Month: September 2012

Categories
Mitt Romney Politics

The Passion of the Mitt

Really, all that’s missing is the thorny crown. Mitt Romney all but threw himself under the bus this past week as he attempted to show his conservative bona-fides. The problem is that right-wing Mitt hasn’t quite reconciled with moderate Mitt. The result is a political dissonance not seen since Sarah Palin looked out her front window and saw Russia. It’s embarrassing, and it’s going to cost Romney the election.

Of course, I’m not talking about the 53% of Americans he identified by omission as hard-working people who take not a whit of government money, including Social Security, public pensions or tax credits. These people built it by themselves and if it wasn’t for those Cheatin’ Chinese, we’d be out of the economic doldrums and on our way towards prosperity.

What I’d like to know is why the 53% aren’t showing up in polls for Romney? In the latest national polls, Romney has 45, 43, 46, 45, 46 and 47 (in a Rasmussen poll where he actually leads Obama by two) percent of the vote. The latest NBC/WSJ poll has him losing by 50-45%. If the 47% are in the tank for Obama, that should leave plenty of room for a majority in Romney’s corner. It isn’t happening yet. And time is running out quickly.

What Mitt’s comments about the moochers who support Obama and his disastrous ruminations on the violence in the Middle East have done is to divert precious moments away from his central attacks on the president’s economic record. And Medicare (does anybody remember Medicare? This is an election about Medicare.) And the deficit. And any other substantive issue that Romney/Ryan believed was going to win them the hearts and minds of American voters with valid picture ID’s everywhere. The Republicans have lost days in the maelström of media-driven narratives and have tripped over their own tongues. And all Obama has had to do is to get out of the way, gracefully, and let them fail.

This election is by no means over. The first debate is October 3, and that presents Mitt the absolute last chance to reset himself and present his arguments to the electorate. The problem is that research shows that the debates do more to solidify the state of the race as it exists prior to the debates than they actually change minds. Plus, many people are just now tuning in to the election and they could decide that Obama has had his chance and he didn’t deliver. Stranger things have happened.

But even stranger things have already happened in this campaign. And they’ve all happened to Mitt.

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Categories
Mitt Romney Politics

Republican Senate Candidate Linda McMahon – “I Disagree With Gov. Romney”

Connecticut GOP Senate candidate Linda McMahon distanced herself Tuesday from Mitt Romney’s comments dismissing the “47 percent,” becoming the first high-profile Republican candidate to do so.

“I disagree with Gov. Romney’s insinuation that 47 percent of Americans believe they are victims who must depend on the government for their care,” McMahon said in a statement. “I know that the vast majority of those who rely on government are not in that situation because they want to be. People today are struggling because the government has failed to keep America competitive, failed to support job creators, and failed to get our economy back on track.”

In her statement, McMahon referenced her family’s early struggles, when she and her husband, Vince, declared bankruptcy and lost their car and house. The McMahons are now multimillionaires, having developed World Wrestling Entertainment, where Linda served as CEO from 1997 to 2009.

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Joe Scarborough Mitt Romney Politics

Joe Scarborough – “Mitt Romney Sounds Like a Plutocrat!” – Government By The Rich, For The Rich

I’m not a big fan of Morning Joe on MSNBC. Host Joe Scarborough usually get to me and I still cannot figure out what Mika’s role on the show is. But sometimes, Joe would say something worth repeating and on Tuesday morning, the news worthy part of Joe’s broadcast featured his cast discussing Romney’s recent blunder, where he was caught on video dissing 47% of America.

Joe started the discussion pointing out how comfortable Mitt Romney when he said that poorer Americans are basically lazy and dependent on the government. “What was that?” Joe asked.

“That’s the case the Obama campaign made last night. This was a man saying what he believes. This is a window into the real Mitt Romney,” was one answer.

A second guest added, “… unfortunately he says this thing, this one sentence, ‘I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.’ That’s pretty much every senior citizen in America. Pretty much every senior citizen in America who is on Medicare and Social Security doesn’t pay any income tax. That’s the one voting group Mitt Romney had a clear advantage over the President with. It’s so contentious, it’s so condescending.”

Joe then made a comparison with George Bush who, according to Joe, tried to get voters from the minority group. Joe finished up with the conclusion that Mitt Romney sounds like a “plutocrat.” (According to the Dictionary, a plutocrat is someone who believes that Government is for the wealthy, that the wealthy should be the ones controlling the government.) He later added that this week is the worst he’s seen for the Romney campaign.

WOW! Video below.

Categories
Mitt Romney Politics

Mitt Romney Degraded Half Of America At Fundraiser Hosted By Sex-Party Organizer

By now you’ve all heard the one about Mitt Romney and his disgust for half the American people. He is so disgusted with this group, that he has already wrote them off as Obama voters, fully dependent on the government and too lazy to take care of themselves. Of course I’m just paraphrasing what Romney said at his private fundraiser. His exact words however, does not take away from the interpretation given above.

Here’s what Romney said;

There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax.

My job is is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

As unbelievable a statement as that is, there’s more. Word on the street is that Romney’s infamous statement about 47% of Americans was made at a fundraiser… hosted at the estate… of a Sex Party-throwing Hedge Fund Manager.

David Corn just said on TV that the now infamous Romney fundraiser was held in Boca Raton, Florida at the estate of hedge fund manager Marc Leder.

According to the New York Post, Leder throws a pretty mean party.

His “wild end-of-summer bash was the talk of the Hamptons this year,” the Post reported last December. “At the Bridgehampton home that Leder rented for a whopping $500,000 a month, guests cavorted nude in a pool and performed sex acts, while scantily clad Russian women danced on platforms. Dancers at the party also twirled flaming torches to booming beats.”

Come to think about it, we never really saw what was going on from the waist down while Romney was making his speech.

Categories
Mitt Romney Politics

Mitt Romney – Obama Voters Believe In Entitlements And Are Not Responsible

Mother Jones posted a very damaging video today showing Mitt Romney talking to a small group of big-time donors. Romney, in the presence of these rich folks chose to talk about poorer Americans, and he expressed his feelings about these unfortunate citizens.

Romney said that these poor Americans are people who believes in an “entitlement” society. He said that they look at themselves as “victims,” and concluded that his job is not to “worry about those people,” because he can never “convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

These voters Romney claimed, are Obama voters.

There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax.

[M]y job is is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

Categories
Politics

Video Shows Ambassador Chris Stevens Being Rescued From Burning Building

Al-Bakoush told the Associated Press on Monday that Stevens was breathing, though his face was blackened and he seemed paralyzed.

A translation provided by The New York Times shows that one of the Libyans said: ‘I swear, he’s dead.’

Another man says: ‘Bring him out, man! Bring him out,’ another says.

There is hope as others are heard saying: ‘The man is alive. Move out of the way. Just bring him out, man.

‘Move, move, he is still alive!’

The crowd that had formed in the area then shouts: ‘Alive, Alive! God is great.’

Al-Bakoush said the crowd carried Stevens to a private car to drive him to a hospital, since there was no ambulance.

h/t The Daily Mail

Categories
Healthcare ObamaCare Repeal

New Study – If Republicans Repeal ObamaCare Seniors Would Pay More

The report was done by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Among other findings, the report says;

A number of Republican proposals to repeal the 2010 health reform law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), include the elimination of the law’s Medicare provisions. This Data Note reviews the impact of repealing those provisions for Medicare beneficiaries and program spending.

If the ACA was repealed, Medicare spending would increase by an additional $716 billion over 10 years, Medicare’s hospital trust fund would be projected to be insolvent beginning four years from now, in 2016, eight years earlier than current projections, and many beneficiaries could see increases in premiums and costs for other services.

Categories
Politics

Republican Peter King – “I Don’t Care About Fact-Checkers”

Peter King, Mitt Romney, Donald Rumsfield, Liz Cheney, Tim Pawlenty and other Republicans regularly use the media to propagate a false claim – that the President goes around the world apologising for America. When that lie is told on Fox News and other irresponsible “news” outlets, the claim goes unchecked and the viewing public is left with the impression that the President is weak on national security.

But on Monday’s Starting Point with Soledad O’Brien, Peter King was finally asked to backup his claims. King pointed to a 2009 speech by the President in Cairo and said the speech contains “apologies” for America’s values. Soledad explained that she had copies of the speech and found no reference to apologies or the words “I’m sorry.”

“Everyone keeps talking about this ‘apology tour’ and ‘apologies’ from the President,” said O’Brien. “And I’m trying to find the words “I’m sorry, I apologize’ in any of those speeches — which I have the text of all those speeches in front of me. None of those speeches at all. And if you go to factcheck.org, which we check in a lot, they all say the same thing. They fact check this.”

She also advised King that Fact Checkers have debunked the claim that the President went on an “apology tour,” to which King answered, “I don’t care about fact checkers.”

That sentiment is reflected in Mitt Romney’s campaign. When presented with facts challenging the false claims he makes, Romney continues the lies.

Facts have no place in this Republican party.

Categories
Politics

Crazy Liz Cheney Accused Obama of Abandoning A Country That Doesn’t Exist

Liz Cheney repeated the falsehood that President Obama has apologized to our enemies and abandoned Czechoslovakia, which hasn’t existed since 1992.

During a panel on ABC’s This Week, host Jake Tapper asked the daughter of the former vice president if she agreed with Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s assertion that [President] Obama was “sympathizing” with the people who attacked the U.S. embassy in Libya and killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and other Americans.

“I think he did get it right,” Cheney insisted. “We’ve now had three and a half years of Obama policy and it looks an awful lot like — whether you’re talking about the Mexico City speech in 2009, the Cairo Speech in 2009, the extent to which he’s been apologizing for America, he’s abandoned some of our key allies like Israel, Poland, Czechoslovakia. He’s attempted to appease our enemies, the Iranians, for example, the Russians. … The president himself has got a terrible record on national security, and it’s clearly something that Gov. Romney ought rightly to be pushing.”

“Terrible record on national security?”  Not quite.

Categories
Elizabeth Warren Politics

Elizabeth Warren Leading Scott Brown In Massachusetts

With 50 days left until Massachusetts voters decide who will represent them in the U.S. Senate for the next six years, Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren has pulled ahead of Republican U.S. Sen. Scott Brown, according to a new poll.

The survey of Bay State votersconducted Sept. 6-13 by the Western New England University Polling Institute through a partnership with The Republican and MassLive.com, shows Warren leading over Brown, 50 to 44 percent, among likely voters.

The gap among registered voters is even larger, according to the survey, which concluded Warren leads 53 to 41 percent. The poll of 545 registered voters has a 4.2 percent margin of error, while the sample of 444 likely voters has a 4.6 percent margin of error.

Categories
Mitt Romney Politics

It’s Raining Polls

The Democratic Nation Convention is a dot in the campaign’s rear-view mirror, but the shift in public sentiment it engendered is now embedded in the polling numbers. And that’s not good news for Mitt Romney.

The one bright spot for Mitt’s campaign is in North Carolina, where a Rasmussen poll has him leading by 51-45%. This is a firm enough pick-up for the GOP that the Obama campaign will probably not contest the state too vigorously because there are other states that need their attention.

Most of the other state polling over the last week shows the president with small leads in some of the swing states and solid leads where he needs to have them, most notably in Pennsylvania and Michigan, where the conservative groups supporting Romney have pulled their advertising, and New Jersey where, despite Chris Christie’s best efforts, Romney is behind by double digits. Those states, though, were always considered nice switches if the election was going to swing hard against Obama and Romney was going to win in landslide, a scenario not out of the question last spring when the economy and momentum were on Mitt’s side. After a summer in which Obama ran a textbook incumbent’s campaign (define your opponent negatively, change the topic from the economy, force Mitt further to the right), the big Republican win seems to be fading. Romney can certainly pull this election out, but he’ll need to go a different route than the 44 state rout he was thinking about.

In the states where the election will turn, the latest polls show a virtual dead heat. Obama leads by one point in a Rasmussen Virginia poll and by one in Colorado according to a Denver Post/SUSA survey. In Florida, and NBC/WSJ/Marist poll has Obama leading by 49-44%, but the poll overstates Democratic participation so the actual results are probably closer than five points. Both Rasmussen and ARG show one point leads for Obama in Ohio and UNH/WMUR sees Obama with a five point lead in New Hampshire. If Romney can carry Ohio, Florida and Colorado, he’d be within two Electoral Votes of the presidency and could win with any one of New Hampshire or Virginia. This is a tall order, but this is where both he and Obama will be spending the most money and time over the next seven weeks.

The main focus for the next few days, though, will be on Wisconsin, a state that hasn’t been polled since the DNC. With native son Paul Ryan on the national ticket, a poll-leading Republican, Tommy Thompson, atop the Senate ballot and a Republican governor at the helm, Wisconsin has been trending red for the past two years. The Romney campaign is putting a good deal of money into the state and a win there would be a huge pickup. In fact, a Romney win in Wisconsin could mean that Ohio follows suit. That would obviate the need for Mitt to win Colorado. It’s big. Perhaps we’ll get some numbers this week.

The national polls show an Obama bounce that has faded somewhat, though the Rasmussen tracking poll had Romney ahead by four early in the week and now shows his lead cut in half. Gallup has shown a pretty consistent Obama lead throughout the last 10 days. National polls by the New York Times, ABCNews and NBC/WSJ show an Obama lead, but they all overpolled Democrats in their surveys. I at least will need some further confirmation from more realistic internals to make a judgement about the national race. We know it’s close, but we don’t know just how close it is.

With foreign policy grabbing the headlines this week, the Romney campaign hopes to undermine the president’s policies while continuing to attack him on the slow economy. That Mitt’s comments on the Middle East unrest were seen as political opportunism will not help him, but if further events lead to more instability, he could correct himself and gain the high ground. Obama has probably built up enough of a lead in the foreign arena to survive, but more problems are clearly not what he wants. The president’s campaign has to figure that any day Romney is not talking about the economy, he’s losing ground. We’ll see what happens this week.

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Categories
Politics terrorists weekly address

President Obama – “We Will Never Waver” In The Pursuit To Capture America’s Enemies

President Obama used his Weekly Address to speak about the tragedy that happened in Libya where four Americans were killed. The President reassured Americans that as long as he’s Commander-In-Chief, he will do all he can to bring justice to the families of the four fallen heroes.

As we mourn their loss, we must also send a clear and resolute message to the world: those who attack our people will find no escape from justice. We will not waver in their pursuit.  And we will never allow anyone to shake the resolve of the United States of America.

This tragic attack takes place at a time of turmoil and protest in many different countries. I have made it clear that the United States has a profound respect for people of all faiths. We stand for religious freedom. And we reject the denigration of any religion – including Islam.

Yet there is never any justification for violence. There is no religion that condones the targeting of innocent men and women. There is no excuse for attacks on our Embassies and Consulates. And so long as I am Commander-in-Chief, the United States will never tolerate efforts to harm our fellow Americans.

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