Good Stuff!
Month: October 2012
Moments after our Embassy was attacked in Libya and four Americans died, Mitt Romney was in front the cameras criticizing President Obama for the attacks. And now, in another feeble attempt to appear human, Mitt Romney has told a story about a Navy SEAL he claimed he met. As fate would have it, that SEAL was killed in Benghazi Libya last month. His name was Glen Doherty and he died honorably serving this country.
Mitt saw an opportunity to use Glen’s death as a political ploy and began using his meeting with the SEAL to gain votes. Said Romney, “…he came from Massachusetts, where I’d been governor, had family there. He also had skied in some of the places, snow skiing that I had found during the Winter Olympics in Utah, that I’d skied at. And we had a nice chat together.”
Romney continued;
And you can imagine how shocked I was to learn that he was one of the two Navy — former Navy SEALs killed in Benghazi, just a couple of weeks ago. And I read on CNN International that when the report came that our consulate had been attacked, that he and the other SEAL that was killed with him, that they were in a different place, they were about a mile away, an annex somewhere else in the city. And when they heard that the consulate was under attack, they went to the attack.”
Enter Barbara Doherty, Glen’s mom. And like all moms, her paternal instincts kicked in. Realizing what Mitt Romney was doing to the memory of her son, Barbara stepped up and demanded that Romney stopped using her son for his political gain.
“I don’t trust Romney,” Mrs. Doherty told Boston’s WHDH-TV. “He shouldn’t make my son’s death part of his political agenda. It’s wrong to use these brave young men, who wanted freedom for all, to degrade Obama.”
In a rare glimpse of morality, Romney’s campaign announced that they would stop using Glen for their cheap politics.
Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.), an anti-abortion activist, had an affair with a patient when he was a practicing physician and then pressured her to get an abortion, according to a report by The Huffington Post.
The report, which cites a phone call transcript from 2000, said DesJarlais was “trying to save his marriage at the time.” Said transcript and court documents showed that DesJarlais and the woman went back and forth about undergoing to the procedure.
Some of the quotes from the transcript, via the HuffPost:
“You told me you’d have an abortion, and now we’re getting too far along without one,” DesJarlais tells the woman at one point in the call while negotiating with her over whether he’ll reveal her identity to his wife. They then discuss whether he will accompany her to a procedure to end the sort of life the congressman now describes as “sacred.”
“You told me you would have time to go with me and everything,” the woman complains.
“I said, if I could, I would, didn’t I? And I will try,” DesJarlais says. “If I can [find] time, you’re saying you still will?”
“Yeah,” the woman answers.
The two bicker over when they can meet to hash out a solution, and they make clear the nature of their relationship when DesJarlais says delaying a resolution isn’t fair to his wife.
“This is not fair to me. I don’t want you in my life,” the woman says.
“Well, I didn’t want to be in your life either, but you lied to me about something that caused us to be in this situation, and that’s not my fault, that’s yours,” the doctor responds.
“Well, it’s [your] fault for sleeping with your patient,” the woman fires back.
DesJarlais’ wife had apparently filed for divorce two years prior. The HuffPost provided a copy of the transcript to the congressman — who “did not deny its contents.”
What if Mitt Romney had to debate himself. Who will win, or in Romney’s case, who will lose?
The good people over at Daily Kos took three of the many different positions Romney adopted over the course of this campaign, and the result is shown in the clip below.
It’s a great idea. I would like to see a longer debate between these two.
He’s been called many things – Mr. Etch a Sketch, a Flip-Flopper, a Chameleon and some have even called Mitt Romney a liar. But how will Conservatives describe Mr. Romney and his newfound positions that he unveiled in the debate? Here are at least 5 new positions Romney’s supporters would have issues with;
1. “There’s no legislation with regards to abortion that I’m familiar with that would become part of my agenda.” In an interview with the Des Moines Register on Tuesday, Romney backed away from the promises listed on his own website to appoint Supreme Court judges who will overturn Roe v. Wade and end all federal funding for Planned Parenthood. In June 2011, he also specified his support for a “Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act,” an abortion ban based on junk science. More generally, Romney said he would be “delighted” to sign a bill banning all abortions during his first presidential run.
2. “We want to reduce the burden on middle-income taxpayers, and we’re not going to provide a tax break to high-income taxpayers.” In the same interview, Romney disavowed his own tax plan, which would give high-income taxpayers a litany of tax breaks, including an across the board 20 percent tax cut and the elimination of the estate tax. During the Republican primary, Romney admitted that his plan gives tax breaks to high income tax payers, promising he was “going to cut taxes on everyone across the country by 20 percent, including the top 1 percent.” In order to pay for these tax cuts on the wealthy, Romney would have to raise taxes on middle class families by more than $2,000.
3. “Pre-existing conditions are covered under my plan.” Romney misrepresented his health care plan during the debate. In fact, only people who were continuously insured are protected from discrimination. Millions of Americans who have been denied insurance for their pre-existing conditions would be left to their own devices under Romney’s plan.
4. “You have to have regulation. And there are some parts of Dodd-Frank that make all the sense in the world.” Also during the debate, Romney suddenly embraced the bank reform law he previously said he would repeal entirely.
5. “The people who have received the special visa that the president has put in place, which is a two-year visa, should expect that the visa would continue to be valid.” Considered the most hard-line immigration candidate in a field of extreme Republican candidates, Romney said he would allow the young undocumented immigrants to keep their special work permits issued by President Obama, though he plans to end the directive if president.
There are a lot of things wrong with our economy. One problem for example is the deficit that exploded out of control under the Bush administration. Although the Obama administration is taking some necessary steps to stem the spending in Washington, there is one area of the budget Mr. Obama has failed to tackle.
And now, thanks to Mitt Romney, all our problems will be solved. Romney is the only one brave enough to stare the problem in its face and capable enough to even mention the problem by name – Big Bird!
The ad below explains…
Realizing that debate number one did not go according to plan, the President’s re-election team is making changes for the remaining debates, starting with the vice presidential debate on Thursday.
Perhaps most important as the president’s team struggles to put his campaign back on track is a renewed effort to win the three remaining debates, starting with Thursday’s face-off between Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Representative Paul D. Ryan. Mr. Biden began traveling to a Delaware hotel on Sunday for three days of debate camp.
Under the tutelage of David Axelrod, the president’s chief strategist who is personally overseeing the preparations, Mr. Biden will be counseled on how to avoid Mr. Obama’s mistakes and even correct them with a more aggressive prosecution of the Republican ticket. Mr. Axelrod’s involvement highlights the stakes the Obama campaign places on the debate, and Mr. Biden has been reading “Young Guns,” the book co-written by Mr. Ryan, and practicing attack lines that Mr. Obama avoided.
Hey kids, remember in June when the Obama campaign was supposedly panicking? I sure do. That’s why I wrote about it.
Well here we are again at a crisis point in the race. The debate went very badly for the president. He seemed uninterested, unengaged, unfocused, blah, blah, blah. In fact, he was all of those things. But to think that this race is over or that the debate performance means that he’s going to lose is hogwash. Bunk. Horse puckey. Wrong.
Obama was losing some steam in state and national polls right before the debate as his convention bounce and Mitt’s 47% comments propelled him to an unsustainable lead. He’s lost even more steam over the weekend as polls that generally have a Republican lean (Gravis, Rasmussen and Claris Research) show him losing anywhere from 3-5 points off his lofty perch. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not dismissing those polls as unreliable or anti-Obama by choice. They could be the vanguard of a larger shift evidenced by more polls we’ll be sure to see this week. It’s just that these are the early polls and a fuller picture is sure to emerge after PPP, NBC/WSJ, CBS/Quinnipiac and ABC/WaPo weigh in. Those polls will also include any effects of the positive unemployment rate from Friday and Obama ads over the weekend that highlighted Romney’s, shall we say, evolution, on the issues.
Far be it from me to get in the way of a full-scale Democratic screaming, sweating freakout, as I enjoy irrationality as much as the next person (and if the next person is Michele Bachmann or Rick Santorum, then it’s a gold star day as far as I’m concerned).
My point is that it’s not necessary to panic. Let’s not give too much credit to the Romney campaign. It wasn’t that he did so much better in the debate; it’s that Obama did so much worse. The polls will move towards Romney. Then they’ll move away from Romney because the movement is based mostly on GOP enthusiasm after the debate. This is the same enthusiasm gap the GOP was supposed to have from the beginning, but didn’t because Mitt was/is such an ineffective candidate. The media will have something to print (print; what a dinosaur I am). But in the end, all the GOP has is Romney, and that should brighten the day of every Democrat and liberal in the country.
And it doesn’t matter when Obama calls him on the 47% comment, as he surely will on October 16. Mitt’s tried to admit that the comment was wrong, but I think he had that line all cued up for the debate. Since Obama didn’t mention it, he never got a chance to deliver it in front of 80 million people (as if that would make up for its offensiveness). So he had to go on FOX to say it, and the comment was then promptly buried by the good jobs numbers. At the next debate the country will be reminded of Mitt’s policies and will find them lacking, just as they did before the debate. You could say that Mitt’s peaking a bit early and is set up for a fall. If you don’t want to say it, I just did.
If you really want to panic, then go ahead. For me, good jobs numbers always beat debates. And truthers. And bad ideas like killing PBS and only covering people with preexisting conditions if they already have insurance but otherwise leaving them to the mercy of insurance companies. And turning Medicare into a voucher system. And being on the wrong side on women’s health and rights. And dismissing 47% of the country as being dependent on government aid and saying it was wrong to say it, but not wrong to think or act on it.
Gee, all of a sudden, I feel much better about this election. Go. Fight. Win.
And really, isn’t it about time you followed me? Go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives and on Twitter @rigrundfest
It is done by some people because they are cowards – talking bad about others behind their backs. But when those people are listening, cowards change their tune and pretend all is well. Mitt Romney said it when he thought no one was listening, but now that the word is out, Mitt Romney is trying to take back his devastating comment about the 47%.
Romney recently told Fox News that the rigors of the campaign was responsible for his 47% statement, where he said at a private fundraiser with his fellow millionaires that half of Americans are lazy and depend on government for their very existence. And a day after Romney’s words went public, he again repeated his position that 47% of the nation are moochers!
On multiple occasions, Romney promised to “carry that message” about the losers who are these 47%. But on October 4th, after realizing that his statement was having negative impacts on his campaign, Romney broke out the etch-a-sketch and tried to erase everything. In his interview on Fox, Romney said;
Well, clearly in a campaign with hundreds if not thousands of speeches and question and answer sessions, now and then you’re going to say something that doesn’t come out right. In this case, I said something that’s just completely wrong.
But the Obama Campaign is having none of it. They’ve seen this scenario before – the flip-flop method Mitt Romney has made famous. And they’ve created this video to hold Romney accountable for the flips he’s flop!
Lucas Gray, the famed television animator, has created the best video I’ve ever seen to make the argument for President Obama’s re-election on economic terms alone.
The three-minute video, narrated by a speech Obama delivered at the Associated Press Luncheon in April of 2012, rips apart the concept of “trickle-down” with swift, precise and visually helpful animation.
A federal appeals court ruled Friday that if soldiers from Ohio can cast ballots ahead of time, everyone else should have the same opportunity.
The court said that the state had not shown compelling evidence for why only one group should be permitted to cast ballots on the three days before Election Day. The decision, strongly advocated by the Obama campaign, will likely lead to more ballots cast from poor and elderly voters.
There is no word yet on whether the swing state will appeal the decision.
Both sides agreed to the rules of the debate, but Mitt Romney may have broken the most important rule – no written notes or “cheat sheet” allowed.
The video below shows Mitt Romney pulling a piece of paper out his pocket and casually tossing it on his podium.
Of course, his campaign already came up with an explanation. That was not a cheat sheet they claimed, it was a handkerchief. If that was a handkerchief, then it was a very stiff piece of handkerchief.
You be the judge.