QUESTION: “When you did an interview with Sean Hannity in February, you said that you believed that Obama is trying to make America a less Christian nation. It was responding to quote that he had just played for you on the radio. Do you stand by that? And do you believe that President Obama’s world view was shaped by Reverend Wright and do you see evidence of that in his policies?”
ROMNEY: “I’m not familiar precisely with what I said, but I’ll stand by what I said, whatever it was.”
Looks like that line will join the other Romney gaffest-hits, like "Etch-a-Sketch," "Corporations are People," "I like firing people," "I'll be you $10,000," "severe Conservative" and so many more. You're sure to be seeing this clip again:
He's been lying so much, it looks like truth to him.
What a surprise -- Fox News fabricates an Obama quote. Expect a real retraction? Not likely. And the way it works is that Fox lies, other news organizations pick it up as truth, and by the time the lie gets halfway around cable TV news, the truth isn't even out of make-up.
Financial reports filed Monday with the Federal Election Commission indicate that Romney's campaign spent $19 million in January -- nearly three times as much as it raised -- as the former Massachusetts governor defeated Newt Gingrich in New Hampshire, lost to him in South Carolina and then topped him in Florida.
Restore Our Future, meanwhile, raised $6.6 million and spent $13.5 million, mostly on ads attacking Gingrich that helped Romney win the Florida primary. By the end of January, Romney's campaign had $7.7 million on hand and the pro-Romney PAC had $16.3 million.
And it's not even close to General Election time yet. The Obama campaign must be loving this.
Why the need to spend so much? It's not the brilliant competitive field -- it's the candidate. Over the past few days this video, of Romney speaking at a campaign event in Michigan, has become the emblem of the flailing candidate, utterly adrift, unable to summon authenticity, speaking in what appears to be a panic:
The trees are the right height...not just the Great Lakes but the inland lakes...I love car, I love American cars...WTF, Willard?
If you want to do some local pandering, you need to be prepped with the names of local restaurants, local products, local anything specific. Normally there's front people to do this but the better candidates don't fake it, they actually know. The fact is, Romney hasn't lived in Michigan for more than half a century, but he's trying to rely on biography yet again to score points...total disconnect from any kind of reality -- or vision.
Look, at a human level, I might feel sorry for Mitt that he has to actually compete and could quite possibly still lose his so-called "home state" to Rick the Theocrat. But I just can't feel sorry for a candidate who has consistently lied through his teeth in smearing President Obama ever since his campaign began.
He's a wealthy man, so no pity there, and he's smart enough (on paper) that he should know better. He should have studied up on Presidential leadership, not rightwing talking points. He should have taken a chance by leading on issues his party might not be in sync with him on, and shown real intelligence and grit.
Instead, he reaps the whirlwind. Just keep spending, Mitt. Your combined $32.5 million spend in January did more to boost the economy than anything your GOP Congressional party-mates have done in four years.
Willard Mitt Romney beat back Newt Gingrich in Florida by outspending him 5:1, hiring a new debate coach, repeating his "God Bless America" speech ad nauseum and, of course, by incessant bold-faced lying regarding the President.
Willard bought his Republican Presidential Primary win in Florida with $15,000,000 in ads (between his campaign and his SuperPAC). He spent, roughly, $21 per voter. What interesting is that 92% of all the ads for this race were negative -- and only 0.1% were pro-Romney:
The bulk of the ads were run by Mr. Romney and his PAC, Restore Our Future, which spent a combined $15.4 million on television and radio advertising in Florida. That compares with $3.7 million for Mr. Gingrich and his allies, according to an analysis by a Republican media strategist not working for either candidate.
The tone and content of the commercials were almost as lopsided. Of all the spots that ran in Florida for the last week, 68 percent were attacks on Mr. Gingrich, Kantar Media found. Only 9 percent were favorable toward him.
Ads assailing Mr. Romney accounted for 23 percent of the political commercials that were broadcast. Yet less than 0.1 percent were pro-Romney, Kantar found. That sliver of a figure was because of one ad the Romney campaign broadcast in Spanish, which featured Mr. Romney’s son praising his father’s leadership abilities.
That's right, the only pro-Romney ad wasn't even broadcast in the English language.
And I'm going to stand and defend capitalism across this country, throughout this campaign. I know we're going to get hit hard from President Obama, but we're going to stuff it down his throat and point out it is capitalism and freedom that makes America strong.
"Stuff it down his throat." You kiss your wife with those lips, Willard? I mean, unless you're a dyed-in-wool Obama hater, what's to like about this guy?:
When Romney ran for the presidential nomination and lost in 2008, the share of Americans who saw him positively never topped 30 percent. By last month, that number had dropped to 24 percent, according to The Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.
Romney took a beating last week in South Carolina over his business career at Bain Capital and his taxes -- and so did his image among voters. A Washington Post poll released Tuesday, three days after Romney lost the South Carolina primary, found a 17 percentage-point drop over two weeks among independent voters who viewed Romney favorably.
Ah, Mitt. Seems you may have removed Newt Gingrich's rationale for the GOP Presidential nomination tonight -- Newt is not the greatest debater since Lincoln-Douglas after all.
As for your own rationale, that somehow you have the phenomenal business acumen that will make you a better President than Barack Obama...not so much:
You claim you have not even seen the campaign ad with your own voice saying you approved it. Not exactly stellar detail-oriented CEO work -- it's impossible to imagine Steve Jobs, for instance, making that same mistake. Might even be a campaign finance law violation.
You finally release your taxes after claiming your campaign's personal finance disclosure form was enough...and it turns out you liedleft accounts off of that form.
How bad is it?
A review by the Los Angeles Times/Tribune Washington Bureau found that at least 23 funds and partnerships listed in the couple's 2010 tax returns did not show up or were not listed in the same fashion on Romney's most recent financial disclosure, including 11 based in low-tax foreign countries such as Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and Luxembourg.
The campaign has stressed that Romney has paid all required U.S. taxes on his foreign funds.
Many of the funds are affiliated with Bain Capital, the Boston-based private equity firm Romney ran for 15 years. Several others are apparently unrelated offshore entities with mysterious names such as Babson 2006-1, which is based in the Cayman Islands, and Barracuda Investments, which has an address in Dublin, Ireland, but appears to be solely owned by Golden Gate Capital, a private equity firm based in San Francisco.
Again, is (a) lack of attention to major (not minor) details ill-becoming of a CEO and downright dangerous in a President, (b) an attempt to obfuscate for some yet-to-be-uncovered reason, meaning we'd have an untrustworthy President or, worse, (c) you're some kind of crook, and one who would immediately under investigation upon taking office.
So what's the great rationale for a Mitt Romney candidacy now, other than generic Republican Obama hate?
STEPHANOPOULOS: It's clear you think that's going to be a vulnerability for Governor Romney. But coming out of Iowa, coming out of the debate last night, going into this primary here in New Hampshire, are you more convinced than ever that he's going to be the nominee?
AXELROD: Well, I don't know what the answer is to that. I mean, it's clear there are a majority of Republicans who are resistant to him. He only got a quarter of the vote in Iowa. This is essentially his home state. He has one of his homes here, and he was the governor of the neighboring state. So we'll see how this process goes.
But his fundamental problem is one of trust. I don't think conservatives trust him and I don't think moderates trust him. And you saw last night him shifting on a whole range of positions from abortion to China to taxes.
Interesting to hear Axelrod echoing Gingrich on the 25% for Romney as an Iowa Caucus "win.: There's a continued Democratic defining of expectations to Mitt as a way to show how little his own party supports him, as DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz told Talking Points Memo:
“He’s coming off what at some point probably wont even be defined as a win in Iowa where fewer voters came out for him than came out in 2008.” She added that anything less than 50% in New Hampshire should be interpreted as a sign of weakness given his close ties to the state.
She also had a memorable line regarding his "job creator" claim that I'm sure the DNC hopes becomes a new meme for Romney:
“Mitt Romney, I think, is more of a job cremator than a job creator,” Schultz said. She added: “He was a corporate buyout specialist at Bain Capital. He dismantled companies. He cut jobs. He forced companies into bankruptcy and he outsourced jobs and sent jobs overseas. That’s not a record to write home about, that’s not a record to be proud of, and it’s something voters need to know.”
Axelrod essentially said the same thing, but in a way that chips away at Romney's trustworthiness:
STEPHANOPOULOS: He also started to take some fire last night on his tenure at Bain Capital. And something you, Democrats, the Democratic National Committee, have really been hitting hard all through this campaign so far. He's not backing down at all. You saw him last night, Governor Romney saying his team at Bain Capital is responsible for creating 100,000 jobs. Do you have any qualm with that number?
AXELROD: Absolutely. Not me, forget about me -- every independent fact checker who's looked at it, including the Associated Press last night, after the debate, said he can't back up that number, and his campaign has conceded --
STEPHANOPOULOS: He says that net-net--
(CROSSTALK)
AXELROD: I know he says it's a net-net number, and he said I'm a numbers guy. The problem is that neither he nor his campaign can furnish any evidence to support that.
But let's talk about Bain and let's talk about what it was and what he did. His partner said in The L.A. Times, our job was not to create jobs, our job was to create wealth for our partners. And here's what they did. They closed down more than 1,000 plant stores and offices. They outsourced tens of thousands of jobs, and they took 12 companies to bankruptcy. And on those bankruptcies, he and his partners made hundreds of millions of dollars. He says this is the real economy, this is the model for the country. I don't think those are the values that people want to animate our economy. He's not a job creator, he's a corporate raider. Those aren't the values that we want to lead our economy.
Party support. Expectations. Trustworthiness. Values.
This serves the purpose of fighting back against Romney's constant attacks on Obama without dragging the President into the mud too early.
And if he really is the inevitable nominee, nice to soften him up early before his self-definition has taken root in the media -- or with the American people.
Fun continues in New Hampshire is Willard Mitt Romney is confronted by Occupy questions at his rally:
“It seems that the U.S. is a great place to be a corporation,’’ the man said, “but increasingly a desperate place to live and work.’’
“Where do you think corporations’ profits go?’’ Romney asked.
“It goes to the 1 percent of Americans who own the 90 percent of stocks,’’ the man responded and continued to press him.
...and college students boo anti-gay marriage bigot Rick Santorum from his stage:
A midday event in front of a gathering of college students here turned into a testy exchange in which Mr. Santorum compared allowing gay couples to marry to polygamy, apparently equating the two as equally undesirable.
“If you’re not happy unless you’re married to five other people, is that O.K.?” he asked.
Meanwhile, Mitt's tax plan gets checked and turns out to raise taxes on lower middle class Americans while giving huge windfalls to the rich:
The Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center crunched the numbers — part of a series of analyses the group has done of the GOP candidates’ tax proposals — and found that the plan constitutes a major tax cut for wealthy Americans. But compared to today’s rates, Romney proposes effective tax increases for people making less than $40,000.
Above that level, Romney’s plan cuts taxes at greater rates for wealthier people. The average millionaire would thus pay $145,568 less in taxes in 2015 than they do today. Taken altogether, that makes the plan a budget buster, meaning greater deficits or deep cuts to federal programs.
A new website called Romney the Liar is up, sure to be a fun one-stop fact check for journalists who care to start checking up on Wild Willard's wild claim.
Meanwhile, as the follies roll into N.H., the President is on the job helping young people get summer jobs themselves. Compare the President's record to Romney's role in job creation at Bain Capital, using Romney's own methodology of only counting companies that created jobs under Bain's management and not those he closed or outsourced:
Willard Mitt Romney may end up squeaking out a win in Iowa with the smallest winning percentage in GOP history (worse than Bob Dole's 26% in 1996), but it's going to be cold comfort. He's not feeling like a leader, more like a shill, who's has yet to be fully challenged over his bald-faced lies about his eventual opponent, a President who kills terrorists with efficiency and is presiding over a slow but clear recovery.
While I have no love for Rick Santorum's political views, he deserves credit for his late surge to second, almost first place in Iowa. Massively outspent, he did the retail politics right, visiting every single county in Iowa. Will the evangelicals nationwide coalesce around him as they did in Iowa? Or is Romney simply the next in line, which is always the GOP nominee? With the Bush political team behind him, the most professional organization and all the money in the world, including Mormon money, it's hard to imagine he won't be debating Obama next fall.
Bye-bye Rick Perry, who had tons of dough but screwed the pooch spectacularly. Michelle Bachmann says she'll go on but she won't have the money or organization -- then again, not much of what comes out of her mouth is ever true.
As for Newt, who a few weeks ago said it would be hard not to imagine him as the nominee, the fall has been swift and swiftboated by the Romney PACs, and I think it will be irreversible.
Ron Paul, of course, will keep going with the most committed volunteers and supporters of the bunch. If they GOP establishment doesn't treat him right, it could be all the way to a third party candidacy, giving Obama that landslide I've been predicting.
Willard Mitt Romney was a bishop, a lay pastor in his church, something he brings up to discuss abortion on the campaign trail. For being a Mormon missionary, he received a deferment from military service during the Vietnam War.
"Close them. Turn 'em off. Even some you like," he said. "You might say, 'I like the National Endowment for the Arts.' I do," Romney said. "I like PBS. We subsidize PBS. Look, I'm going to stop that. I'm going to say that PBS is going to have to have advertisement."
"We're not going to kill Big Bird," Romney said. "But Big Bird is going to have advertisements. Alright?"
Alright? Because we all agree that educating children always goes so much better with advertisements? Not alright, Willard.
Mitt's too old to have watched Sesame Street as a kid. In fact, electing him would turn back the leadership of our country a generation, to the Clinton/Bush generation. So maybe he just doesn't get it because, like so much else, he's above it by age and wealth.
Sometimes I wonder if Mitt is not just embarked upon the greatest single performance art piece of our times. If he can flip-flop so easily, if he is indeed the hollow man everyone believes he is, if he's say or do anything to get elected and we're not getting real principles, and if enough people understand that but vote for him anyway hoping the massive tea-pandering is with a wink, then he's doing a better act than Stephen Colbert or Sasha Baron Cohen.
If not, then he's just kind of douchy.
If you want to see his whole pander, here you go:
And watching this clip, as always with Willard, I find it difficult to believe American will vote to see this man representing America on TV for the next four years.
Is there anything that Mitt Romney will not lie about? Twice in one day, starting with his willful distortion in a campaign attack ad of a phrase spoken by President Barack Obama four years ago quoting John McCain's campaign, making it seem like Obama is speaking about his own current campaign:
Then, in tonight's GOP debate, he actually lied about his first name:
But when you examine what Obama said on Saturday -- to business leaders at the APEC summit in Hawaii -- it's pretty clear that his critics are taking him out of context. He wasn't calling Americans lazy; rather, he was callingU.S. business practices to attract foreign investors lazy. In fact, you could interpret his full remarks as a call to arms to improve on that front.
MR. McNERNEY: I think one related question, looking at the world from the Chinese side, is what they would characterize as impediments to investment in the United States. And so that discussion I’m sure will be part of whatever dialogue you have. And so how are you thinking about that?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, this is an issue, generally. I think it’s important to remember that the United States is still the largest recipient of foreign investment in the world. And there are a lot of things that make foreign investors see the U.S. as a great opportunity -- our stability, our openness, our innovative free market culture.
But we’ve been a little bit lazy, I think, over the last couple of decades. We’ve kind of taken for granted -- well, people will want to come here and we aren’t out there hungry, selling America and trying to attract new business into America. And so one of things that my administration has done is set up something called SelectUSA that organizes all the government agencies to work with state and local governments where they’re seeking assistance from us, to go out there and make it easier for foreign investors to build a plant in the United States and put outstanding U.S. workers back to work in the United States of America.
Meanwhile, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has been lying about the difference between his healthcare plan enacted for that state and the one enacted by Congress under President Obama -- so says his own former advisor, not mincing words:
He credited Mitt Romney for not totally disavowing the Massachusetts bill during his presidential campaign, but said Romney's attempt to distinguish between Obama's bill and his own is disingenuous.
"The problem is there is no way to say that," Gruber said. "Because they're the same fucking bill. He just can't have his cake and eat it too. Basically, you know, it's the same bill. He can try to draw distinctions and stuff, but he's just lying. The only big difference is he didn't have to pay for his. Because the federal government paid for it. Where at the federal level, we have to pay for it, so we have to raise taxes."
The danger is that lies become memes and they harden into "truthies" in the minds of low or mid-information voters. Hard to battle, but it must be done.
As seemed inevitable with the rising fortunes of the NATO-backed Libyan rebels, Muammar Qaddafi has been found hiding in a drainage pipe and executed with the same response to his call for mercy that he gave so many others, both Libyans and Lockerbee victims, as well as others due to his support for terrorist activities around the world. The guy ruled for four decades, from the age of 27 when he was the good guy overthrowing the assholes, but he has long since been a bad man, who got what he deserved.
Good riddance and congrats to the Libyan people on their new opportunity for a just, democratic, inclusive society. Now don't screw it up.
The response by politicians in the U.S. has been predictable. Obama did not crow, but urged responsibility; politicians of both parties took the opportunity to pontificate at various lengths; some Dems thanked the President for his leadership, at 180 degree odds with the Cheney/Rumsfeld/Bush Administration way of doing things (only $2 billion not $3 trillion, lead from behind by making good partnership not taking over and huffing/puffing our way to alienating our allies, not a single U.S. soldier killed compared to 4,478 in Iraq alone); and almost no GOoPers had the graciousness to thank or congratulate or even acknowledge that Obama provided the right decisions to support this effort at the crucial moment when a massacre was about to happen. It's not right for every situation, but this was the time to "Lead from Behind."
Least gracious of all -- and, perhaps, damaging to his rosy political prospects -- was freshman Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), whose statement was so douchey he had to walk it back a few hours later:
“Today’s not a day to point fingers,” the right-wing Florida senator said. “I’m glad it’s all working out. Ultimately this is about the freedom and liberty of the Libyan people. But let’s give credit where credit is due: it’s the French and the British that led in this fight, and probably even led on the strike that led to Gadhafi’s capture, and, or, you know, to his death.
“So, that’s the first thing. The second thing is, you know, I criticize the president, for, he did the right things, he just took too long to do it and didn’t do enough of it.”
I would say in response, "So much for your Vice Presidential chances, assbag." The President won. Your approach wasn't even tested...because a better man than you made the right decision. A guy who understands gratitude.
Hilarious to see a GOoPer praising the French nine years after the entire Republican Party vilified them for not joining in on the Iraq debacle, even renaming french fries to "freedom fries" in the Capitol cafeteria. Doh.
Rubio picked a bad day for bad PR, because he got the double whammy, making both less likely to be forgotten. It seems he lied -- or was misinformed and spread that misinformation -- about when his parents came to the U.S. from Cuba. By 2 1/2 years. They weren't driven out by Castro...they left before he came to power.
I would make this my ongoing series, but since I usually come down on the side of venal, or perhaps venal stupidity that somehow feeds a huge part of the American psyche and all of the #1 cable news channel, thus shoving a crowbar in the gears of evolution.
For example, there's House Republicans criticizing a new regulation that restricts importing deadly snakes, including the Burmese Python, saying it's going to cost jobs and choke the economy in red tape. So why the regulation?
Politico reports that Florida officials, led by Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), are pushing for the new rules because the Everglades are under attack by 100,000 gigantic Burmese pythons who have been accidentally introduced by negligent pet owners. The outside invaders have been on a rampage, devouring native birds and other creatures. One python grew so big that it managed to devour a six-foot alligator before exploding. No really. This actually happened. There's a photo.
Then there's this weird sick freak GOP puppethead with a diabolical look, Matthew Vadum:
"Section 261 of the bill provides $15 billion for 'Project Rebuild.' Grants would be given to 'qualified nonprofit organizations, businesses or consortia of eligible entities for the redevelopment of abandoned and foreclosed-upon properties and for the stabilization of affected neighborhoods,'" Vadum writes.
"Radical groups like ACORN won't get the whole $15 billion, though, because they will have to compete with state and local governments for the money," he continues.
This is all, of course, contingent upon the fact that ACORN exists. Which it doesn't.
Worst of all, the Super Congress contains an either very stupid or very venal, GOP Representative, Dave Camp (R-MI):
Camp's back of the envelope math during Tuesday's hearing was based on the notion that the Super Committee will reduce deficits by one percent of this year's GDP every year for 10 years.
However, as noted here, IMF economists recently warned that an austerity package of precisely that size will significantly increase unemployment and reduce wages. That's why Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) is starting a drumroll to require the panel to ask CBO to estimate the jobs impact of any of their proposals.
The idea there is to make it difficult to pass deficit reduction legislation without pairing it with some near-term pro-growth spending and tax cuts. But that would mean an even larger medium term consolidation plan. And Camp says that's not looking very likely.
The Republicans have declared class warfare by violating historical norms for taxation of the wealthy and the raising of taxes during U.S. wartime. With the Crash of 2008, the abject failure of the Bush tax cuts in any philosophical or economic sense, the laughable lie that calls the wealthiest Americans, the ones who have benefitted most from automation displacing those pesky workers and replacing Americans with foreign workers, "job creators."
Even Rep. Dan Lundgren (R-CA) doesn't have the energy of believability in his tired repetition recitation, his "I'll take my ball and go home" hostage move when confronted:
No one seriously believes this crap anymore and it's the antidote to the fallacies and identity politics of the teabaggers. And I don't care to call them "Tea Partiers" since I doubt Sam Adams would have approved of the majority of them. It's an economic theology that somehow denies progressive taxation in the name of liberty.
He accuses Ben Bernacke, Federal Reserve Chief, of almost-treason and condemns a Federal farm program that does not actually exist. Red meat all the way, regardless of the truth.
The GOP is going haywire, desperate to (a) at least share credit with President Obama for his leadership on eliminating bin Laden and, by extension, (b) desperately claim that this success means that torture works.
Neither is true. President George W. Bush, led by Vice President Richard Bruce ("Dick") Cheney overturned terrorism intelligence review policies put in place by President Bill Clinton, cockily ignored memos like "Bin Laden Determined to Strike Within U.S." and managed to get away with relatively little criticism for allowing the largest attack on U.S. soil in American history under their watch. Just imagine how they would have led a firestorm of criticism against a Democratic President had it happened under Clinton or Obama.
Then the Bush/Cheney Administration, after allowing bin Laden to escape in Tora Bora, admitted that they had stopped thinking about him, eventually dismantling the unit tasked with finding Most Wanted Terrorist #1. Not exactly leadership that contributed to President Obama's success in this area -- since Obama reinstated the mission of tracking down bin Laden once in office, eventually leading to the tip, eventually leading to the gutsy decision that could have ended his Presidency one week ago.
To wit:
And now:
The fact is that President Obama is a very different type of leader than George W. Bush. The most telling example is former Bush Chief of Staff Andrew Card, one of the "geniuses" behind the Mission: Accomplished chest-thumping debacle that began with his boss, W., landing in a flight suit, calling out President Obama for supposedly having "pounded his chest" over killing bin Laden. Really, Andrew? After you put up the banner and, it has been revealed, made secret plans for a bin Laden-killing celebration by the Bush Administration? How fucking hypocritical do you think you can be? Or are you just blinded by partisanship?
In fact, by not releasing the photo of bin Laden's corpse, by giving credit to the Navy SEALS, by refocusing on American unity, by swiftly countering false stories of bin Laden using his wife as a human shield, Obama's treatment of this success has been marked by alack of swagger and lack of lies typical of the Bush/Cheney approach to war stories. Surely this is due to the fundamental insecurity of the previous Administration. Obama doesn't have to gloat -- he's a real great leader, not a fake one.
As for torture, not only does former CIA head Gen. Michael Hayden indicate that the intelligence that lead to bin Laden did not come from "enhanced interrogation," but Andrew Sullivan has a great post on how the Cheneys (Dick and Liz) are back in a desperate attempt to make torture the hero in their false narrative:
There is no evidence that torture was integral to capturing bin Laden. Of three tortured prisoners among the countless leads and tips and interviewees, one was deemed "quite cooperative" before being tortured, thereby leaving open the question of whether the shred of information he provided could have been gotten by non-barbaric methods; and two denied any knowledge of the courier under the torture technique called "waterboarding." So in order to defend torture, Cheney has to say that it's a success when the tortured tell lies. Heads he wins, tails we lose. Moreover, in the last two years or so, torture has been forbidden - although its legacy remains with war criminals protected by the US government, in violation of Geneva - and it was after those two years of a return to decency that bin Laden was found and killed. As for the Bush administration's over-arching goal - democratization of the Middle East - it was only under Obama that we got the Green Revolution in Iran, the successful revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia, and the power-struggles now happening in Syria and Libya.
When these fanatics are presented with clear evidence that Obama has been far more successful against terror and its causes than they ever were, they return to their precious, their torture program, and claim ludicrously that, without it, bin Laden would not have been captured. Rumsfeld joined in the chorus of mass distraction this weekend on the same basis. All this really tells you is that these people realize that if their torture regime is found to have been counter-productive, if bin Laden was caught two years after the torture program was ended and with no evidence it helped, then their barbaric policy is exposed once again as unnecessary and a violation of core human values.
He's not declaring his candidacy for President until the final episode of this season's Celebrity Apprentice, which makes sense since the show's rating have gone up every since he started beating the drum for birtherism.
I'm on the fence right now whether Donald Trump's taking brand control of the evil teabagger birther smear is a bad or good thing for America. On one hand, I don't like seeing it back in the news, either reinforcing this misapprehension/prejudice or sparking more belief in weak, hyper-partisan or bigoted minds. However, since Trump is such an outsized figure of ridicule, it might kill it once and for all. Maybe he can make it a task next season -- "Convince the most people of this racist lie."
Today’s installment of “heinous, unacceptable racism disguised as ‘jokes’” features a Republican official on Orange County, California, President Obama, and monkeys in photoshop. GOP official Marilyn Davenport is coming under fire for sending other Republican officials an email depicting President Obama as a chimpanzee, in the arms of chimpanzee “parents,” claiming, “Now you know why– no birth certificate! [sic].” Davenport is sticking to her guns, blaming the media for making too much of a fuss.
Among Davenport’s detractors (including, one would hope, “everyone else”), local news station KCAL caught up with former California Republican chairman Michael Schroder, who correctly posited: “no average person would send this out and feel comfortable with this, that this was just a joke.” Then again, Schroder also notes Davenport doesn’t come into this embarrassment with a clean slate– among the people in Orange County Republican politics she has defended are an official who sent an email with an illustration of the White House covered in watermelons and an official who opposed the installation of grass near beaches on the point that “grass attracts Mexicans.”
As for Trump, he can't say it's true, just sneakily imply that if it's being talked about, there must be something to it:
Opportunistic as always, Donald. But whether or not he leads the GOP field as some polls show, he's got more than his double comb-over working against him. There's that little problem of fiscal responsibility -- he's declared corporate bankruptcy four times.
Of course, none of those led to personal bankruptcy.
Colbert strikes again. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) lied openly on the Senate floor about Planned Parenthood, claiming that 90% of Planned Parenthood's services are abortions. When his office was called with the FACT that the actual figure is 3%, they claimed that Sen. Kyl's remarks into the official Congressional record were, in fact, "not intended to be a factual statement." In other words, Sen. Jon Kyl is officially a liar.
For Colbert, of course, who coined the phrase "truthiness" as the lies that feel true due to fitting our steadfast preconceived ideology, hence repeated over and over by organs of the Right like Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Bachman, Sarah Palin, etc. until George Orwell spins all the way out of his grave and straight into Newt Gingrich's skull. Birtherism is truthiness. I'd argue that 90% of Tea Party nonsense is as well. And some of you would tell me that's being generous.
The upshot is an hilarious Colbert bit that didn't stop here:
Jon Kyl is an accomplished nude hula dancer. He is not welcome in Hawaii. #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement
For the past 10 years, Jon Kyl has been two children in a very convincing Jon Kyl suit. #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement
Jon Kyl cheated on Sandra Bullock. #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement
Once a year, Jon Kyl retreats to the Arizona desert and deposits 2 million egg sacs under the sand. #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement
Citing religious reasons, Jon Kyl refuses to utter the number 8. #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement
Jon Kyl once ate a badger he hit with his car. #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement
Carly Simon wrote that song about Jon Kyl. #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement
Legally, Jon Kyl cannot be within 100 yards of Helen Mirren. #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement
Jon Kyl has a shrine to Scooter from the Muppet Show. #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement
Jon Kyl developed his own line of hair care products just so he could test them on bunnies. #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement
Jon Kyl was sent from the future to kill Sarah Conner. #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement
Which was then picked up all over the Twittosphere by fans who invented their own, and now by Senate Democrats themselves. And on the Senate floor by new fan favorite, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand even got into the act:
“For my friends and colleagues, this is a factual statement,” Gillibrand said. “Current law already prevents federal money from paying for abortions. This has been the law of the land for over 30 years. Shutting down the government for a political argument is not only outrageous, it is irresponsible. The price for keeping the government open is this assault on women’s rights.”
What's about it is that today's GOP, for the most part, lies every day, big ones. Like the lying budget assumptions behind Rep. Paul Ryan's Republican budget -- the killing of Medicare, the lowering of taxes on the rich from 35% to 25%. Like Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who admitted he lied (by omission) in his campaign and lied bald-faced as Governor in his arguments for passing a ban on collective bargaining by public unions:
Asked if he had really campaigned on a plan to roll back collective bargaining rights, Walker repeatedly danced around the question, insisting he had campaigned on a “range” of promises to impose fiscal discipline. But Connolly kept pressing the point, and finally asked him point blank: Did you “explicitly” campaign on this proposal?
“No,” Walker conceded. He then went on to repeat his claim that he campaigned on a range of issues, and insistted that Wisconsinites should not have been surprised by his plan because his views on collective bargaining had long been known.
...
KUCINICH: Let me ask you about some of the specific provisions in your proposals to strip collective bargaining rights. First, your proposal would require unions to hold annual votes to continue representing their own members. Can you please explain to me and members of this committee how much money this provision saves for your state budget?
WALKER: That and a number of other provisions we put in because if you’re going to ask, if you’re going to put in place a change like that, we wanted to make sure we protected the workers of our state, so they got value out of that. [...]
KUCINICH: Would you answer the question? How much money does it save, Governor?
WALKER: It doesn’t save any.
Way to go, Scottie! You're no Tricky Dick, that's for sure.
A long but entertaining list of GOP #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatements here, click for explanations:
