Mitt Romney finally began talking about some of the things his administration would do to balance the budget, and one if those things seems to be getting rid of Planned Parenthood – the organization that provides health benefits like cancer screenings to millions if women throughout this country. Referring to Planned Parenthood, Romney said, “we’re gonna get rid of that.”
To help nail this irresponsible Romney policy home, the DNC created this video.
Although he won some delegates in Mississippi and Alabama in yesterday’s primaries, Romney’s clear focus on “math” as his only way to winning the Republican nomination is quite frankly, lame. What we are witnessing before our very eyes is a Republican candidate who is proving time and time again, that he simply cannot win a majority of the Republican votes in southern states – something that must be done if he expects to come close to competing against President Obama in the general elections.
Given yet another chance to seal the deal and wrap up this primary process, Romney placed third with 29% of the votes in Alabama with Gingrich slightly ahead. Santorum came in first with 35%. The story wasn’t much different in Mississippi – Santorum 33%, Gingrich 31% and Romney 30%. For entertainment value, 4% of the Republicans voted for Ron Paul. But even with this problem with winning the popular vote in southern States on their hands, Romney’s campaign went on CNN to highlight that they managed to win some delegates in those two states, inching them even more closer to the magic figure of 1144 – the total amount needed to win the Republican nomination. According to a CNN tally, Romney has 489 and leads second place Santorum by 255 delegates.
But can math alone bring Mitt Romney a victory? Newt Gingrich puts it this way: “The elite media’s effort to convince the nation that Mitt Romney is inevitable just collapsed. The fact is that in both states, the conservative candidates got nearly 70% of the vote, and if you’re the frontrunner and you keep coming in third, you’re not much of a frontrunner. And frankly, I do not believe that a Massachusetts moderate who created Romneycare as the forerunner of Obamneycare is going to be in a position to win any debates this fall, and that is part of the reason I’ve insisted in staying in this race.”
If you’re the Republican candidate and you cannot get Republicans in Republican states to vote for you, then you have some serious problems. The math may work to get you the nomination, but at some point, you have to prove you can get the votes.
McKay Coppins wrote:
“…while the campaign’s slow, methodical approach to collecting delegates in obscure, boring, or otherwise un-noteworthy contests has served them well logistically, it hasn’t helped them win the argument. The rhetoric of strength and leadership that could give them momentum heading into the general has been replaced with a list of math-centered talking points that deal with delegate counts, percentages, and margins of victory.
Campaign in poetry and govern in prose, the old political adage goes. The Romney campaign, it appears, has chosen to forego words altogether and make their case with numbers. But how long can the party’s would-be standard-bearer hinge his entire campaign message on math?”
Rick pulls off the daily double and the race pushes on. I can’t say as I’m terribly surprised but the results certainly were a sharp rebuke to Romney and his claims to be a conservative. Perhaps in the fall, when he’s the nominee, this will help him as moderate voters will determine this election.
The Mississippi Results:
Predict Survey says!
Gingrich 33% 31.3%
Romney 32% 30.3%
Santorum 29% 32.9%
Paul 6% 4.4%
And Alabama
Romney 32% 29.0%
Gingrich 31% 29.3%
Santorum 30% 34.5%
Paul 6% 5.0%
The GOP will win these two states in the fall, so no worries there. Newt Gingrich has promised to fight on, but he’s lost any claim to being the conservative alternative to Romney and can only be a spoiler. Santorum can say all he wants about being the nominee, but I don’t see him winning any of the big, less conservative states still to come. If he can manage to pick off a couple (IL, NY, CA), then we’ll talk. My take is that this positions Rick as a possible VP candidate if he has enough delegates and clout to force the issue in Tampa.
I’m sure that recent polls showing president Obama to be vulnerable (again and still) have emboldened conservatives not to settle on a candidate they don’t want. The remaining question is whether they want to go all in for Santorum.
For more, please go to: www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives and Twitter @rigrundfest
Two weeks ago, President Obama formed the Trade Enforcement Unit to investigate unfair economic practices by other countries.
But even as that organization comes online, the President is taking additional steps to ensure that American products are competing on a level playing field with the rest of the world.
That’s why he made an announcement this morning in the White House Rose Garden:
We’re bringing a new trade case against China — and we’re being joined by Japan and some of our European allies. This case involves something called rare earth materials, which are used by American manufacturers to make high-tech products like advanced batteries that power everything from hybrid cars to cell phones.
We want our companies building those products right here in America. But to do that, American manufacturers need to have access to rare earth materials — which China supplies. Now, if China would simply let the market work on its own, we’d have no objections. But their policies currently are preventing that from happening. And they go against the very rules that China agreed to follow.
The reasoning behind this effort is simple: President Obama believes that it’s too important for American manufacturers to be able to compete in these growing industries for the U.S. government to stand by and do nothing.
Okay Mitt, we get it now. No need to keep pushing it in our faces. Yes, you are rich, very rich. So rich you are Mr. Romney, that your friends are owners of NASCAR race teams and you making $10,000 bets is nothing especially when you collect hundreds of thousands of dollars at speaking engagements.
Yes, we get it, but apparently you still have more you want us to know.
Appearing on Alabama sports commentator Paul Finebaum’s radio show this afternoon, Romney was asked about which team he thinks quarterback Peyton Manning will sign with. Romney said he wasn’t sure, but noted that he has some very good friends who own NFL teams:
FINEBAUM: You are a Patriots fan, I know that you’ve had a lot of support from that family. Having said that, the most coveted free agent in NFL history is Peyton Manning. I know you want him somewhere away from New England, where do you think he ought to go?
ROMNEY: Well, you know I’m surprised to hear that Denver’s thinking about him, they’re — I don’t want him in our neck of the woods, lets put it that way, I don’t want him to go to Miami or to the Jets. But I’ve got a lot of good friends, the owner Miami Dolphins, and the New York Jets —both owners are friends of mine. But let’s keep him away from New England, so that Tom Brady has a better shot of picking up a championship for us.
We wait on pins and needles for your next revelation and the economic boost this information will surely have on our economy.
Just when I was going to recognize the modern south and how much attitudes have changed, along comes the story that Republicans in both Alabama (45%) and Mississippi (52%) believe that President Obama is a Muslim.
I try to be nice. I try to keep my focus on politics and public policy. I try to be fair. But really, what can you say about such blatant ignorance, fear and outright hatred? And these Republicans are going to go to the polls tomorrow to have a say in who’s going to run against the president in the fall.
The latest numbers in Mississippi are here. Gingrich is in front by a hair and I expect him to eke out a victory. Alabama’s numbers are here. For the moment, Romney has a slim lead and I think he’ll win.
To the predictions:
First, the state where the majority of GOPers believe Obama to be a Muslim
Gingrich 33%
Romney 32%
Santorum 29%
Paul 6%
For their slightly less anti-truth neighbors
Romney 32%
Gingrich 31%
Santorum 30%
Paul 6%
These southern states will vote GOP in the fall, so I don’t see that there’s much fuss about which candidate is more conservative than the others. If Romney wins both states then he can claim a mandate and I would think Gingrich would drop out. If Santorum wins both, he can claim two major victories and renewed strength. Romney will ultimately be the nominee, but a Rick for VP movement is a distinct possibility.
I hope the news outlets let us know who gets the Muslim vote.
A few months ago, we highlighted this article by billionaire Nick Hanauer as he skillfully shed some light on the false Republican claim that rich people are job creators. Now, we bring you a piece by another billionaire who warns that capitalism will be our downfall.
His name is Jeremy Grantham, a British investor who manages a hedge fund worth more than $100 billion, and he had this to say;
It gets worse, for what capitalism has always had is money with which to try to buy influence. Today’s version of U.S. capitalism has died and gone to heaven on this issue. A company is now free to spend money to influence political outcomes and need tell no one, least of all its own shareholders, the technical owners. So, rich industries can exert so much political influence that they now have a dangerous degree of influence over Congress. And the issues they most influence are precisely the ones that matter most, the ones that are most important to society’s long-term well-being, indeed its very existence. Thus, taking huge benefits from Nature and damaging it in return is completely free and all attempts at government control are fought with costly lobbying and advertising. And one of the first victims in this campaign has been the truth.
If scientific evidence suggests costs and limits be imposed on industry to protect the long-term environment, then science will be opposed by clever disinformation. It’s now getting to be an old and obvious story, but because their propaganda is good and despite the solidness of the data, half of the people believe the problem is a government run wild, mad to control everything.
We seem to have come to a critical point in the education deform movement. No, that’s not a typo: I don’t mean reform, I mean deform, because the people who want to use unreliable and faulty data to evaluate teachers and deny educators their negotiated due process rights are not reformers and never have been. They are out to twist education from a public responsibility to a privatized option whose purpose is to serve the needs of their wealthy supporters at the expense of unions and educators who know best how the system works and how it can best serve children.
It’s high time that policy makers, including Governors, Commissioners of Education (including ACTING Commissioners) and government officials respect the fact that educators know what works in the classroom and that they need to be intimately involved in the decision-making process. If you don’t include the stakeholders, any efforts at improving education will ultimately fail. We need to be loud and clear about what’s at stake, and to call for real reform that benefits parents, students and teachers. Please join me in expressing your concern about the direction that education reform is taking. We are headed down the wrong path.
Every word in this sentence is a link to an article that details the folly of using student standardized test scores to evaluate teachers. Yet, that’s exactly what the deformers want to do.
If what happened in New York City isn’t scary enough, consider this: Under the Value Added Model, teachers will be distilled down to a number and that number will stay with them for every year in which they teach. If the number is considered good, they’ll be OK, but if that number decreases, be ready for a storm that will make Katrina seem like a drizzle. Parents will want the teacher with the 86 rating, not you and your paltry 78. And just why were you a 92 last year but an 83 this year? It will be bad. Teachers will be two-students-who-ate-lousy-breakfasts-on-test-day away from being the teacher that nobody wants for their child.
In New Jersey, there’s a bit of controversy over a proposed teacher tenure bill because it would grandfather in all teachers who are currently working in schools. Never mind that those teachers have already been vetted during their 3 year probationary period. Governor Christie believes that New Jersey’s teachers as failing (even when they’re not) and that the NJEA lies about everything.
For the record, I have no problem with my dues money going to pay for advertisements and political action that calls out a governor who knows next to zilch about teaching or education or reforming or being diplomatic or appropriate or how to be a role model for anyone other than your average bully. And in a delicious irony, our bully-in-chief signed an anti-bullying law that he refused to pay for and that was declared unconstitutional. Of course, there’s money for Christie’s tax cut proposal, but so far the response has been lukewarm at best.
Right now the deformers have the high ground. We know that the education and teacher bashing model is working because morale among educators has reached a new low. And that’s exactly what our society needs in a world of hyper-competitiveness, where education and skills will be the coin of the realm. Having a teaching staff that knows it’s unappreciated by the various elements who want to undermine public education is a sure fire way to keep American students undereducated for the future. And it’s a terrific strategy for attracting and keeping the smart, creative, energetic, technologically savvy people we’ll need in education now and in the future.
The time is growing short for educators to take the lead and turn the deform movement into an actual educational reform movement. Get involved and let your voice be heard.
Are we not Teachers?
For more, please go to: www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives and Twitter @rigrundfest
Thanks to the most recent hate episode exhibited by Rush Limbaugh against Sandra Fluke, sponsors and advertisers to right winged talk radio are starting to find their moral grounds and are pulling their ads not only from Limbaugh’s program, but from other shows considered hateful, like Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity of Fox News.
Think Progress reports on an article by Radio-Info, that found 98 advertisers have decided to end their support of right winged hate.
When it comes to advertisers avoiding controversial shows, it’s not just Rush From today’s TRI Newsletter: Premiere Networks is circulating a list of 98 advertisers who want to avoid “environments likely to stir negative sentiments.” The list includes carmakers (Ford, GM, Toyota), insurance companies (Allstate, Geico, Prudential, State Farm) and restaurants (McDonald’s, Subway). As you’ll see in the note below, those “environments” go beyond the Rush Limbaugh show
“To all Traffic Managers: The information below applies to your Premiere Radio Networks commercial inventory...They’ve specifically asked that you schedule their commercials in dayparts or programs free of content that you know are deemed to be offensive or controversial (for example, Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, Tom Leykis, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity).’
President Obama used his weekly address to talk about his all the above strategy for Energy independence, and he compared his plan to use air, solar, oil, wind and biofuels to that offered by the Republicans – the “drill baby drill” plan.
The president pointed out that under his administration, oil drilling is “at an eight year high,” suggesting that if drilling for fossil fuel was the answer, gas prices wouldn’t be where they are today.
And he asked congress to come together and “put aside the bumper-sticker slogans” and work together with him to move America towards a more clean and balanced energy future.
Tele-Evangelist Pat Robinson could not allow the Sandra Fluke / Rush Limbaugh controversy to go unnoticed on his television show. The minister and his special guest blessed us with some right winged knowledge, and guess whose side they took… Rush Limbaugh’s. No surprises here.
Although Mr Robinson admitted that “Rush Limbaugh got a little bit over the top on that thing,” Robinson went down the very same path Rush took. He didn’t call Ms Fluke a “slut,” but the misleading way he asked if Sandra Fluke needed $3000 for contraception implied the same thing – like Rush would say, someone who is “having too much sex” for money.
Both Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robinson are intentionally misleading their audience. Ms Fluke did not say she needed $3000 because she’s having too much sex, she spoke on the importance of contraception to women’s health as it relates to controlling ovarian cysts and other diseases, and the cost to a woman if paid out-of-pocket.
We expected Limbaugh to mislead and misinform, but why would a self-proclaimed man of God dinghies same?
According to this Newsweek report, the reason is a twisted tale of corruption, involving campaign donations and spineless politicians – namely Mitt Romney. In other words, its Mitt Romney’s old company Bain Capital, doing what it does best.
The report states that “fourteen directors of Clear Channel, the company that hosts the Rush Limbaugh show, have contributed $726,400 to Mitt Romney since 1994, most of it in the current presidential campaign. Romney has come under attack for refusing to criticize Limbaugh’s comments about Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke, other than to say that calling her a “slut” and a “prostitute” was not “the language I would have used.”
“Romney’s former company, Bain Capital, acquired Clear Channel in 2008 with another Boston-based investment firm, Thomas H. Lee Partners (THL), so five of the entertainment company’s directors that have given to Romney come from Bain, while three are affiliated with the Lee firm. Three other directors are members of the Mays family that founded the company and continued to run it until 2011, when CEO Mark Mays stepped down. The remaining three donor directors come from other investment firms.
“The $26 billion merger, which was launched simultaneously with Romney’s first presidential candidacy in late 2006 and placed Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and much of the talk show right under Bain/Lee control, also involved Romney’s longtime law firm, Ropes & Gray, whose managing partner is the trustee of the family’s blind trust. David C. Chapin, a lead Ropes lawyer on the merger, has also given $12,700 to Romney, and five other partners who worked on it added another $10,400.”
