AUTOMATIC
-
-
Black Girls Rock!
Flickr Photos
-
Potus Takes Oath of Office
Flotus & Daughters at Great Wall of China
My Brothers Keeper
-
-
-
-
-
AFRO PUFFS
Most Adorable Shoe Stealer
Six Little Babies
Fatherhood
-
-
Even though 3Chics Politico is written and curated by three women: Ametia, Rikyrah, and SouthernGirl2, I must nominate this as one of the most engaging blogs I've found. Devoted to politics and culture, these three shine a light on contemporary life with humor and spirit.
-
3Chics Action Alert
Lets Make It Happen
3 Chics Trio
-
REALITY Blog Award
Recent Comments
Top Posts
Guard The Change
Vote 4 Democrats
-
-
-
Go to the polls
President Barack Obama
First Lady Michelle Obama
Obama Love
Your Vote Matters
President Obama & Bo
The Obama Family
-
-
-
-
Presidential hug
-
Rev. Al had on the former head of the Florida GOP who has been singing like a canary, telling all the GOP business about voter suppression.
Part 1
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45755884/#48601818
Part 2
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45755884/#48601857
Ed Schultz discusses the happenings in Ohio.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45755822/ns/msnbc_tv-the_ed_show/#48602962
Thursday Evening Open Thread: Just Another Style Choice, Really
By Anne Laurie August 9th, 2012
It’s also the season for the NYTimes—and not in the Style section, either—to tonguebathe the latest Republican attempt at re-branding for the Kool Kidz:
Young in G.O.P. Erase the Lines on Social Issues
…. Polls show that Americans under 30 are the least likely to identify as Republican, and those in the millennial generation support President Obama by a wide margin. But in an effort to win votes by capitalizing on disenchantment with the recession and its slow recovery, Republicans are placing a renewed emphasis on fiscal issues, with hopes of energizing their young people — a group that had one of the lowest turnout levels in the history of presidential elections in 2008 and did not turn out in strong numbers in this year’s primaries.
……………………………………………………………………………………………..
What has become the norm, some experts say, is for young Republicans to take a cafeteria-style approach to issues that are important to them. And some established leaders see that as a boon to their party.
Look, you miserable spoilt little weanlings (she said, shouting at the clouds), if you’re going to vote Republican, and least sack up and own your IGM (y parents) FU politics. Your highest ambition in life is to be Luke Russert, or at least Luke Russert’s trophy wife, and meanwhile you’re coasting on mommy’s credit card and daddy’s employer-paid health insurance, and every penny of sales tax on that Prada/ Gucci/Louis Vuitton must-have bag-of-the-summer chafes your expensively toned quads. You don’t want to be embarrassed in front of your friends, so you’re telling the NYT stenographer you’re “cafeteria-style” Republicans who have nothing to do with those sweaty Tea Party types all lathered up about sodomites and feminazis and kenyamuslimsocialists.
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2012/08/09/thursday-evening-open-thread-just-another-style-choice-really/
Friday, May 25, 2012
I Didn’t Vote for Obama in 2008, but I’ll be First in 2012
During the campaign, I was thousands of miles away, but as I watched it unfold, it was painfully obvious to me that America is nowhere near being post-racial and the southern strategy is not dead. I knew, that if elected, Barack Obama would become the object of the keenest scrutiny any President has ever been subjected to and his race, birthplace, indeed birthright and religion would dominate social concerns. America has not disappointed me.
It is sad to hear “disappointed” supporters wax naively about the President’s failures like political professionals who know everything about foreign policy, legislative bargaining and the government budgetary process. More often than not, I find they’re armed with little more than talking points, an entrenched ideology, reflections of an impossible ideal that borders close to God-like or are just plain old racists.
As I’ve watched President Obama labor against impossible odds, one thing became obvious to me, I would cast my vote for him in 2012 because his presidency calls upon all the ugliness that this nation needs to face. And there are other reasons:
1. I’ll vote for Obama because I like the idea that Wall Street has soured on the president. It tells me they didn’t get from him what they wanted and more importantly, because they’re withholding their support, he won’t be obligated to them. Besides, I have a problem with a group of grown men who have the nerve to feel sensitive after nearly toppling the entire economy.
Like the corporations that park their profits (profits they earned in America, from Americans) offshore because they want to be unregulated and untaxed, they’re holding the nation hostage. I’ll vote for Obama because I don’t want to pay the ransom.
From: CNN Money
Companies seek tax break for overseas profits
The tax holiday would lower the corporate tax rate to 5.25% for big companies such as the bill’s proponents — including Google, Oracle and Cisco — if they move their overseas profits to the United States.
Note: Generally, the U.S. corporate tax rate stands at 35%. I challenge anyone to name a corporation that pays 35% after all the tax cuts, tax credits, loopholes, deductions and subsidies. Costs are rising to do offshore business. Corporations are people…let them behave like all other American people and pay their taxes!
If you believe Obama’s policies are crippling, how do you account for the fact that the stock market is at an all-time high and corporations are enjoying greater profits than in decades?
2. I’ll vote for Obama because I appreciate the distance of so many members of the 1%. They have made out like bandits and have the nerve to still be unhappy with their share. They receive all the tax cuts, tax credits and subsidies; still it isn’t enough. How much money does one person need?
Some complain that the wealthy pay 40% of the income taxes…they control 80% of the wealth, so I’m not certain they shouldn’t pay 80% of the taxes. Despite the ongoing mantra, if you live in this country, you pay taxes…payroll taxes, gasoline taxes…examine your telephone bill or buy a candybar.
3. I’ll vote for Obama to show the elite they can’t buy the government. The likes of Sheldon Adelson can give a candidate $20 million, but he still only has ONE VOTE. The Koch brothers can finance all the Tea Parties they desire, but in the end, they can each only submit ONE VOTE.
Voters can defeat Citizens United. My vote for Obama will be a strike against corporate rule.
http://www.thepragmaticpundit.com/2012/05/i-didnt-vote-for-obama-in-2008-but-ill.html
zizi2 wrote this magnificent comment over at The Obama Diary:
Here’s my thinking on the media’s collective meltdown over Dem attack on Bain
The Bain ads were initially simply an irritant to the corporate paymasters and their journo lackey when they first started in March/April this year. They assumed that they would be a passing curiosity with no real holding and narrative changing power.
Unfortunately for them, they did not know that Dems were working on a long game carefully crafted spiral choreography. The spiral or corkscrew choreography refers to the way Dems seized:
1) The focus on Middle Class from President Obama’s Sept Jobs Act speech & promo
2) Serendipity of Occupy Wall Street recasting national conversation on Income Inequality 99% versus 1%
3) The attention & reinforcement that Pres. Obama’s Kansas economic speech in Nov. 2011 targeted Economic Inequality
4) Refusal of congressional Democrats to yield any ground on Middle Class payroll tax cut extension — w/ $40 paycheck slogan
5) recess Appointment of Cordray to head Consumer Finance Protection Bureau & NRLB appointments => fighting for Middle Class
6) Congressional Dems standing their ground on Budget Fights, Did not blink during sequestration compromise stalemate
7) Steady stream of White house We can’t Wait initiatives plus veterans jobs/welfare initiatives & loudly proclaiming them
8) The fight over contraception provision was deliberately publicized loudly to focus women voters attention on GOP destructiveness => Democratic Base consolidation of women voters
9) Pres. Obama’s Gay Marriage statement => Democratic Base consolidation & simultaneous neutering of religious conservative Dems + AA voters
10) Pres. Obama’s Dream Act Lite Executive order kills Rubio’s dressage prancing on the issue & bamboozling of Latino voters => Latino Vote consolidation
So having laid the above mentioned groundwork Dems have now sequenced their election campaign in an unpredictable order. Bain ads initially focused on outsourcing to perk up the ears of industrial belt workers (i.e. so-called Reagan Democrats). Without Kansas speech and OWS laying the narrative groundwork these ads would not have been that effective. The corporate paymasters did not realize at that time that the bloodstream of the White working class that they have lied to for so long was being infused with truth-telling about Vampire Capitalism. Well Gingrich & Perry did give us a godsend assist when they thought they were inoculating Romney when they introduced Bain & vulture capitalism in their primaries. Instead they laid the groundwork for defining Romney negatively be4 he had a chance to puff himself up
Then Democrats shifted to Romney monies in offshore accounts simply by mining his 2010 tax returns. Romney thought he could use “class envy” plus monthly jobs reports to deflect those and stall answering probing questions. Unfortunately for him Pres Obama knows how to use the calendar to killer effect. The day after the low June jobs report, the devastating “Firms” Ad was released. Firms wrapped up Romney in phony patriotism, vulture capitalism, offshoring money & jobs while raising tax dodge questions in a zinger of an ad. Nobody was talking after that about jobs report (Romney should have remembered what happened to Hilary Clinton in 2008 the night she won the West Virginia primaries by 41% difference. Candidate Obama chose that very night to announce John Edwards’ endorsement with much pomp and pageantry. No one remembered Clinton’s victory).
As the “Firms” ad was simmering along nicely Romney did us all a favor scoring an own goal by traveling abroad where he everyone saw him in all his diplo-disastrous vainglory. He saved us one week of ad $$$.
Then no sooner had Romney’s wheels touched home ground than the Incredible Hulk Harry Reid came with his uppercut blow from left field on Romney paying zero taxes in ten years.
Then wham Bill Burton brings Bain back with a new vengeance reinforcing more viscerally the REAL EVIL that the particular Bain-iteration of capitalism today is unleashing on ordinary people. It is no longer a productive or creative capitalism. It is Dystopic. while congressional Dems get GOP on record voting against Middle Class tax cuts. (Harry Reid is reloading for future delivery)
The corporate paymasters and the MEDIA no longer find this funny because the American people have become responsive to Democrats’ core ideological argument AGAINST the Republican model. People are waking up to the fact that Vampire capitalism is not like the industrial capitalism of Henry Ford, Hershey’s, or the railroad or contemporary tech giants. This is a capitalism that kills people and brings zero utility to society. It is a malignant cancer. The Media is apoplectic because if Dems succeed in fundamentally changing the American narrative about wealth, Middle Class & the mirage of success, then the Permagov class that subsidizes their careers will be rendered powerless. And that is a no no. This is what we are up against.
The Income Inequality narrative that Democrats are laying out is very lethal because it shatters the mirage of the American Dream at its very core. The idea that Americans are an aspiration people is true, but it only holds if ordinary people see an attainable path leading to that Dream. But the focus on Romney and Bain provides the clarifying optics that the path to the American Dream has been nuked by people like Romney.
This argument is placing Democrats on terrain that has not existed since FDR. It is one that according to Bill Burton a few months ago, they were trying hard to find a way to nudge Americans to focus on. It’s hard he said , because polling told them Americans flat out did NOT believe that Paul Ryan, Romney & the GOP budget plans would SERIOUSLY set out to HARM them. They did not believe the planned radical Social Security, medicare changes were true even when told that GOP had voted on those plans.
WE still have a long slog to reach Americans’ minds, but I must say, Democrats up and down the food chain have impressed me. So lets do everything we can to get/retain them in power
__________________
Sorry for the very long post.
ZIZI, SHE AIMS, SHE SHOOTS, SHE SCORES!
Romney: Corporations are People so I Don’t Have to Release My Tax Returns
By: Sarah JonesAugust 9th, 2012
Romney’s new line of defense for not releasing the tax returns is that he is not a business. This is an odd line for a candidate who is running on his alleged business expertise — alleged because the records from the Salt Lake Olympics remain off-limits to the public, the hard drives from the Governor’s office were erased when he left office and he won’t release his tax returns. In order to claim business expertise, Romney would have to prove it by showing us how he did it, just as he demands that every supposition regarding his tax returns must be proven. Otherwise, he can hardly tell Harry Reid to stuff it if his own response continues to be “you don’t need the proof, just trust me.”
In an interview for Businessweek, Josh Tyrangiel put the question of the tax return releases into terms any investor could understand – before you invest, you demand the financials. No investor can deny the necessity of looking at a business’ financials, but to this, Romney claimed he is not a business
…………………………..
So, corporations are people but people are clearly not corporations. A businessman runs on his business acumen but refuses to run like a business would run for office by releasing their financials.
Romney keeps repeating that he has given us two years, but in reality, he has given us one amended year, which reminds us all that he lied about his tax returns when running for governor and retroactively amended them to read according to his lie.
http://www.politicususa.com/mitt-romney-says-he-wont-release-more-tax-returns-because-he-is-not-a-business.html
Missouri Votes to Allow Christians to Discriminate Against Non-Believers
By: Rmuse
August 9th, 2012
The Founding Fathers were explicit in the First Amendment’s separation and no-establishment clause that prohibits religion from dictating the course of any part of the government. Republicans are allegedly extraordinarily fierce defenders of the Constitution except where it conflicts with their ideology, and as Americans have witnessed for the past year-and-a-half, GOP ideology is firmly rooted in obeisance to fundamentalist Christianity. On Tuesday, voters in Missouri took a major step towards granting Christians the right to dominate public meetings, discriminate against non-Christians, and dictate school curriculum as defined by evangelical Christian fanatics. Now that residents of the “show me state” have established Christianity as the state religion.
Voters overwhelmingly approved the “right to pray” Amendment (Amendment 2), a measure that ensures public meetings, school functions, and educators are beholden to adhere to the whims and mythos of fundamentalist Christianity. The amendment was sponsored by Republican state Rep. Mike McGhee, a Baptist, to allegedly protect the state’s Christians, about 80 percent of the population, who complain they are under siege in the public square. The Christian’s, buoyed by support from the state’s four Catholic bishops, define “under siege” as not being allowed impose their version of Christianity on the rest of the population. In fact, McGhee worked in concert with his preacher, Rev. Terry Hodges of First Baptist Church, who said if the amendment passes, it will “level the playing field” because Christians “enjoyed home-field advantage for the country’s first 150 years, but that’s changed, and now there’s a hostility toward Christians.”
McGhee said the amendment will protect Christianity in the state and he cited an incident he claims proves Christianity is under attack when a teacher told a kindergarten student singing “Jesus Loves Me” to change the verse to “mommy loves me.” A similar incident in California underscores the pressure evangelical fanatics are putting on educators to fall in line and promote Christianity. A mathematics teacher was chastised for not acquiescing to a student’s demand to play religious music in the classroom, and despite citing the Constitution’s separation clause, a religious group demanded the teacher’s head on a platter for persecuting Christians in the classroom. The matter is still unsettled and the teacher is under investigation for “restricting Christian’s right to their religious freedom to praise Jesus during classroom time.” It is an alarming trend from Christians who claim their religious liberty is being restricted because the Constitution prohibits them from imposing their religion on the rest of the population.
http://www.politicususa.com/missouri-votes-to-allow-christians-to-discriminate-against-non-believers.html
President Obama holds 7-point lead over presumptive GOP challenger Mitt Romney in a CNN/ORC International poll released Thursday.
The poll also shows Romney’s unfavorable rating is up, and Romney’s supporters are increasingly getting behind him.
However, “Among independent voters, the poll indicates President Obama has a 53%-42% lead,” CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said. “The president holds a 9 point advantage among women and a 6 point edge among men.”
Updated August 8, 2012, 7:34 p.m. ET.
Why Not Paul Ryan?
Romney can win a big election over big issues. He’ll lose a small one
The whispering over Mitt Romney’s choice of a running mate is getting louder, and along with it we are being treated to the sotto voce angst of the GOP establishment: Whatever else Mitt does, he wouldn’t dare pick Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, would he?
Too risky, goes the Beltway chorus. His selection would make Medicare and the House budget the issue, not the economy. The 42-year-old is too young, too wonky, too, you know, serious. Beneath it all you can hear the murmurs of the ultimate Washington insult—that Mr. Ryan is too dangerous because he thinks politics is about things that matter. That dude really believes in something, and we certainly can’t have that.
All of which highly recommend him for the job.
We have nothing against the other men Mr. Romney is said to be still closely considering. Tim Pawlenty twice won the governorship of Minnesota, the second time in the horrible GOP year of 2006. His working-class roots and middle American values would counter the stereotype of Mr. Romney as too rich and disconnected to average concerns. The media would say he’s another middle-aged white male, just like Mitt, but he’d certainly be a safe, mature choice.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443404004577577190186374230.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
August 09, 2012
The Lord of Self-Destruction
The Washington Examiner’s Philip Klein was among the first to pinpoint the really goofy engineering behind Mitt Romney’s unguided missile of a presidential campaign:
Romney consistently attempts to make up with tactics what he lacks in vision. Romney’s campaign isn’t driven by any core ideology or governing philosophy, but by responding to news cycles.
It’s hardly news that Romney lacks a governing philosophy and it’s actually a relief that he’s absent a preconceived ideology. He is at heart the uncolorful technocrat, the unemotional empiricist, the rigid pragmatist, if you will, forever unburdened by intellectual constraints of personal ideals and lofty dreams. By themselves, in vacuum operation, these can be useful leadership qualities; they peel away layers of accumulated bias and dispense with onerous traditions.
http://pmcarpenter.blogs.com/p_m_carpenters_commentary/2012/08/the-lord-of-self-destruction.html
A bad time for an intra-party fight over Romneycare
By Steve Benen – Thu Aug 9, 2012 3:56 PM EDT.
For about two years now, the issue of Mitt Romney’s health care reform law in Massachusetts has been an elephant in the Republican Party’s room. There was even some speculation early on that the GOP’s right-wing base would force the former governor to repudiate his only meaningful accomplishment in public office.
That obviously didn’t happen, and as it turns out, it didn’t matter — since Romney ran against such weak competition, he managed to get the Republican presidential nomination despite having created the blueprint for President Obama’s Affordable Care Act.
But the elephant never really went away. Yesterday, Romney’s chief spokesperson, Andrea Saul, gave the right a heart attack when she suggested on Fox News that struggling families nationwide would benefit greatly if only they lived under Romneycare at the national level — implicitly endorsing the implementation of Obamacare.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/08/09/13203397-a-bad-time-for-an-intra-party-fight-over-romneycare?lite
The lesson of Mitt’s new attack ads: He still has to win over the right
BY MICHAEL COHEN
So Mitt Romney has two new ads out this week, and they offer a pretty clear indication of his larger political problem: He hasn’t closed the deal with conservatives.
First there was an ad on Monday that that accused Obama of gutting welfare reform by granting waivers to states that allow them to drop work requirements. According to Romney, “Under Obama’s plan, you wouldn’t have to work and wouldn’t have to train for a job. They just send you your welfare check.”
What is more remarkable about these ads is how demonstrative they are of Romney’s larger political weakness. These are not the sorts of ads that are intended to appeal to undecided voters, but rather to those who tend to get energized about welfare cheats and attacks on religion, i.e. base Republican voters. Both ads ironically activate Romney’s political weakness with minority voters (those depicted in the welfare ad as working are coincidentally all white) and female voters.
Indeed, what is most striking is that three weeks before he is to be nominated by the Republican Party as their presidential standard bearer, Romney is still focusing his campaign on reassuring conservative voters rather than trying to broaden his message to a broader swath of voters. It begs the question: Will Romney at some point move his message more to the political center, or is he so constricted by his conservative GOP base, which doesn’t fully trust him, that he will campaign for President as a hard right conservative? Increasingly it looks like the latter.
http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/the_rumble/2012/08/the-lesson-of-mitts-new-attack-ads-he-still-has-to-win-over-the-right
Ask John McCain how that Palin dogwhisling-blink-blink, paling’roundwithterroristbigotrythingy worked.
Radio Silence From Romney As Conservatives Demand Answers On Health Care
Benjy Sarlin- August 9, 2012, 2:32 PM
Mitt Romney’s press secretary Andrea Saul turned heads this week by glowingly citing the former governor’s Massachusetts health care reforms, a taboo topic during the Republican primaries. But the Romney campaign has gone silent amid conservative outcry, leaving it unclear whether touting the law was part of a new strategy or an accidental aside.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, Saul correctly noted in TV interviews that a man featured in a Democratic attack ad who lost his insurance would have been able to obtain coverage under Romney’s health care law had he lived in Massachusetts.
Right-wing pundits recoiled in horror, frightened that Saul’s remarks could be a sign the candidate might start promoting the law despite the party’s continued push to repeal Obama’s similar law, the Affordable Care Act.
“What conservatives are doing re Andrea Saul’s comment is the same as how you housebreak your dog,” RedState editor Dan McClaughlin tweeted. “Romney needs to know not to go there.”
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/radio-silence-from-romney-as-conservatives-demand-answers-on-health-care.php
Thu Aug 09, 2012 at 12:40 PM PDT.
Republicans forget to defend Romney in video response to Bain layoff victim ad
by Jed Lewison
So Republicans are responding to the new Priorities USA ad featuring Bain layoff victim Joe Soptic, who lost his job and health insurance in 2001 and whose wife died of cancer in 2006, with a new web video focusing almost entirely on the question of whether or not Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter was correct when she said she didn’t know exactly when Soptic’s wife passed way.
I don’t know what’s more amazing: that Republicans managed to put together a 1:15 second video focused almost entirely on the completely irrelevant question of whether Cutter did know (or should have known) exactly when Soptic’s wife died … or that they managed to put together such a video without even definitively making the case that she lied.
But what I can understand is why they don’t want to deal with the issue raised by the Priorities USA ad: Mitt Romney’s lack of concern for people like Joe Soptic. Romney made millions on the deal involving Soptic’s company, but Soptic was left holding the bag: out of a job and without health insurance. Within five years, his wife—who herself had lost health insurance from another job—died of cancer.
…………………………………
Republicans want to dismiss Soptic’s story as being the equivalent of an accusation of murder. But that’s not what it is. It is, however, an accusation of callousness. The central point of the ad is that Mitt Romney put his own interests ahead of others, a pattern that we see continued to this very day with Romney’s abandonment of his signature policy achievement, Romneycare. The fact that Republicans refuse to defend Romney on the merits and instead try to shift the debate into hyperbole and irrelevancy speaks volumes about just how weak Romney’s position is on this very point, and Democrats can’t afford to walk away from this fight
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/08/09/1118326/-Republicans-forget-to-defend-Romney-in-video-response-to-Bain-layoff-victim-ad
Round 2 On Women’s Issues — Is The GOP Ready This Time?
Evan McMorris-Santoro- August 9, 2012, 5:30 AM
Women have returned to the campaign spotlight. And this time, Republicans and the Romney campaign are working hard not to get caught flat-footed.
On Wednesday, President Obama was introduced in Colorado by Sandra Fluke, the former Georgetown Law student who came to embody the so-called Republican “war on women” earlier this year. The Fluke event was part of a larger women-centric push from Team Obama that includes a tough new TV ad and a focus on Romney’s plan to end federal funding for Planned Parenthood.
The Obama campaign leveraged Fluke’s story — and the attacks on her from Rush Limbaugh — as well as GOP anti-abortion legislation and the Republican push to let some employers get out of providing contraception coverage to derail Romney’s general election roll-out.
Within days of defeating his last serious GOP primary opponent, Romney was scrambling to give even a lackluster response to the Obama campaign’s attacks over women’s issues.
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/mitt-romney-war-on-women-is-back-obama.php
TPM2012
Joe Walsh Accused Of Racial Insensitivity For Referring To Obama As ‘Son’
van McMorris-Santoro- August 9, 2012, 1:58 PM 5300Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL), who recently made news for criticizing his opponent’s willingness to talk about her military service, has a new target: President Obama. A Democratic tracker caught Walsh calling the president “son,” and saying he wanted to “pat him on the head.”
At a campaign barbecue in his district Sunday, Walsh was explaining what he hopes will be the tea party’s role in the election:
“There’s something different on the ground, and I think it’s going to overtake us all again, think it’s going to overtake the political class. I think it’s going to respectfully pick this president up and pat him on the head and say, son, son, son, Mr. President, you were never ready to be president, now go home and work for somebody and find out how the real world works.”
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/joe-walsh-racist-obama-son.php?ref=fpb
Fotunately, for President Obama, he’s livedand worked in the “REAL WORLD” And that’s how he became POTUS. You, on the other hand, Joe-deadbeatdadMOFO, are out of touch with reality. FORWARD!
Obama talks up women’s rights in Colorado, where Personhood fight looms
By Steve Benen – Thu Aug 9, 2012 10:11 AM EDT.
President Obama’s re-election campaign has been heavily invested in women’s rights and reproductive health in recent weeks, but it’s worth noting that the focus is not limited to campaign advertising. The president was in Denver yesterday, speaking to a largely-female audience, and vowing not to let the country slip backwards.
“[W]hen it comes to the economy,” Obama said, “it’s bad enough that our opponents want to take us back to the same policies of the last decade, the same policies that got us into this mess in the first place, the same policies that saw jobs going overseas and ended up seeing people’s wages and incomes going down even as the costs of everything from health care to college were going up — policies that culminated in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, and that we’ve spent, now, three and a half years trying to recover from. That’s bad enough. But when it comes to a woman’s right to make her own health care choices, they want to take us back to the policies more suited to the 1950s than the 21st century.”
There’s obviously an electoral significance to remarks like these. Obama is not only counting on Colorado to win a second term, but he’ll need to take full advantage of the gender gap, urging women to turn out in force in November. (Note, the president was introduced in Denver by Sandra Fluke, whom you might recall was the target of a repulsive Rush Limbaugh attack.)
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/08/09/13199749-obama-talks-up-womens-rights-in-colorado-where-personhood-fight-looms?lite
An endorsement of exceptionalism
By Steve Benen – Thu Aug 9, 2012 2:49 PM EDT.
It’s no longer an everyday smear, but for years, Republicans have attacked President Obama for his insufficient celebration of American exceptionalism. As the argument goes, the president isn’t just lacking patriotism, he rejects national greatness altogether.
As Mitt Romney claims, Obama thinks “America’s just another nation with a flag.”
It’s always been an ugly, baseless smear — Obama has emphasized his support for the principles of “American exceptionalism” explicitly, a fact more than a few observers acknowledged, even on the right — but it’s interesting to see the president work this into his stump speech.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/08/09/13202693-an-endorsement-of-exceptionalism?threadId=3538092&commentId=68760123#c68760123
Thu Aug 09, 2012 at 07:50 AM PDT
WSJ endorses Paul Ryan for president
by Jed Lewison
Well, The Wall Street Journal didn’t literally endorse Paul Ryan for president. But in their editorial endorsing him to be Mitt Romney’s vice president, it’s pretty clear who they wish were their nominee:
The case for Mr. Ryan is that he best exemplifies the nature and stakes of this election. More than any other politician, the House Budget Chairman has defined those stakes well as a generational choice about the role of government and whether America will once again become a growth economy or sink into interest-group dominated decline.
Against the advice of every Beltway bedwetter, he has put entitlement reform at the center of the public agenda—before it becomes a crisis that requires savage cuts. And he has done so as part of a larger vision that stresses tax reform for faster growth, spending restraint to prevent a Greek-like budget fate, and a Jack Kemp-like belief in opportunity for all. He represents the GOP’s new generation of reformers that includes such Governors as Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal and New Jersey’s Chris Christie.
As important, Mr. Ryan can make his case in a reasonable and unthreatening way. He doesn’t get mad, or at least he doesn’t show it. Like Reagan, he has a basic cheerfulness and Midwestern equanimity.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/08/09/1118242/-WSJ-endorses-Paul-Ryan-for-president
Ohio Early Voting Cutbacks Disenfranchise Minority Voters
Ari Berman on August 8, 2012 – 11:37 AM ET\
On Election Day 2004, long lines and widespread electoral dysfunctional marred the results of the presidential election in Ohio, whose electoral votes ended up handing George W. Bush a second term. “The misallocation of voting machines led to unprecedented long lines that disenfranchised scores, if not hundreds of thousands, of predominantly minority and Democratic voters,” found a post-election report by Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee. According to one survey, 174,000 Ohioans, 3 percent of the electorate, left their polling place without voting because of the interminable wait. (Bush won the state by only 118,000 votes).
After 2004, Ohio reformed its electoral process by adding thirty-five days of early voting before Election Day, which led to a much smoother voting experience in 2008. The Obama campaign used this extra time to successfully mobilize its supporters, building a massive lead among early voters than John McCain could not overcome on Election Day.
In response to the 2008 election results, Ohio Republicans drastically curtailed the early voting period in 2012 from thirty-five to eleven days, with no voting on the Sunday before the election, when African-American churches historically rally their congregants to go to the polls. (Ohio was one of five states to cut back on early voting since 2010.) Voting rights activists subsequently gathered enough signatures to block the new voting restrictions and force a referendum on Election Day. In reaction, Ohio Republicans repealed their own bill in the state legislature, but kept a ban on early voting three days before Election Day (a period when 93,000 Ohioans voted in 2008), adding an exception for active duty members of the military, who tend to lean Republican. (The Obama campaign is now challenging the law in court, seeking to expand early voting for all Ohioans).
…………………………….
Now, in heavily Democratic cities like Cleveland, Columbus, Akron and Toledo, early voting hours will be limited to 8 am until 5 pm on weekdays beginning on October 1, with no voting at night or during the weekend, when it’s most convenient for working people to vote. Republican election commissioners have blocked Democratic efforts to expand early voting hours in these counties, where the board of elections are split equally between Democratic and Republican members. Ohio Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted has broken the tie by intervening on behalf of his fellow Republicans. (According to the Board of Elections, 82% of early voters in Franklin County voted early on nights or weekends, which Republicans have curtailed. The number who voted on nights or weekends was nearly 50% in Cuyahoga County.)
http://www.thenation.com/blog/169284/ohio-early-voting-cutbacks-disenfranchise-minority-voters#
Scott Brown’s curious take on voting rights
By Steve Benen – Thu Aug 9, 2012 11:00 AM EDT.
Even by Scott Brown standards, this one’s odd.
US Senator Scott Brown today criticized the state’s welfare department for sending voting registration forms to 478,000 people on public assistance, saying the mass mailing was a ploy to boost the ranks of Democratic voters and benefit rival Elizabeth Warren’s campaign.
The state’s Department of Transitional Assistance last month sent registration forms, along with prepaid return envelopes, as part of a settlement over a lawsuit accusing the Patrick administration of violating the federal “motor voter” law.
It requires states to provide voter registration at motor vehicle and public assistance offices.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/08/09/13200227-scott-browns-curious-take-on-voting-rights?lite
When ‘values,’ not the economy, takes center stage
By Steve Benen – Thu Aug 9, 2012 11:15 AM EDT.
When Mitt Romney launched an attack ad about President Obama and Israel, the commercial included a curious four-word phrase at the very beginning: “Who Shares Your Values?”
The ad was followed a day later by Romney’s breathtakingly dishonest ad about welfare, which also obviously intended to emphasize values.
This morning, the Romney campaign unveiled another false attack ad, and it too begins with the four-word phrase: “Who Shares Your Values?”
This spot harkens back to the Republican primaries, when GOP candidates pretended to be all worked up about contraception access, and levies the ridiculous charge that Obama is waging a “war on religion.”
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/08/09/13200491-when-values-not-the-economy-takes-center-stage?lite
“Who shares your values = CERTAINLY NOT THAT NEGRO & HIS FAMILY IN OUR WHITE HOUSE.
There, Rachel; fixed it for you.
Romney endorses mass public-sector layoffs
By Steve Benen – Thu Aug 9, 2012 12:33 PM EDT.
Mitt Romney chatted with Bloomberg Businessweek Editor Josh Tyrangiel for a good-but-brief interview, which was published today, and which turned out to be quite informative (thanks to Tricia McKinney for the heads-up).
Tyrangiel asked, for example, about the famous Bain Capital photo featuring Romney and his colleagues posing with cash, and what Romney thinks of the image now. “Oh, that was a moment of humor as we had just done what we thought was impossible,” he said.
But what I found most interesting was an exchange that probably won’t get as much attention. Tyrangiel asked a fantastic question about the economy: “One thing that distinguishes this recovery is that public sector jobs, government jobs, have already fallen by 650,000. Given the conservative goal of shrinking government, is this a positive development or a negative one?” Romney didn’t get a straight answer, but his take was nevertheless illustrative of a larger point.
“Well, clearly you don’t like to hear [about] anyone losing a job. At the same time, government is the least productive — the federal government is the least productive of our economic sectors. The most productive is the private sector. The next most productive is the not-for-profit sector, then comes state and local governments, and finally the federal government. And so moving responsibilities from the federal government to the states or to the private sector will increase productivity. And higher productivity means higher wages for the American worker. All right?
“America is the highest productivity nation of major nations in the world, and that results in our having, for instance, an average compensation about 30 percent higher than the average compensation in Europe. A government that becomes more productive, that does more with less, is good for the earnings of the American worker, and ultimately it will mean that our taxes don’t have to go up, that small businesses will find it easier to start and grow, and we will be able to add more private sector jobs.”
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/08/09/13201349-romney-endorses-mass-public-sector-layoffs?lite
Gabby Douglas Recruited by Spelman
Here’s some more good news about Miss Gabby Douglas.
The super 16-year-old Olympic champion gymnast is officially being recruited by one of the most prestigious black intuitions of higher learning. And that would be Spelman College.
TMZ is reporting that the school’s president even flew to London to get a leg up on the competition.
We’ve learned … Spelman — an all-girl college in Georgia — wants Gabby in a bad way … and sources at the University tell us the Team USA gymnastics superstar has become the number 1 recruit … by far.
In fact, the President of Spelman, Beverly Daniel Tatum, went out to London and made sure Gabby got a Spelman gift bag … containing a congratulatory note, school t-shirt and a CD containing a song produced by the college.
Tatum also released a statement to TMZ … in which she acknowledges the school would LOVE to get its hands on the gold medal winner:
“A young woman who has demonstrated the drive and discipline needed to achieve world-class excellence is likely to have what it takes to be successful at Spelman, and we would welcome her interest in the college.”
http://www.eurweb.com/2012/08/gabby-douglas-recruited-by-spelman-2/
I’m sure Gabby and her mother will chose wisely.
MORE NEWS THAT’S FIT TO USE & SHARE
New York Times Editorial: Mr. Romney Hits Bottom on Welfare “Mitt Romney’s campaign has hit new depths of truth-twisting with its accusation that President Obama plans to ‘gut welfare reform’ by ending federal work requirements. The claim is blatantly false, but it says a great deal about Mr. Romney’s increasingly desperate desire to define the president as something he is not” http://nyti.ms/MU4rob
Jed Lewison reminds usAs governor, Mitt Romney used same work requirement waiver he now claims will gut welfare reform http://bit.ly/RDoBrJ
Finally, the Democrats have parked their “Romney Economics” bus outside the GOP building in DC, sparking an outcry at the RNC over having to walk a little farther to the food trucks:Democrats park ‘Romney Economics’ bus outside GOP building: http://bit.ly/TkpgN7
Posted at 01:21 PM ET, 08/09/2012
Why 2012 is not 1980, ctd.
By Greg Sargent
As you know, Romney aides have taken to telling reporters that they think the 2012 election will unfold just as the 1980 election did. With Obama maintaining a small but persistent lead in the polls — and a slightly larger lead in swing states — they say they expect the race to break in Romney’s direction in the home stretch.
I laid out a few reasons last week why the historical comparison is imperfect. And in response to my post, Reagan biographer Craig Shirley, who wrote a book on the 1980 campaign, sends over some more interesting thoughts:
Beyond the fact that Romney is not even a poor imitation of Reagan; or that Obama is a vastly superior politician to Carter; or the fact that the economy is nowhere near as bad as it was in 1980; or that the world situation is far better than in 1980; what is most overlooked is that nearly every state was in play in 1980, unlike today.
Both candidates campaigned across the country; Reagan in New York City, Carter in Reagan’s California.
Some states like Wyoming were going to go Republican and Georgia was going to go Democratic, but hard as it is to believe only 32 years later, the South was considered a Democratic stronghold, New Jerry was considered a reliable Republican state in presidential years and both sides competed aggressively for Illinois, Texas, Michigan and other big prizes.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line
Meet former DHS official Daryl Johnson
By Steve Benen – Thu Aug 9, 2012 1:24 PM EDT.
In light of the violence in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, over the weekend, there’s been a renewed interest in some circles about 2009 reports on threats posed by homegrown extremists. At the time, the Department of Homeland Security released reports about fringe radicals, alerting officials to potential violence. The DHS specifically said some extremist groups may specifically target American military veterans for recruitment.
Sunday’s alleged gunman, Wade Michael Page, was dishonorably discharged from the military in 1998, and became a white supremacist.
As we discussed on Tuesday, though, Republican outrage about the DHS reports was so intense three years ago, Homeland Security officials deliberately “stepped back … from conducting its own intelligence and analysis of home-grown extremism.” The DHS unit responsible for the 2009 report was “effectively eviscerated,” and much of its work related to white supremacists was “blocked,” for no other reason than pushback from the right.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/08/09/13201853-meet-former-dhs-official-daryl-johnson?lite
Half Right
by BooMan
Thu Aug 9th, 2012 at 01:24:54 PM EST
I have to go halfway between Ezra and Steve M.
Ezra’s main argument is that conservatives would be in a lose-lose situation if Paul Ryan is tapped as Romney’s running mate. If the ticket wins, Ryan is taken out of Congress where he is very influential as the chairman of the Budget Committee, and relegated to the largely ceremonial duties of the vice-presidency. And if the ticket loses, it will be a repudiation of the Ryan Budget and conservatism more generally. So, why would conservatives want Ryan on the ticket?
I think Ezra’s basically right about this part of his observations. But Steve M. objects strongly and convincingly to the idea that Paul Ryan would be blamed for the loss or that conservatives would turn on him.
What the right will say is that Romney/Ryan lost because the evil Satanic liberal media grotesquely distorted the nature of the Ryan budget (by, y’know, quoting accurate numbers and facts), while demonizing Paul Ryan. The right will also say that Mitt Romney was a wussy little RINO. My guess is that most right-wingers will stress the latter (no matter how far to the right Romney actually runs). But the loss will not be blamed on the budget itself. America would have embraced its small-government, pro-freedom wonderfulness if not for the lying lies of the lie-beral media!
Do you recall which member of the 2008 GOP ticket emerged as a right-wing superstar? That’s all you need to know about how blame will be assessed on the right if Romney runs with Ryan and loses.
I think that analysis is unassailable. Ryan would emerge as a more palatable conservative hero than Palin. The loss would be blamed entirely on Romney. And Ryan would be set up to play a sacrificial lamb in 2016 to an untouchable Hillary Clinton or Andrew Cuomo or even Joe Biden. The Democrats have a strong and deep bench. The Republicans have Rick Perry and Herman Cain. If Ryan becomes the running mate, and they lose, he’d be automatically catapulted to the top tier of Republican presidential candidates, along with Jeb Bush.
But Ezra’s right that a Ryan vice-presidency wouldn’t be much of a boon for conservatives, and might even constitute a short-term loss of influence.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2012/8/9/132454/1661
August 09, 2012 8:56 AM
The Actual Liberal Media Has Arrived
By Ryan Cooper
A couple days ago Ed pulled out some quotes from this Noam Scheiber piece on Romney’s steroid-taking, screenwriting top strategist Stuart Stevens. It’s a good piece, and worth a read, but I’d like to highlight this aside:
But just because Romney and Stevens get along doesn’t mean they’re a great team. In fact, they have similar blind spots. Consider their take on what Romney’s stump persona should be. Stevens likes his politicians simple and unadorned, in keeping with his aesthetic style. Even as he has depicted his boss as an economic fixer, Stevens has sought to contrast Romney’s plainspoken good-guy-ness with a remote and self-regarding president. Romney has clearly embraced the motif. After a major economic speech by Obama, Romney told a crowd in Wisconsin that “he’s a very eloquent person and is able to … tell you that night is day and day is night. But people know better.” Romney even played the speech for laughs: “Yesterday, the president gave a speech—a very long speech,” he said in New Hampshire. He repeated the joke at several campaign stops.
Certainly, there was a time when a Republican nominee could control his own narrative with relative ease—or, at least, with enough advertising dollars and straight-faced conviction. George W. Bush’s 2000 convention film, which Stevens produced, bathed him in a dusty authenticity as he surveyed his ranch and discoursed on leadership. The glow lasted all the way through Election Day. But somewhere between the Florida recount and John Kerry’s swift-boating, a whole liberal industrial complex—cable channels like MSNBC, watch dogs like Media Matters for America, blog partisans like Daily Kos—began hacking away at the artifice. It has left Romney, already less believable in the just-folks role, badly exposed.
Stevens’s indifference to this shift—and to the partisan bloodlust that fuels it—helps explain how the campaign was caught flat-footed by allegations that Romney hadn’t severed his ties to Bain Capital until 2002, three years after he’d initially claimed. “The headline story above the fold in The [Boston] Globe: ‘ROMNEY STAYED LONGER AT BAIN’ … is totally, totally misleading,” one Romney adviser complained to me. “Maybe the newspaper’s got an angle because of political bias or because it sells copies—who knows what?” But the Bain story didn’t reflect the sudden vindictiveness of the mainstream media. It reflected the holy-war relentlessness of the left. As The Globe later acknowledged, the story was initially driven by enterprising bloggers at the liberal websites Talking Points Memo and Mother Jones.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2012_08/the_actual_liberal_media_has_a039116.php
Wed Aug 08, 2012 at 03:29 PM PDT.
Mitt’s $100M IRA and Why He Wants to be President
As a Wealth Advisor for a major Wall Street firm, I’m asked occasionally by business owners how they can shield more of their income (defer taxes today, pay later). There are all kinds of methods from deferred non-qualified compensations plans, employee stock ownership programs (ESOP), profit sharing, corporate owned life insurance, etc. I have no insight into which of these Romney has used, but if his IRA is indeed valued at $100,000,000, then it’s worth trying to understand how this happened.
………………………………………………
Assuming also that it is Bain stock inside the account, what will be interesting is if they revalue his investment right before he has to take that RMD, thereby lowering both his income (which he doesn’t need) and his tax burden.
But there is a way out for him.
It’s a very little used tactic in the Internal Revenue Code called “Net Unrealized Appreciation” (NUA). Essentially it is used to take highly appreciated stock OUT of a qualified plan and put it directly into a brokerage (i.e. “taxable) account. Unlike an IRA where cash is taken out, using NUA, you take out the highly appreciated stock. When you put the stock into a brokerage account, and wait the desired time, you can pay capital gains rate when you sell the stock.
It works like this. Low cost stock is put into the corporate sponsored account, at say $1/share. Years later, when the value of your account is worth $100,000,000, you do a NUA maneuver, and transfer the shares into a brokerage account. You pay income taxes on the $1/share x number of shares. Let’s say he had 4,000 shares with a $1 cost basis. When the stock comes out of the account, he’ll have $4,000 worth of income. No big deal. But the account is really worth $100,000,000. Using NUA, he pays the much lower capital gains rate of 15% (highest ordinary tax bracket is currently 35%). This isn’t exactly the way it’s calculated, but let’s do the math the easy way:
Ordinary income of $100,000,000 x 35% = $35,000,000
Long Term Capital gains on $100,000,000 x 15% = $15,000,000
Mitt saves $20,000,000 by using NUA
And this is my theory on why Mitt wants to be president so badly. He doesn’t want the ordinary income tax bracket to go any higher than 35% (indeed, he wants it lower). And he doesn’t want the capital gains rate to change (or lower it to zero, a concept not alien to those on the right). There aren’t many people who are in situations like his. So it is very important for them to have their interests protected. I know it’s cynical to present his desire to be president on such a shallow concept as protecting his own wealth, but he hasn’t left me much in the way of alternatives. He doesn’t genuinely seem to care about any other Americans or fixing their problems.
.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/08/08/1118102/-Mitt-s-100M-IRA-and-Why-He-Wants-to-be-President
This event should be a blast.
The PTA Visits the White House
Tomorrow we will welcome more than 150 Parent Teacher Association leaders from 41 states, DC, and US military bases overseas to the White House for a day-long briefing. But this Friday isn’t just for those joining us at the White House: we’ll also be engaging with millions of moms and dads who can’t make it to Washington.
We’re hoping you’ll tune-in live and join the conversation on Twitter using the hashtag #WHPTA. Watch the conversation live at WhiteHouse.gov/Champions for PTA Day tomorrow, starting at 12 p.m. EDT.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/champions?utm_source=080912&utm_medium=topper&utm_campaign=daily
THEN WHY ARE YOU BEING INTERVIEWED BY STAFF AT BUSINESS WEEK?
Let’s frame the issue around your tax returns in a slightly different way. If you’re an investor and you’re looking at a company, and that company says that its great strength is wise management and fiscal know-how, wouldn’t you want to see the previous, say, five years’ worth of its financials?
I’m not a business. We have a process in this country, which was established by law, which provides for the transparency which candidates are required to meet. I have met with that requirement with full financial disclosure of all my investments, but in addition have provided and will provide a full two years of tax returns. This happens to be exactly the same as with John McCain when he ran for office four years ago. And the Obama team had no difficulty with that circumstance. The difference between then and now is that President Obama has a failed economic record and is trying to find any issue he can to deflect from the failure of his record. Thanks, guys. Goodbye.
.http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/66070-exclusive-romney-interview-on-humility-and-tax-returns
Romney on not releasing more tax returns: ‘I’m not a business’
Posted by Aaron Blake at 09:57 AM ET, 08/09/2012
The WashingtonPost
The man who once said “corporations are people” apparently doesn’t believe the inverse.
When pressed on why he’s not releasing more tax returns in an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, Mitt Romney justified it by saying: “I’m not a business.”
Read it from the source here:
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-08-09/exclusive-romney-interview-on-humility-and-tax-returns
sometimes, you just gotta give up the weave:
When extensions go wrong: Naomi Campbell displays shocking bald patches after years of wearing weaves
By Sarah Bull
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2185897/Naomi-Campbells-shocking-bald-patches-years-relying-hair-extensions.html#ixzz2348LWngw
I’m NAPPY & HAPPY.
so am I
Ohio Early Voting Cutbacks DisOhio Early Voting Cutbacks Disenfranchise Minority Voters
Ari Berman on August 8, 2012 – 11:37 AM ET
On Election Day 2004, long lines and widespread electoral dysfunctional marred the results of the presidential election in Ohio, whose electoral votes ended up handing George W. Bush a second term. “The misallocation of voting machines led to unprecedented long lines that disenfranchised scores, if not hundreds of thousands, of predominantly minority and Democratic voters,” found a post-election report by Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee. According to one survey, 174,000 Ohioans, 3 percent of the electorate, left their polling place without voting because of the interminable wait. (Bush won the state by only 118,000 votes).
After 2004, Ohio reformed its electoral process by adding thirty-five days of early voting before Election Day, which led to a much smoother voting experience in 2008. The Obama campaign used this extra time to successfully mobilize its supporters, building a massive lead among early voters than John McCain could not overcome on Election Day.
In response to the 2008 election results, Ohio Republicans drastically curtailed the early voting period in 2012 from thirty-five to eleven days, with no voting on the Sunday before the election, when African-American churches historically rally their congregants to go to the polls. (Ohio was one of five states to cut back on early voting since 2010.) Voting rights activists subsequently gathered enough signatures to block the new voting restrictions and force a referendum on Election Day. In reaction, Ohio Republicans repealed their own bill in the state legislature, but kept a ban on early voting three days before Election Day (a period when 93,000 Ohioans voted in 2008), adding an exception for active duty members of the military, who tend to lean Republican. (The Obama campaign is now challenging the law in court, seeking to expand early voting for all Ohioans).
The Romney campaign has recently captured headlines with its absurd and untrue claim that the Obama campaign is trying to suppress the rights of military voters. The real story from Ohio is how cutbacks to early voting will disproportionately disenfranchise African-American voters in Ohio’s most populous counties. African-Americans, who supported Obama over McCain by 95 points in Ohio, comprise 28 percent of the population of Cleveland’s Cuyahoga County but accounted for 56 percent of early voters in 2008, according to research done by Norman Robbins of the Northeast Ohio Voter Advocates and Mark Salling of Cleveland State University. In Columbus’s Franklin County, African-Americans comprise 20 percent of the population but made up 34 percent of early voters.
Now, in heavily Democratic cities like Cleveland, Columbus, Akron and Toledo, early voting hours will be limited to 8 am until 5 pm on weekdays beginning on October 1, with no voting at night or during the weekend, when it’s most convenient for working people to vote. Republican election commissioners have blocked Democratic efforts to expand early voting hours in these counties, where the board of elections are split equally between Democratic and Republican members. Ohio Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted has broken the tie by intervening on behalf of his fellow Republicans.
‘I cannot create unequal access from one county board to another, and I must also keep in mind resources available to each county,” Husted said in explaining his decision to deny expanded early voting hours in heavily Democratic counties. Yet in solidly Republican counties like Warren and Butler, GOP election commissioners have approved expanded early voting hours on nights and weekends. Noted the Cincinnati Enquirer: “The counties where Husted has joined other Republicans to deny expanded early voting strongly backed then-candidate Barack Obama in 2008, while most of those where the extra hours will stand heavily supported GOP nominee John McCain.” Moreover, budget constraints have not stopped Republican legislators from passing costly voter ID laws across the map since 2010.
http://www.thenation.com/blog/169284/ohio-early-voting-cutbacks-disenfranchise-minority-voters#
BWA HA HA
ANN COULTIERGIEST to SEAN KLANNITY: “There’s no point in you doing your show, there’s no point in going to the convention and pushing for this man if he’s employing morons like this. This ad is the turning point and she has nearly snatched victory from the jaws of defeat! She should be off the campaign.”
FOX NOISE YOU ARE SOOOOOO BUSTED BY ONE OF YOUR OWN
Thu Aug 09, 2012 at 04:28 AM PDT.
Ann Coulter tears the mask off FOX.
Watch what Ann shouts at 00:35, while Hannity desperately tries to get her back on message after she tells the handful of big money donors bankrolling this whole carnival of clowns they should cut off their funding for Romney:
VIDEO:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/08/09/1118188/-Ann-Coulter-tears-the-mask-off-FOX
BWA HA HA
Coulter: “I’m serious. THERE IS NO POINT TO YOU DOING YOUR SHOW. There is no point to us going to a convention and pushing for this man if he is employing morons like this.
August 9, 2012 8:13 AM
Urgency rising to fix nation’s crumbling bridges
CBS News) Every time you drive over a bridge, you might wonder how strong it is. The facts show America’s bridges are getting weaker every day.
The federal government says one-out-of-eight bridges is considered structurally deficient.
The collapse of the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis five years ago last week was the most dramatic and horrific example of what can happen.
“That bridge tragically cost the lives of 13 people and injured another 145,” points out Barry LePatner, author of “Too Big to Fall: America’s Failing Infrastructure and the Way Forward.”
He says the next disaster is much closer than anyone wants to believe. “Since 1989,” LePatner notes, “we’ve had nearly 600 bridge failures in this country and, while they’re not widely publicized … a large number of bridges in every state are really a danger to the traveling public.”
The most recent federal highway report, in 2009, found that, of the 600,000 bridges in the U.S., 72,000 were “structurally deficient,” meaning in poor condition. Eighteen-thousand were deemed “fracture critical,” meaning there’s no redundancy: If one piece fails, the whole bridge does.
Read on
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_162-57489778/urgency-rising-to-fix-nations-crumbling-bridges/?tag=nl.e875
Maureen Dowd is at it again:
The Ungrateful President
… Obama smashed through all the barriers and dysfunction in his life to become a self-made, self-narrating president. His brash 2008 campaign invented a new blueprint to upend the Democratic establishment. So it’s understandable if Obama, with his Shaker aesthetic, is not inclined to play by the rococo rules of politics. Yet, as the president struggles to stay ahead of Moneybags Romney, his selective insensitivities may be hurting him.
Stories abound of big donors who stopped giving as much or working as hard because Obama never reached out, either with a Clinton-esque warm bath of attention or Romney-esque weekend love fests and Israeli-style jaunts; of celebrities who gave concerts for his campaigns and never received thank-you notes or even his full attention during the performance; of public servants upset because they knocked themselves out at the president’s request and never got a pat on the back; of V.I.P.’s disappointed to get pictures of themselves with the president with the customary signature withheld; of politicians disaffected by the president’s penchant for not letting members of Congress or local pols stand on stage with him when he’s speaking in their state (they often watch from the audience and sometimes have to lobby just to get a shout-out); of power brokers, local and national, who felt that the president insulted them by never seeking their advice or asking them to come to the White House or ride along in the limo for a schmooze…
“He comes from the neediest profession of all, except for acting, but he is not needy and he doesn’t fully understand the neediness of others; it’s an abstraction to him,” says Jonathan Alter, who wrote “The Promise” about Obama’s first year in office and is working on a sequel. “He’s not an ungracious person, but he can be guilty of ingratitude. It’s not a politically smart way for him to operate.” …
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/08/opinion/dowd-the-ungrateful-president.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
I can’t; I really can’t today.
Deaniac has another rocking column:
The Professional Left’s Weak Constitution
Wednesday, August 08, 2012 |
Posted by Deaniac83 at 2:32 PM
Did you see the bloviators on the Professional Left going into absolute freakout mode today over an ad released by the pro-Obama Priorities USA Action?
A number of armchair activists, Huffington Post’s Sam Stein and The Hill’s Brent Budowski just to name a couple, sparked into their righteous (or perhaps Lefteous) indignation. Why? Is anything factually wrong with the ad? Did this man lose his job after Bain bankrupted his company? Yes. Did he and his family lose health insurance coverage because of it? Yes. Did she get seriously sick when they did not have insurance? Yes. Did she pass away from that sickness? Yes. These are all facts not in dispute.
So what’s the beef? Well, the beef is that Soptic’s wife (the deceased) had her own insurance while Soptic was employed, and that her husband insurance was her secondary insurance. She, however, lost that insurance after being injured and losing her job due to that injury, and any thinking person would realize that had her husband still had the job Mitt Romney’s vulture capitalist firm stole from him, his insurance would take over as his wife’s primary after she’d lost her own job.
The other excuse, stunningly, is that Soptic’s wife died four years after Bain screwed him out of his livelihood. I don’t even know why people who don’t like the ad would make this argument. It’s actually an argument in favor of the ad. She passed away from stage 4 cancer. Which can take.. umm… a few years to develop, during which time, had she had insurance through the job that Romney took away from her husband, she might have been able to get screenings and, I dunno, get it detected early?
http://www.thepeoplesview.net/2012/08/the-professional-lefts-weak-constitution.html
It’s stunning how these folks get in front of the camera and blink when they see that light.
Great piece, Deaniac. Show’em how it’s done!
Thursday, August 9, 2012
The 2008 Election? I Have No Idea What You Mean, Madam
Posted by Zandar
Rep Steve King goes for the gold with the Nullify Everything Good, Repeal Obama! (NEGRO) bill.
Rep. Steve King (R-IA), a favorite among tea party Republicans, told an audience on Tuesday that he would like to introduce a bill that, once enacted, would nullify every single law President Barack Obama has signed over the last three years.
King is running for reelection against Democrat Christie Vilsack, wife of former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, who now serves as the U.S. Agriculture Secretary. The long-serving Iowa Republcian told onlookers at the Humboldt County Events Center that “Obamacare,” better known to policy makers as the Affordable Care Act, contains “a certain regenerative DNA” that would make the law “grow back on you like a bad seed” if all of it is not ripped out — which is why he wants a massive bill to do the impossible: reset U.S. legislative text to Jan. 19, 2009.
“If you don’t tighten the belt on Congress by insisting upon a balanced budget amendment to our Constitution, I’m afraid we don’t have five years before we go off the cliff into the abyss of an economic collapse for our country,” King added, according to quotes published by The Messenger newspaper in Iowa.
So unless we expunge America’s black President, you and everyone you know will be destroyed. Vote for Steve King or else your family and loved ones will burn in the writhing flames of total economic collapse.
Republicans call this “positive messaging”. They’re positive that a second Obama term will destroy white America. And yes, I’ll use the racist stupidity tag against anyone running on proposing a bill to repeal every law signed by the nation’s first black President. Steve King doesn’t want to work with the other side, he wants to erase them from the history books.
http://zandarvts.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-2008-election-i-have-no-idea-what.html
wasn’t that a bitch to watch?
made me mad as a mofo
Michael Moore on the problems voting in Michigan on Tuesday
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#48582193
Political commentary these days is obsessed with the triviality of this campaign. Most of it is rooted in the refusal of conservatives to be candid about the implications of how their beliefs and commitments would affect the choices they would have government make — and how they differ from the president’s.
In Romney’s case, this often requires him to invent an Obama who exists only in the imagination of his ad makers. So they take Obama’s statements, clip out relevant sentences and run ads attacking some strung-together words that have a limited connection to what the president said. In the welfare ad, Romney lies outright.
But this is part of a larger pattern on the right, illustrated most tellingly by conservative rhetoric around the Affordable Care Act. In going after Obamacare, conservatives almost never talk about the specific provisions of the law. They try to drown it in anti-government rhetoric….
….Here’s your chance, conservatives. Big, bad government is forcing those nice insurance companies to give people a break. From what you say, you see this as socialism …. You cannot possibly keep this money. So stand up for those oppressed insurers and give them their rebates back!
…. I’d also be curious to know whether Romney got a rebate on his health insurance premiums courtesy of Obamacare and whether he plans to return it. But given his attitude toward disclosure, we’ll probably never find out.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ej-dionne-jr-romney-and-his-fictional-obama/2012/08/08/1e56bb04-e189-11e1-a25e-15067bb31849_story.html?tid=pm_opinions_pop
THIS: ‘Here’s your chance, conservatives. Big, bad government is forcing those nice insurance companies to give people a break. From what you say, you see this as socialism …. You cannot possibly keep this money. So stand up for those oppressed insurers and give them their rebates back!”
BUT DON’T HOLD YOUR BREATH
Superb segment from Maddow about Voter Suppression in Ohio.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#48582101
Ametia,
Great job getting the people cover.
GABBY LOOKS FANTASTIC!!!
She’s stunning. LOL Thez hazz a SAD.
Beyond the Obama ads, Joe Soptic’s steelworker story
By Nia-Malika Henderson, Published: August 8The Washington Post
In 2008, it was Joe the Plumber. This year, it’s Joe the Steelworker.
Joe Soptic, 62, has become a go-to figure for supporters of President Obama, appearing this week in his second campaign ad talking about being laid off from a Kansas City, Mo., steel plant that was taken over by Bain Capital in 1993.
In the ad, released Tuesday by the super PAC Priorities USA and titled “Understands,” Soptic makes his most heated claim to date, suggesting a link between his wife’s death five years ago and the Bain takeover.
“When Mitt Romney and Bain closed the plant, I lost my health care, and my family lost their health care,” Soptic says in the minute-long spot. “And a short time after that, my wife became ill . . . she passed away in 22 days.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/beyond-the-obama-ads-joe-soptics-steelworker-story/2012/08/08/c193da80-e0c2-11e1-8fc5-a7dcf1fc161d_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines
Good Morning, Everyone! :-)
Good Morning, Ametia and Everyone :)