he’s produced a certified birth certificate… so on one hand I have to trust the state of Hawaii follows the laws. On the other hand it would be nice for the President to say, here it is, I have a copy.'
"4. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. On one radio appearance during Huckabee’s bid for president, the former governor said, 'I would love to know more [about where Obama was born]. What I know is troubling enough.' He later walked back the statement.
"5. Florida Gov. Rick Scott. In 2010, the Orlando Sentinel reported than an audience member at one of Scott’s campaign events asked 'what he would do about President Obama’s "birth certificate" and whether he could legally appear on the 2012 ballot in Florida.' Scott responded, 'I’ll have to look into it.'
"6. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA). The Vice-Chairman of the House Republican Conference once told reporters 'Oh, I’d like to see the documents.'
"7. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. Jindal was willing to sign a 'birther' bill into law. It would have required all presidential candidates to release their birth certificate in order to qualify for a spot on the state’s ballot."
"In Massachusetts, he tried to lead the Republican party to a larger presence in the state legislature. It lost seats instead, after which Romney pretty much gave up leading the state entirely, except for a whole passel of vetoes that he cast with 2008 in his eyes that the legislature laughingly overrode. He was as much the passenger as the driver on health-care, and that doesn't matter because he doesn't want to talk about it any more. He tried to lead the Republican party in 2008, and the result was that he was hotly loathed by every one of the other candidates. This time around, he was gifted with more money than several gods, and a Republican primary field that had gone completely to the zoo, and he still wound up being led around on a leash by every crackpot in his base. There is not a single principle that he held while running in Massachusetts that he still maintains today. In his political career, he has shown every sign of someone who does not lead, but is led."
"And make no mistake: Dolan is an old-school Catholic pol - a figure who approved payments to molesting priests to expedite their firing, brazenly lied about it, then ran away abroad when the press demanded an explanation. His most important issues are criminalizing abortion, stripping gay couples of any civil legal protection, and making sure that non-Catholic employees of Catholic hospitals and schools be denied access to insured contraception. That he is saying the benediction for a ticket that explicitly endorses a priority for the super-rich over the working poor and views illegal immigrants as beneath contempt also tells you a lot about Dolan's priorities."
"Mitt Romney's $250 million fortune is largely a black hole: Aside from the meager and vague disclosures he has filed under federal and Massachusetts laws, and the two years of partial tax returns (one filed and another provisional) he has released, there is almost no data on precisely what his vast holdings consist of, or what vehicles he has used to escape taxes on his income. Gawker has obtained a massive cache of confidential financial documents that shed a great deal of light on those finances, and on the tax-dodging tricks available to the hyper-rich that he has used to keep his effective tax rate at roughly 13% over the last decade." (our emphasis)
"Well-Regulated Militia Hero Goes NRA, Sacrifices Buttocks to Save Picture Show Patrons
"No name is given for the well-regulated militia hero who drew down on a potential perp at a Sparks, Nevada picture show, so we'll call him 'Cletis Sump.' As a licensed concealed carry permit holder, Brother Sump packs heat where ever he goes. He was doing just that last Friday, when he and his wife, OfCletis, went to see 'The Bourne Legacy' for date night.
"Details about what happened that night are sketchy, but I believe it went something like this.
"Brother Sump's junebug senses began tingling the moment he entered the picture show. Something about the crowd seemed kinda off, even kinda funny. He was glad he was packing ol' sheila, his 9mm "confidence enhancer" in his jacket pocket.
"As Brother Sump bent over to ease himself into the picture show chair, he spied a reflection in a puddle of co-cola left over from the previous showing. The image he saw horrified him. It looked like a denim hoodied, hairy-faced, cola-complected man with a scar, no a deep cleft that evilly bisected his face from where the chin should be, all the way up the the hairline.
"Startled, Brother Sump reached for Ol' Sheila but was too late. His 9mm confidence enhancer had fallen from his pocket and was dropping to the floor. It fired when it hit, shooting 115 grains of wadcutter ecstasy out of the muzzle of is long, rigid barrel. No one knows where the round eventually landed, but, coincidentally, a 115 gr. 9mm wadcutter round, probably shot by the cleft-faced perp, wounded Brother Sump in the buttocks, just below and to the right of where his jeans bisected the glorious man-crack that identifies him as defender of the Heartland.
"The perp got away, but Cletis Sump is no less a hero. The blast of Ol' Sheila surely frightened the cleft-faced killer before he could harm anyone else."
"I guess I really actually feel we shouldn’t contort the voting process to accommodate the urban — read African-American — voter-turnout machine. Let’s be fair and reasonable."
"When candidates attack the opponent on dogs or tax returns, the negativity refs get their backs up and blow the whistle. But distort the other’s position on, say, welfare, or Medicare, and there’s typically less condemnation. Look at the stories linked to in this article, for example, and you’ll see far less (if any) umbrage taken toward policy deceptions, as if the fact that it’s a policy 'debate' automatically makes it a high-minded discussion."
"First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape] is really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” -- Missouri Teatard/ Rethuglican Senate candidate Rep. Todd "My Ass Is About To Be" Akin, to KTVI-TV in an interview posted Sunday. This is the kumquat the Rethugs want to send to the Senate to write laws governing women's health issues.
"Governor Romney’s is a sort of guy, David, that you’d never want to play pickup basketball with. He’s always fouling and he’s always crying foul." -- our Gov. Martin O'Malley (D-MD) to Dancin' Dave Gregory on Press the Meat today perfectly describing the entitled prick's attitude toward criticism.
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"Michael Gerson ['Following Ryan’s map,' op-ed, Aug. 14] had an interesting take on what will characterize the political debate: 'The Democratic ticket will go small, detailing how Ryanism will hurt this group and that.'
"That seems likely, but it helps to do some math. The groups in question are, in no particular order: racial and ethnic minorities; women; veterans; gay men and lesbians; people with disabilities; the poor; federal employees; teachers; and more. When you add up all these groups, you get a big group. A very big group. I think that qualifies as going 'large.'
"Meanwhile, Mr. Gerson asserted, Republicans will go 'large' by 'arguing that budgetary indiscipline creates uncertainty that undermines current growth, while eventually leading to fiscal crisis and economic catastrophe.'
"One can’t argue with the Republican Party’s expertise on this front. It has undeniable credibility on that scenario, having walked the walk during the George W. Bush administration. Fiscal crisis and economic catastrophe indeed. I can live without trying on the Republican brand’s 'large' again, and so can most of those small groups that make up America.
John Allison, Williamsburg"
"[Rethuglican] Judge Robert Simpson of the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania seems to assume that legislators have a high-minded public purpose for the laws they pass. That’s why, on Wednesday morning, he refused to grant an injunction to halt a Republican-backed voter ID law that could disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of poor and minority state residents in November. [snip]
"There is no evidence that Judge Simpson contorted law and precedent to reach his conclusion. He even described Mr. Turzai’s comment* as 'disturbing' and 'tendentious.' But his ruling, in a case brought by potentially disenfranchised voters, is a clear and disturbing illustration of the way Republicans have manipulated legislation for their own ends, placing a veneer of civic responsibility on a low-minded and sleazy political ploy."
"In 2012, once we get past all of the talking points and attack ads, we're left with this: Romney/Ryan wants you to believe they're the liberals. No, seriously. Think about what the Republican presidential ticket, Fox News, Krauthammer, Donald Trump, and the Republican National Committee have been saying all week: those mean, rascally Democrats cut our beloved Medicare and voters should be outraged.This will only work if the public's gullibility is greater than its awareness of actual Rethug policy. Dems need to keep calling them out on their lies.
In other words, the argument pushed by the most right-wing major-party ticket in a generation is that Barack Obama is a left-wing socialist who wants government-run socialized medicine and that Barack Obama is a far-right brute who wants to undermine government-run socialized medicine."
"Mitt Romney today said that he did indeed ‘go back and look’ at his tax returns and that he never paid less than 13% in taxes in any year over the past decade. Since there is substantial reason to doubt his claims, we have a simple message for him: prove it. Even though he’s invested millions in foreign tax havens, offshore shell corporations, and a Swiss bank account, he’s still asking the American people to trust him. However, given Mitt Romney's secrecy about his returns, coupled with the revelations in just the one return we have seen to date and the inconsistencies between this one return and his other financial disclosures, he has forfeited the right to have us take him just at his word."
"We'll believe it when we see it. Until Mitt Romney releases his tax returns, Americans will continue to wonder what he's hiding. Romney seems to think he plays by a different set of rules than every other presidential candidate for the last thirty years, all of whom lived up to the standard of transparency set by Mitt Romney's father and released their tax returns."
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