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BWA HA HA
Ryan: Romney’s Assets In A ‘Blind Trust For Pete’s Sake’
Romney surrogate and VP contender Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) said on Sunday that the Obama campaign using Bain Capital and the issue of Romney’s taxes to distract the country from the issues people really care about.
“People are not worried about the details as to when Mitt Romney left Bain Capital to save the Olympics or the details about his assets, which are managed by a blind trust for Pete’s sake,” Ryan said on “Face the Nation.” “They’re worried about their jobs and their family’s future.
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entries/ryan-romneys-assets-in-blind-trust-for-petes
STFU, “Eddie Munster” Ryan. People are worried that you and your COHORTS are OBSTRUCTING the POTUS on the AJA, and every other legislation that will help Americans move FORWARD.
Romney andhis behavior at BAIN is PART OF THE PROBLEM. So have a seat in the high chair and suck it, bitch!
Rotting from the Top
Josh Marshall July 15, 2012, 2:03 PM
Ed Gillespie is getting a world of criticism this morning for ‘retroactively retired’ and the whole Mitt team is getting lectured on extremely poor handling of the mix of offshore accounts, outsourcing, and Romney’s quantum physics approach to having been CEO and not CEO of Bain at the same time. But any campaign operative or observer will tell you that it’s very, very difficult for a campaign to be more forthcoming, agile or aware than the candidate himself.
A question: why exactly did Romney do his full media blitz Friday afternoon? I strongly suspect it was driven in large measure by Romney’s personal umbrage at being called a liar or having the word ‘felony’ spoken even in proximity to his name. The only logic of doing that kind of full court press is to bring forth something new to the table that can change the direction of the debate. But the only thing that counted as somewhat new was Romney’s emphatic restatement that he’d release only this and last year’s tax returns.
When pressed on how it is that a CEO isn’t responsible for what a company does, Romney reacted much more out of frustration and emotion than political logic …
………………………….
I think the best angle on what’s happening here comes from TPM Reader WM …
I’m not a GOP operative (thank God), but I do work on Wall Street (the industry, not the geographic location) and I think it’s worth noting that Romney’s reaction to the Bain Storm is very much of a piece with the way assorted hedge fund managers, bankers and other Masters of the Universe have responded to even the slightest criticism from Obama — with as much shock as outrage.
Over the past 20-25 years these guys have gotten used to extreme deference from BOTH parties (think Cory Booker and Ed Rendell) and like to think of themselves as rational beings who are far, far above the partisan sandbox in Washington, up there in the financial heavens, doing the Lord’s Work — to quote Lloyd Blankfein.
I’ve had enough contact with the PE guys to know they particularly see themselves in a heroic light — as the saviors of capitalism from the quasi-socialist clutches of entrenched management, the unions, outside pressure groups, and the other “stakeholders” of the big public corporations (the PE guys really detest that concept).
What’s more, they’re usually insulated enough from normal human reality that they can assume all “reasonable” people see things the same way. And when you’ve got as much money to spend on campaign contributions, endowed chairs, wingnut welfare, etc. as they do, an awful lot of people are going to see things your way, or at least tell you that they do.
Point is, Mitt is not only congenitally blind to the optics of all this, he also appears — to quote Sonny from the Godfather — to be taking it very, very personally. That’s the only way I can explain his incredibly bizarre decision to spend the entire afternoon on TV talking about it, which is about the best way imaginable to keep the feeding frenzy going.
You’d think after a gubernatorial race and two runs for president, Romney would have adjusted his attitude, or at least figured out a strategy for dealing with it. But he apparently can’t — the sense of his own rectitude (upon which his sense of entitlement rests) just won’t allow it.
What’s odder is that the entire Romney campaign seems to have the same inability to engage on Bain on any other level than personal indignation. And indignation, as you correctly note, is for whimps.
My guess is that this reflects the same rigid, top-down, sycophantic management structure that Wall Street loves — which if it didn’t cause the 2008 financial crisis, a least contributed to it. The campaign can’t really be any cooler or capable than Mitt is himself — which, when it comes to dealing with criticism, clearly ain’t much.
I shudder to think what that would mean if Mitt ends up in charge of the U.S. government.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2012/07/rotting_from_the_top.php
Who’s Spineless Now? The Democrats, Not the President
We’ve spent the past three years listening to such urbane and erstwhile Progressive voices like Arianna Huffington, Bill Maher and Michael Moore talk about how spineless the President was, how he caved on important issues.
Well, now on the eve of what promises to be the most important Election of America’s lifetime, it seems, at least, some pundits are finally able to admit that, it wasn’t the President who lacked a spine at all …. All along, it was actually the Democratic party and certain Democratic politicians – yes, I’m looking at you, Joe Machin and you, Clare McCaskill.
Go back as far as the 2010 Mid-Terms, with the Affordable Care Act just passed, and how many Democrats actually went out and campaigned with that law as a feather in their caps? How many actually bothered to counter the Tea Party’s howls of death panels and socialised medicine? None. And look what we got? The most useless and worthless Congress in the history of the United States.
Melissa Harris-Perry and crew spelled it out succinctly on Sunday:-
http://emiliawahoo76.blogspot.com/2012/07/whos-spineless-now-democrats-not.html?spref=tw
Indeed the panel were spot on this morning. The DEMOCRATS are COMPLICIT in the rise of the Tea Party, The Birthers, and their continued attacks on the president, and the DO NOTHING CONGRESS. This includes some of the DEMS.
Sat Jul 14, 2012 at 06:16 PM PDT
The REAL real reason Romney MUST say he left Bain in February 1999
Like all presidential candidates, Romney has to submit a financial disclosure statement to the Office of Government Ethics. He filed his most recent one last month, and the disclosure contains a very clearly stated footnote:
Mr. Romney retired from Bain Capital on February 11, 1999 to head the Salt Lake [Olympics] Organizing Committee. Since February 11, 1999, Mr. Romney has not had any active role with any Bain Capital entity and has not been involved in the operations of any Bain Capital entity in any way.
Why? According to a February 11, 1999, AP article by Kirsten Moulton: (h/t Shuksan Tahoma)
Romney will have to sever ties with any companies that do business with the games. Bain Capital has ownership stakes in many companies and Romney serves on various corporate boards.
If Romney does not say he was completely gone from Bain by Feb. 11, then he breached his Olympic contract.
It was also vitally important for him to protect his Olympic legacy, considering he was parachuted in to fight corruption in the organization. Bringing a scandal of his own would have put him in the record books right alongside the other fired officials.
EARLY BIRD UPDATE:
In the comments, we’ve been discussing the significance of this timing and what evidence is there that what the Romney campaign says about cutting ties with Bain is false.
In testimony before the state Ballot Law Commission on June 17, 2002
“[Romney] succeeded in that three-year period in restoring confidence in the Olympic Games, closing that disastrous deficit and staging one of the most successful Olympic Games ever to occur on US soil,” said Peter L. Ebb from Ropes & Gray. (Romney’s lawyer)
“Now while all that was going on, very much in the public eye, what happened to his private and public ties to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts? And the answer is they continued unabated just as they had.”
As this was sworn testimony, we are supposed to take Romney’s lawyer and his client, a Harvard JD who didn’t correct the record, at their word.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/07/14/1110033/-The-REAL-real-reason-Romney-MUST-say-he-left-Bain-in-February-1999
found this in the comments at POU:
Miranda Collapse
Don’t cha find it interesting that the same set of conservatives that say the average citizen is responsible for signing for that subprime loan or payday loan that companies purposefully target communities over – but Mitt Romney is not responsible for anything that happened under Bain from 1999 to 2003 even though he signed his name as the responsible person for the SEC, IRS and other regulating bodies. His signature shouldn’t “count” – but the Washington’s in Cleveland that got duped into a subprime loan that takes the home they saved up for and thought they would retire in….they’re responsible for that.
NAILED IT! Of course us negroes & average citizens have to tow the line. Mittens, NOT SO MUCH!
HOLD THIS MOFO ACCOUNTABLE!
Yvette Carnell: Why Did a Biracial Actress Portray Harriet Tubman in “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter?
by Yvette Carnell
I have nothing against actress Jaqueline Fleming, the actress who portrayed Harriet Tubman in “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Slayer”, except that she doesn’t look a thing like the real Tubman.
Unlike Fleming, Tubman wasn’t born in Copenhagan to a Danish-German mother, and Tubman’s dark skin and African features attest to that.
So why was Fleming cast to portray Harriet Tubman in a movie?
Take a look around, and you’ll note that darker skinned blacks, in history and on film, are being replaced with blacks who are more palatable to white people. And Tubman, a heroine of the abolitionist movement, must also be palatable to white culture, which requires that she be white, or damn near it.
And before you go accusing me of colorism, consider that I’m light skinned, and yet, would never pretend that I could, or should, portray Shirley Chisholm in a movie. Even if I could act, I know that in order for Chisholm to be portrayed accurately, that role must go to Regina King, or some other equally talented, and brown, actress. I’d be a fool to think that throwing a little make-up on a light skinned woman amounts to an accurate portrayal of Chisholm. It doesn’t. In fact, it amounts to a betrayal.
To contract a biracial woman to portray a darker skinned black woman is actually racist since the act itself is based on white supremacy. Not only should Fleming never have been cast in the role, she should’ve never shown up for the casting call. To do so was to dishonor Tubman, and so Fleming bears some responsibility in this as well.
And, of course, the world laughs at us, as we sit back and watch ourselves be undermined by fraudulent representations, and invalidated as others rewrite darker skinned blacks out of history.
Confederates of the Civil War were traitors, and yet you still see their ancestors rise up to defend them. But African Americans have no problem allowing Tubman to be undermined on the silver screen, and permanently altered in the minds of people who will use this movie, as well as other misrepresentations, as a reference point.
Give it 75 years or so, and all the new rewritten textbooks will have images of photoshopped Tubman, a lighter skinned version of her authentic self, and the period that we are currently in will be forever known as the Great Erase, where black people, and black culture, were erased and replaced. I get so tired of saying this but, we have no one but ourselves to blame.
http://www.yourblackworld.net/2012/07/black-news/yvette-carnell-why-did-a-biracial-actress-portray-harriet-tubman-in-abraham-lincoln-vampire-hunter/#
Harriet Tubman herself would rise up from the grave and give these MOFOs a good beatdown.
REPOST- LOL Romney& the GOP can’t take it when the Dems use ROVIAN tactics like them.
Stepahnie “Cuttin’ up” Cutter
Don’t fuck with Chi-Town surrogates, Mitt Romney!
Oh HELL, hat tip DEMOCRATIC UNDERGROUND
ROTFLMBAO- OMG! I…can’t breeve…..
The Romney’s are heading to the Olympics in London
The Gulfstream IV is packed and ready to go…
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002951692
TPM: New Obama ad is “in a league of its own” according to film directors
n A League Of Its Own
David Kurtz
July 15, 2012, 9:46 AM
-snip-
But don’t take my word for it. Here’s what a couple of directors I was talking to had to say about it:
-snip-
This “Firms” commercial seems to me to be in an altogether different league. I was struck immediately. And yes, I was impressed with the matching of the voice to the visual, but also just the visuals.
Opening shot of Obama with columns that suggest the White House? Brilliant. The Swiss flag flying when he sings the words, “America, America” and you hear it flapping in the breeze? Wow. The visual of the office for the India graphic? It immediately conjures up Indian call centers. Even bringing in the text to focus on the Bermuda visual is subtle. And very smart.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2012/07/in_a_league_of_its_own.php
Reposting here
From Chauncey Devega
Saturday, July 14, 2012
A Final Thought on that NAACP “Free Stuff” Speech: Could Mitt Romney be a Sociopath?
That set of facts alone made the “free stuff” speech shockingly offensive. But the problem isn’t just that Romney’s wrong, and a hypocrite, and cynically furthering dangerous and irresponsible stereotypes in order to advance some harebrained electoral ploy involving white conservative voters. What makes it gross is the way he did it.
Romney can’t even be mean with any honesty. Even when he’s pandering to viciousness, ignorance and racism, it comes across like a scaly calculation. A guy who feels like he has to take a dump on the N.A.A.C.P. in Houston in order to connect with frustrated white yahoos everywhere else is a guy who has absolutely no social instincts at all…
Most presidents have something under the hood – wit, warmth, approachability, something…
But Romney doesn’t buzz with anything. His vision of humanity is just a million tons of meat floating around in a sea of base calculations. He’s like a teenager who stays up all night thinking of a way to impress the prom queen, and what he comes up with is kicking a kid in a wheelchair. Instincts like those are probably what made him a great leveraged buyout specialist, but in a public figure? Man, is he a disaster. It’s really incredible theater, watching the Republicans talk themselves into this guy.
Read on
http://wearerespectablenegroes.blogspot.com/
Oh for fucks sakes! Chris Matthews and his panel are creaming themselves this morning over a Hillary Clinto presidential run. These idiots are comparing who is the greatest, tansformational POTUS, Bubba or PBO. SMGDH Give it up people.
Romney’s Strategy is His Only Strategy
by BooMan
Sun Jul 15th, 2012 at 11:04:58 AM EST
Much like the necessity of defending Sarah Palin destroyed every minimum standard of truth and decency that remained in the Republican Party, Mitt Romney’s utterly vacuous campaign is turning the nation’s Republican governors into blathering idiots. I don’t know what I’d say in their place, but that’s sort of the point, What can you say? If you offer some advice like maybe Romney could release his tax returns and put this controversy to bed, you’re forced to walk it back the next day. If you say that Romney should spell out his economic plans, you ignore that his economic plans poll so badly that the Democrats have decided that no one will believe them if they talk about them. If you suggest that Romney humanize himself by talking more about his personal life, you ignore that Romney is basically a straight-laced Clark Griswold who does weird things like strap a dog crate to the roof of his station wagon before he sets off on a lengthy vacation. If you tell him to defend his work at Bain Capital, you aren’t taking account of the fact that he’s had twenty years to try to do that as a candidate and has never succeeded.
One after another, the Republican governors assembled for their annual meeting in Virginia, told reporters that Romney needs to do this or that differently. But all of their advice was bad. Romney doesn’t talk about his personal life because he isn’t likable. He doesn’t talk about Bain Capital because no one likes a vulture capitalist and it only invites his opposition to pile on. He doesn’t talk about his economic plans because they’re less popular than a case of herpes.
Romney’s current strategy is the only strategy that makes any sense. Don’t discuss anything except the president and the economy. Go 100% negative. Do everything you can to make the election about the incumbent and not about you. Never talk about yourself. Never talk about your plans, except in the most generalized platitudes. And hope a perfect storm hits at just the right time in November and you win because you’re the only plausible alternative on the ballot.
Even if it’s not working well enough to win, do anything else will immediately backfire. So, stick to the strategy.
This is what happens when a party becomes insane and then nominates someone with an indefensible history, personality, and platform.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2012/7/15/11458/1661
Interesting the cable networks are shy about Bain ads this weekend; I wonder why.
*WE SEE YOU MSM* Guess ya’ll have been given your MARCHIN’ ORDERS to not cover Mittens Willard Romney today. Can’t follow the black POTUS’ lead now can we?
Queen of Soul expresses interest in joining ‘American Idol’
By Roland S. Martin, CNN Contributor
updated 10:14 AM EDT, Sun July 15, 2012
CNN) — “American Idol” lost two stars this week when judges Steven Tyler and Jennifer Lopez announced they would not be returning next season, but the hit Fox show could gain itself The Queen.
Aretha Franklin, an 18-time Grammy Award winner who Rolling Stone proclaimed the greatest female singer of all time, told CNN in an e-mail Saturday that she is interested in joining the show as a judge.
Franklin, 70, who wowed the Essence Music Festival crowd last week in New Orleans and is now performing in Las Vegas, says she has long been a fan of the show. Now instead of watching it with the rest of America, she’s ready to play a vital role in choosing the next “American Idol.”
And as the Queen of Soul would do, she’s already thinking about bringing along a sidekick: songstress Patti LaBelle.
Fox declined to comment on Franklin on Saturday night.
The addition of Franklin could help Fox stop the ratings slide of “Idol,” which saw it lose its spot as the top show of the year to NBC’s “Sunday Night Football.”
The addition of similar singing contests to primetime television has increased the competition for viewers.
Fox’s “The X Factor” recently added pop star Britney Spears after booting former “Idol” judge Paula Abdul and Nicole Scherzinger of the Pussycat Dolls. NBC’s “The Voice” — “Idol’s” closest competitor — has gained ground with judges Cee Lo Green, Adam Levine, Christina Aguilera, and Blake Shelton.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/14/showbiz/aretha-franklin-idol/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
Emanuel: Romney made Bain tenure his ‘calling card,’ should ‘stop whining’
By Meghashyam Mali – 07/15/12 10:21 AM ET
Former Obama White House chief-of-staff-turned Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel defended criticisms of Mitt Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital, saying the GOP candidate had made his work there a “calling card” of his campaign and should “stop whining.”
“Mitt Romney said Bain Capital is his calling card for why he should be president. He doesn’t talk about Massachusetts as governor. He doesn’t talk about any other piece,” said Emanuel on ABC’s “This Week.” “He says, ‘I created jobs at Bain Capital.’”
Democrats have hit Romney hard on his work at the private equity firm, questioning his role in helping companies shift jobs overseas and also on his personal offshore financial holdings.
The debate intensified last week after the Obama campaign raised questions over when exactly Romney left Bain. Romney has said he left in 1999 to oversee preparations for the Salt Lake City Olympics, but Securities and Exchange Commission filings show him listed as Bain’s CEO beyond that time. Democrats hope to tie Romney to layoffs by companies owned by Bain after 1999.
Emanuel on Sunday pointed to those SEC documents, which he said raised questions about how Romney would perform if elected president.
“You can’t — as president of the United States you can’t have a sign on your desk that says, “Gone fishing.” You can’t put that on that desk. It’s basically the buck stops there,” he said. “You can’t say to the SEC, ‘I was the CEO, chairman and president, but I’m not responsible. I’m not accountable.’ That’s what he likes you to think.”
Emanuel also defended Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter who last week suggested that Romney might have committed a felony by misrepresenting his tenure at Bain to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
“Stephanie cited the law, and it’s very clear. Either the filing with the SEC is accurate and his personal financial disclosure is not honest, or that’s honest and the SEC isn’t, but both can’t be accurate,” said Emanuel. “Both cannot be accurate depicting a time where he said he was doing one thing or another. It’s just not possible.”
“Give it up about Stephanie. Don’t worry about that,” he continued. “What are you going to do when the Chinese leader says something to you or Putin says something to you? Going to whine it away? You cannot do that.
“As Mitt Romney said once to his own Republican colleagues, stop whining. I give him his own advice. Stop whining,” he concluded.
Emanuel also repeated Democratic calls for Romney to release more of his tax records after a report in Vanity Fair last week said the GOP candidate had offshore accounts in Switzerland, the Cayman Islands and Bermuda.
“The Romney campaign isn’t stupid. They have decided it is better to get attacked on lack of transparency, lack of accountability to the American people versus telling you what’s in those taxes,” said Emanuel.
“His tax filing looks more like the Olympic Village than it does like a middle-class family,” he added.
Emanuel said that Romney’s own handling of his tax situation would help inform voters about how he would handle tax return if elected.
“The president of the United States is going to have tax reform, and you’re going to have to debate it with Congress and shape it. And unless you have his taxes, and I’ve seen this in the Oval Office… there’s going to be times in which a president of the United States has to make tradeoffs and choices,” he said. “Will it be a middle-class family’s desired to save to send their kid to college or protecting the loophole in the Cayman Islands? Will it be a middle-class family’s desire to get a tax credit for a child and help raise him in a middle-class family, or will we protect the Bahamas, Luxembourg, and Switzerland?”
Romney’s campaign has denied that he placed his money in “tax havens” abroad and said Romney has paid all taxes owed in the U.S. They accuse the Obama campaign of seeking to distract voters from two months of weak jobs growth numbers.
“As the failures of his presidency become more evident, Barack Obama has resorted to the tactics of a typical politician – dishonest and totally unsubstantiated attacks meant to distract from his own record by smearing the reputation of his opponent,” said Romney campaign spokesman Amanda Henneberg, in a statement to The Hill on Saturday. “Americans deserve a president they can trust, and not someone willing to say and do anything to win an election.”
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/237945-emanuel-romney-made-bain-tenure-his-calling-card-should-stop-whining
Have a high chair seat & quit your whining, Amanda Henneberg. Romney’s in the big leagues now. And let’s not forget; Romney’s the PROBLEM with our economy, NOT THE SOLUTION!
DON’T BASE YOUR VOTES ON FEAR, BASE THEM ON POSSIBILITIES.
The CLOSER at her FINEST!
Reposting here. Looking for full YouTube video of his Glen Allen speech.
30 photos of rain-soaked PBO & audience in Glen Allen, Va
http://www.buzzfeed.com/summeranne/30-pictures-of-president-obamas-rain-soaked-c
Stephanie Cutter is on Face the Nation. Bob Schiffier don’t want none of this…
Romney surrogate Kevin Madden is debating with Stephanie Cutter.
Get the transcript and video later here:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-3460_162-57472139/ryan-obama-romney-campaign-leaders-on-face/?tag=showDoorFlexGridRight;flexGridModule
BWA HA HA Stephanie tells the panel Romney needs to STOP WHINING. That’s what Romney told his GOP primary candidates.
Good Morning, Jueseppi, rikyrah & Everyone! :-) We <3 you 2
The Real Motivation Behind Repealing ObamaCare is Racism
By: Tim From LAJuly 14th, 2012
One thing I like to do is to go to conservative sites and read their diatribe. The latest site I “Liked” on Facebook is the Heritage Foundation. Emblazoned on their page is this logo
They, like every other conservative are demanding the Congress to repeal this socialist medical care! Funny thing, this idea sounds like: Hertiage Care. As a matter of fact, the Obama Care was based upon the Heritage Foundation’s health plan as an answer to Hillary Care (Public Option) and placed in their bill, an individual mandate.
So why would the Heritage Foundation want to repeal the Affordable Care Act? To be blunt? Because Obama is black. Yes, I said it. Obama is a black and the leader of the Democratic Party. But, according to a lawyer who was on the Sirius Left show Mark Thompson: Make It Plain, the caller said that institutionalized racism does not exist.
If that were true, then why were there Republicans supporting this in the past? According to Fox News:
……………………
In 1993, the President Bill Clinton, a white Democrat out of Arkansas was introduced with this bill. Hatch and Grassley stood behind the bill and made it their own. Yet when Obama introduced this bill, yes even with an individual mandate, both Republicans and the Heritage foundation balked. Why? Do they prefer a single payer plan? No. Was it because a Democrat is in in office? No. Bill Clinton was one. Has it something to do with race? To quote Bugs Bunny, “Hmmm, it might be”.
Yes, the ACA may not be perfect, as it was drafted by a conservative group, but why isn’t the Heritage Foundation stepping up to the plate and say: We created Obama Care and we are proud and that Obama, “stole our idea”. Well, maybe because there is a black person in the WHITE House and and as Mitch McConnell said: Make Obama a One Term President:
http://www.politicususa.com/real-motivation-repealing-obamacare-racism.html
Plus the MOFOs are pushing the old “Dez lazy black, negroes who want free handouts, using our (white folks) hard-earned money! And SOME white folks who need healthcare will buy in to the racist bullshit and vote against their own best INTEREST.
Comment of the Day: Mitt Romney Can ‘Partake in the Finest Selection of Horse Penises’
If you don’t think Mittens is out of touch with African-American voters, then etfp has something you ought to read:
From a black man to Mitt Romney: Fuck you.
Black people don’t want free shit, you out of touch Dr. Reed Richards hair having motherfucker.
We want the same shit that your white constituency wants: Opportunity, good schools, safe streets, JOBS, a house that doesn’t fucking double and triple in interest rate while the value plummets, a place to shit with a door on it and the ability to not be denied coverage when we have a medical problem. We’re no different than anybody else but you wouldn’t know that because the only black person you probably know personally you just happen to be running against him for president.
I’m tired of these piece of shit Republicans talking DOWN and whitesplaining to people of color AS IF they had it hard all their lives. NO Mitt Romney, you never had to worry about the price of milk ever in your fucking life. You were raised with a silver spoon in your mouth and your father probably owned a silver spoon factory.
If you were really in touch, you’d talk about JOBS because we have a 14% unemployment rate in the black community but your party couldn’t pass a fart through cotton much less a fucking jobs bill. You’d talk about the safety net but we all know that you and Rand Paul are looking to take a pair of comically large shears to that motherfucker.
Instead you walk in front of the NAACP and talk PAST them and your message hits your goddamn racist, sexist, homophobic, bible thumping, hate ridden, against their own interest base that ignores when we spend half a million on cruise missiles but complain when they see somebody cashing an unemployment check that happens to own an iPhone. FUCK YOU.
I have a goddamn question for you, Willard:
What about your perpetually poor white voters in states like West Virginia, Mississippi, Missouri and Louisiana that vote for you even though you give no fucking care about them. As long as you hammer on how black Obama is, how the liberals want to shoot their white women with abortion guns and the fact that gays want to marry your children they’ll continue voting for you. They staff your fucked up infantry and you’ve spent the past 60 years brainwashing them into thinking they deserve to get welfare checks but the second black people get them, it’s a problem.
Fuck you and your face. Fuck your hair. Fuck your party. Fuck Newt Gingrich and fuck the whole conservative movement that has allowed their side to turn into this giant self-eating mutated blob.
http://jezebel.com/5925651/comment-of-the-day-mitt-romney-can-partake-in-the-finest-selection-of-horse-penises
DAMN! This was a RIGHTEOUS SMACKDOWN of the MITTSTER & GOP!
Why is McCain Better Than the People?
by BooMan
Sun Jul 15th, 2012 at 12:47:24 AM EST
I am going to address this to the American people, whether they be conservatives or liberals or something in between. Back in April, the Washington Post reported that Mitt Romney had turned over twenty-three years of tax returns to John McCain’s vice-presidential team. It’s easy to do the math here. If you subtract twenty-three from 2008, you get 1985. Mitt Romney created Bain Capital in 1984, and 1985 was the first tax return that reflected his new job. It’s obvious that Romney turned over every record that pertained to Bain Capital. Now, why did he do that? And why did McCain’s team ask him to do that?
Romney turned the records for Bain Capital over to McCain because he is ambitious and he wanted to be selected as McCain’s running mate, and he knew McCain would never consider him for the job if he didn’t provide the records that had been requested. McCain wanted the records from Bain Capital because he wanted to know whether Mitt Romney had any vulnerabilities that might embarrass him and potentially cost him the chance to win the election and become president.
Now, why should we the people not operate with these same assumptions? Shouldn’t we, like McCain, refuse to consider Romney’s candidacy if he won’t show us his records? And shouldn’t we, like McCain, be worried that he’ll embarrass us and our country if it turns out that he has things in his record that he had good reason to hide?
What makes John McCain more important than the voters? He looked at those twenty-three years of tax returns and thought Sarah Palin, a person he met once and barely knew, would be a better more responsible choice. If Romney won’t let us make up our own minds about his tax returns, maybe we should just defer to McCain’s judgment then. We’ll assume that Romney is worse than Palin.
And it’s not just that I want to hassle Romney or that I think every presidential candidate should release every tax record they’ve ever created. But Romney is obviously hiding something, so now I want to know what McCain apparently knew. I think all Americans should know at least as much as John McCain knows. Why is that unreasonable?
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2012/7/15/04724/9578
Lawsuit Claims Race Bias at Wet Seal Retail Chain
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
Published: July 12, 2012
Three former managers at Wet Seal, a nationwide apparel retailer for young women, filed a federal race discrimination lawsuit on Thursday, asserting that the company had a high-level policy of firing and denying pay increases and promotions to African-American employees because they did not fit its “brand image
The lawsuit, filed in Federal District Court in Santa Ana, Calif., includes a copy of a March 2009 e-mail sent by the company’s then senior vice president for store operations to lower-level managers after she had inspected several stores. The email said, “African American dominate — huge issue.”
One plaintiff, Nicole Cogdell, the African-American former manager of a Wet Seal store in King of Prussia, Pa., said the company terminated her the day after that e-mail was sent. She said that she had heard the senior vice president, Barbara Bachman, tell a district manager that she wanted someone with “blond hair and blue eyes.”
The lawsuit seeks back pay, and general and punitive damages. It also seeks class-action status on behalf of more than 250 current and former black managers at Wet Seal, which has more than 550 Wet Seal and Arden B stores across the nation and is based in Foothill Ranch, Calif.
Another plaintiff, Kai Hawkins, the African-American former manager of a store in Cherry Hill, N.J., said her district manager had told her to hire more white employees or face termination. In the lawsuit, Ms. Hawkins said that she had been offended by Ms. Bachman’s e-mail and that she saw many black employees being “terminated despite doing a good job and without any explanation.”
In a statement issued Thursday, Wet Seal said: “Wet Seal is an equal opportunity employer with a very diverse work force and customer base. We deny any and all allegations of race discrimination and will vigorously defend this matter.”
The company’s spokeswoman, Yasmin El-Ezaby, did not respond to several telephone and e-mail messages requesting comment. The company’s chief executive, Susan P. McGalla, also did not respond to a phone message.
Ms. Bachman left the company in May 2011, according to her LinkedIn page.
Brad Seligman, the lead lawyer for the plaintiffs, has also been the plaintiffs’ lead lawyer in the highly publicized sex discrimination lawsuit against Wal-Mart that sought class-action status on behalf of more than 1.5 million women who are current or former Wal-Mart employees. The Supreme Court ruled that class-action status was inappropriate in that case, saying that there appeared to be no companywide policy promoting discrimination.
But Mr. Seligman, citing the senior vice president’s e-mail, said that the Wet Seal case would more clearly qualify for class-action status.
“This is unlike Wal-Mart,” he said. “We have an explicit corporate policy that’s discriminatory. This is old-school, straight-up discrimination.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/13/business/wet-seal-accused-of-racial-bias-by-3-ex-managers.html?_r=2
Wet Seal, Abercrombie & Fitch, Bannana Repbulic, and the rest of these CaC high falutin chains can bite me. The clothes aren’t made to fit anyone other than skinny white, stick figures.
Email Of The Day
A reader quotes our dissenter:
I worry about blowback now, even as I deilght in hearing O cooly say that Romney has some ‘splainin to do. I still don’t like the ads, and I think the intimation that there was anything criminal in those SEC filings is way over the top.
This is the kind of hand-wringing that makes the Democratic coalition unable to govern effectively. This is politics, not a peer-reviewed research essay. Is Obama’s insinuation not 100% above board? Sure. But it’s a half-truth that’s in the service of a much larger and more important truth: that Romney is the very epitome of financial sector’s arrogance and lack of accountability which is largely responsible for destroying the US economy, and the American middle class, while preserving the gains of the rich at any cost. You can worry about Obama’s fidelity to detail all you want. The guy isn’t a journalist; he’s a politician, and the argument he’s making against Romney does reveal Romney’s true core as another arrogant Master of the Universe who takes it for granted that he lives by a separate set of rules from everyone else. If Obama has to exaggerate and oversimplify to get there, then so be it.
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/07/email-of-the-day.html
Make NO mistake about it. Romney, Rove, Koch, and every other hater there ARE DOING WHATEVER it takes to take down our president. FUCK’EM ALL!
Mitt Romney, World’s Worst Lounge Singer
ByJames Wolcott
9:01 AM, July 15 2012
It’s the political ad that everyone’s talking about this post-All Star game season, and no wonder–it’s a sneaky jab that completely shatters Mitt Romney’s glass jaw. What’s brilliant about “Firms” isn’t so much the way it mails home the irony of Romney murdering “America the Beautiful” with his toneless, tuneless voice on the soundtrack as info flashcards remind us of all the jobs Bain Capital shipped overseas and how much money Romney’s stashed in tax havens such as Bermuda and the Cayman Islands, though it is a clever, damaging juxtaposition that takes Romney’s chief asset as a candidate–his halo of executive achievement–and hangs it around his neck like a choke collar. Very Rovian, that.
No, what’s genius is the initial transition between President Obama striding a few steps at the White House and cutting to Mitt making with song…the contrast between Obama’s vocal and physical gravitas and Mitt’s goofiness is hilarious, devastating, emasculating. It’s like going from The Shawshank Redemption to Jerry Lewis in The Nutty Professor when the Buddy Love spell wears off, from Sidney Poitier in In the Heat of the Night to Fred MacMurray in Son of Flubber. And the fact that this ad is approved by Obama gives it much more authority and pow than if it were just something cooked up at the editing console by some bright operatives hoping the video would go YouTube viral. It’s a smackdown from the man himself, not some Democratic front group, thus sending a much stronger message.
It’s clear that the Obama campaign’s strategy is to hit Romney hard early, define and diminish him in the public imagination with cartoon clarity, and send him into the Republican convention with a Dan Quayle deer-in-the-headlights look that conveys the unbearable lightness of completely lost.
The initial response from Team Romney is that the Obama ad is making mockery of “America the Beautiful,” and thus of America itself, and therefore dishonors those great patriots who shop for mattresses on Presidents’ Day. If that’s the best these marshmallows can counterpunch, they’ll be digging up Lee Atwater before Labor Day and trying to reanimate him with jumper cables.
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/wolcott/2012/07/Mitt-Romney-Worlds-Worst-Lounge-Singer
BWA HA HA HA I’m Barack Obama, and I approve this message.
“FIRMS” is Swagger with a Dagger.
TPM Editor’s Blog
‘One For The History Books’
David Kurtz-July 14, 2012, 1:44 PM
A more extended dissection of the audio techniques in the new Obama ad, from TPM Reader WB:
Mostly what you are hearing in the treatment of Romney’s voice is added reverb. The way it’s used in the ad, it creates the sense that Romney’s voice is echoing inside a large empty space (like a closed down factory). In the context of the ad, it creates a very powerful effect because it enhances the sense that these once thriving places of business are now vacant of people (rooms are much more reverberant when empty).
It sounds to me like there has been some additional audio editing, because the character of Romney’s voice shifts slightly each time the scene in the visuals changes. This would have been done with frequency equalization (EQ), many digital audio editing programs have preset EQ curves designed to mimic certain kinds of effects (old time radio, etc.). The tinny quality you notice is a result of filtering out the lower frequencies of the sound spectrum.
Obama’s ad team has come up with a very effective juxtaposition of sound and image in this ad. I have a PhD in Cinema Studies and one of the topics that I studied very seriously was the way in which sound can effect how we perceive images, making them more powerful in our minds. At the risk of stating the obvious, this ad was put together very carefully by people who really know what they are doing. There is much more than just good political messaging going on in this ad. This is one for the history books. In my opinion, people will be talking about this ad for years to come.
I think you are on target to make a connection to LBJ’s “Daisy” ad. The filmmakers used reverb pretty aggressively on the male voice that picks up the countdown, which added to the sense of foreboding. I’d have to do a much closer analysis of both ads to say much more, but “Daisy” came to my mind immediately upon seeing this ad as well.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2012/07/one_for_the_history_books.php?ref=fpblg
Driven to the brink? Jesse Jackson Jr’s hurt over ‘enormous disappointment’ at political failures led to mystery mental illness, says mother
By Daily Mail Reporter
The mother of U.S. Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr has broken the silence surrounding her son’s mysterious illness saying he’s struggled to deal with ‘enormous disappointment’ over recent years.
In an emotional and spiritual speech at the Operation PUSH annual conference on Friday, Jacqueline Jackson opened up about her son’s political disappointments and his illness, that doctors have called a ‘mood disorder.’
‘I’m not ashamed to say he thought he was going to be a senator. He thought he was going to have a chance to run for mayor. And young people don’t bounce back from disappointment like me and my husband,’ she told the Chicago crowd.
The scandal-hit congressman’s career was damaged after allegations of an extra-marital affair, as well as being tangled in the corruption surrounding former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2173618/Jesse-Jackson-Jr–Mother-speaks-sons-enormous-disappointment-asks-prayers.html#ixzz20hF7XT1d
July 14, 2012 05:30 PM
Mitt’s Venture Adventures In Wealth and Profit
By karoli
With all the talk about Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital Adventures, whether he did or he didn’t leave the company, what he managed and when he managed it, and so on, I thought it might be fun to lift the very tiny corner of the curtain and get a glimpse into what some of these deals made in just one small corner of Mitt Romney’s universe.
Mitt and Ann Romney have a charitable foundation — The Tyler Foundation. It was established as a private foundation for them to contribute cash or in some cases, securities, as a pool of money to then give to their chosen charitable causes. It has been in effect since 1999, and a romp through their IRS 990 forms was, shall we say, enlightening?
Since 1999, most of the contributions made to the foundation by the Romneys have been in the form of securities which aren’t identified. Those securities are transferred to the foundation where they are either held or sold. In most cases, they were sold immediately upon transfer. Here are a few notable transactions along the way:
2003
•Ameritrade, Inc. – 89,000 shares were contributed by the Ann Romney Blind Trust in 2003 with a value of a little more than $296,000. Those shares were sold immediately for $1,082,000, netting a profit of $785,781.00. Not such a bad deal for a day’s work, eh? I’m sure Joe Ricketts appreciated the investment in his future birtherism.
•Staples, Inc. Just over 41,000 shares were transferred to the foundation with no value attached to them. They were sold in January, 2003 for just over $684,000. Another day’s work.
•Sports Authority – 533 shares transferred and sold for $3,400.00. One of the smaller transactions, but since it was a Bain company, it should still count. Sports Authority was also sold on 1/28/2003, shortly after Mitt Romney was sworn in as governor of Massachusetts.
•Marriott International – Over the course of 2003, the trust sold about 25,000 shares of Marriott International at a profit of $796,000.
•Nutraceutical, Inc – Just over 28,000 shares were sold during 2003 for a net profit of $104,000.
•Chippac, Inc. – 220 shares sold, $15,000 profit.
2003 was a very good year. But 2004 wasn’t bad either.
And that concludes the detailed accounts of the Tyler Foundation’s miraculous expanding assets, because after 2008, no detail on any assets donated or sales of those assets was provided. The net profits on sales of securities in 2010 was just over $1.5 million. $1.4 million worth of Domino’s Pizza stock was donated by the Ann Romney Blind Trust, but we don’t really know what the profit on the sale of those shares was, because only a net number with all assets included was reported for that year.
The investments I mention here are not, by any stretch, all of the investments in the Tyler Foundation accounts, but they do represent investments that tie to Bain Capital investments or companies that Mitt Romney has been personally involved with. Because the timing of these reports happens to tie to the time Romney contends he was no longer actively involved at Bain, one really has to wonder what justifies such enormous gains on such small investments when he had “nothing to do with them.”
http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/mitts-venture-adventures-wealth-and-profit
I don’t know if this has been brought up, but there is a wicked karma going on here.
Willard only sang America the Beautiful, because he was trying to imitate the President after he sang Al Green.
That the campaign would turn around and then use his mimicking the President against him in this way….
Karma remains undefeated.
BWA HA HA HA You mean this tune?
Thank you, Juesepppi, and Good Morning, Everyone :)