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Tonight was another FAIL. Post coming SOON.
Fox News Dumps Sarah Palin and Cancels All of Her Interviews
By: Jason Easley
Sarah Palin has taken to Facebook to complain that Fox News has canceled all of her scheduled interviews during their coverage of the Republican Convention.
Palin took to her Facebook bunker to tell the world what nobody cared enough to notice, “I’m sorry Fox cancelled all my scheduled interviews tonight because I sure wanted to take the opportunity on the air to highlight Senator John McCain’s positive contributions to America, to honor him, and to reflect on what a biased media unfairly put him through four years ago tonight. Granted, our honored and esteemed war hero has gone through much more than the liberal media can ever do to him in their efforts to harm this patriot. I look forward to hearing his words to his fellow Americans tonight more than any of the other convention speeches. God bless John McCain. Thank you for everything. And happy birthday, my friend.”
Fox News VP of Programming Bill Shine gave Palin the big blow off, “Our plans changed based on the fact that the RNC condensed the schedule of speeches from four nights to three. We look forward to having Governor Palin back as soon as we can.”
By as soon as he can, he means Sarah Palin won’t see any airtime until after the Republican Convention. Sarah Palin is now officially unwelcome in the Republican Party, and I’ll give you three guesses who got her booted off of Fox News.
Here’s a hint. His name rhymes with Ditt Lomney. When the Romney people made sure that Sarah Palin wasn’t invited to the Republicans’ party, the message was clearly sent that Romney blames Palin for the Republican defeat in 2008. They see the polls. The Romney folks know that she is toxic to the very women and Independent voters that they are unsuccessfully trying to court.
http://www.politicususa.com/fox-news-dumps-sarah-palin-cancels-interviews.html
BWA HA HA HA
Check your email, please. thanks!
Zombie-eyed Eddie Munster is up
CLASS ACT
Two GOP Problems
by BooMan
Wed Aug 29th, 2012 at 12:51:31 PM EST
Steve Benen has been pointing this out for a while:
This year is supposed to be a cycle ripe for the Republicans’ picking, but they’re stuck with a candidate they don’t really like, an agenda they can’t tout because the American mainstream would disapprove, and an opponent they consider awful, but unable to attack with legitimate attacks.
I think they could go after him with legitimate attacks, but for some reason they don’t really emphasize them. Instead, they make up crap about welfare and Medicare, and treat a centrist health care plan inspired by their own nominee as the second coming of the Bolshevist Revolution.
The GOP is really just high on their bullshit. That’s problem number one. Remember this from January 2010?
Mr. Obama told members of the House GOP at a Baltimore retreat that their decision to tell their constituents he is “going to destroy America” had made it virtually impossible for them to vote with Democrats on even moderate policies, at least if they didn’t want to jeopardize their reelection prospects.
Perhaps the most striking moment in the president’s appearance – which was reminiscent of a Prime Minister appearing before the British Parliament, though far more polite – was when the president complained that some Republicans had suggested his policies, which he cast as relatively moderate, were in service of a “Bolshevik plot.”
There was some applause following that comment – apparently not an endorsement of the president’s point, but rather the notion that he was, indeed, a Bolshevik. The moment seemed to point to the futility of the president’s message – the GOP is not suddenly going to start portraying Mr. Obama and the Democrats as moderate realists, especially when Republican Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts suggests the current strategy has been working just fine.
It did work fine for a while, particularly during the 2010 midterm elections. It worked for the extremely narrow purpose of winning elections, although plenty of Republican officeholders lost their careers in the resulting chaos, in spite of doing little to nothing to help the president. They lost to people who were high on the bullshit.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2012/8/29/125131/645
Court rejects Florida GOP voter-registration restrictions
By Steve Benen – Wed Aug 29, 2012 2:31 PM EDT
Republican efforts to restrict voting rights come in a variety of forms. Some of the most notable efforts involve onerous voter-ID laws and closing early-voting windows.
But in Florida, GOP officials have also placed sweeping restrictions on voter-registration drives. As Laura explained overnight, new Republican-imposed rules have made it almost impossible for progressive groups to register new Democratic voters. This isn’t an accident.
And according to a federal court this morning, the law is simply unacceptable.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/08/29/13550934-court-rejects-florida-gop-voter-registration-restrictions?lite
The GOP are LOSERS all the way around.
August 29, 2012
Yep, it sucks all right
Josh Marshall walks right up to the line of going Full Beltway on us by issuing a near apologia on CNN’s behalf. The camerawoman-peanuts story “puts CNN in an exquisitely awkward position,” writes Marshall, since “There’s a normal and correct tendency for a news outfit not to want to make itself into the story.”
Marshall then acknowledges that “this goes way beyond that,” though, because of CNN’s market-maneuvering into the middle. The network cannot now afford to offend either partisan side, otherwise its careful positioning collapses.
All of this is offered in the way of an explanation, but it comes across (it did to me, anyway) as at least approaching the sympathetic: CNN’s position is exquisitely awkward.
No, it isn’t. It is, rather, deeply non-journalistic.
No network news executive should be in the business of news as a meticulously balanced ideological scorecard. Yet when CNN decided to play the middle, it didn’t just box itself in–it cut itself out of much of the real news, such as the sick, soul-eaten corruption of today’s Republican Party, and now a huge story concerning itself.
Fox News may be a screaming whore and MSNBC a higher-priced escort, but at least they make little pretense for what they are. CNN? It’s more like a moralizing Molièrean hypocrite. And there’s no excuse for that–nothing even close.
http://pmcarpenter.blogs.com/p_m_carpenters_commentary/2012/08/yep-it-sucks-all-right.html
http://twitter.com/MHarrisPerry/status/240851937505992704/photo/1
Dang! Melissa just did a segment last weekend on her house. So sorry MHP. Glad you and hubby are safe.
http://youtu.be/gHbYJfwFgOU
We feel you, Mr. Science man. But since you know, Obama was on your show, the baggers are more determined than ever to push that creationist BS.
Why CNN Sucks
Because it has a huge story on its hands – an insight into ugly racism among the GOP base, when two delegates (or merely attendees) threw nuts at a black camerawoman, saying “This is how we treat animals!” – and it offered the following statement:
CNN can confirm there was an incident directed at an employee inside the Tampa Bay Times Forum earlier this afternoon. CNN worked with convention officials to address this matter and will have no further comment.
If I were the camerawoman involved, this would not be enough. CNN has now run a small story on the incident but doesn’t seem to be pushing it. Why? Because this awful notion of balance – which requires journalists to be lobotomized when assessing reality – is “on-brand”. Oy.
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/08/why-cnn-sucks.html
Where are teh other BLACK voices in journalism and tv? Gwen Efill, Juan Williams, oh that’s right, he’s sittingon the bench for saying he didn’t believe Ann Romney, that she was a corporate wife. These bitches can’t handle the truth when it comes to racism. TEA-NN is no exception.
Posted at 02:13 PM ET, 08/29/2012
TheWashingtonPost
Call out the lies right in your headlines
By Greg Sargent
This doesn’t happen every day, but good for the Los Angeles Times for calling out the ubiquitous falsehood about Obama supposedly waving welfare reform’s work requirement right in its headline:
Rick Santorum repeats inaccurate welfare attack on Obama
As Kevin Drum says: “it’s about time reporters and copy editors started putting this stuff front and center.” And, indeed, the LA Times does this, in its headline and with this highly placed sentence: “In fact, Obama did not waive the work requirement.”
The lie debunked here, of course, is central to Mitt Romney’s campaign; it is airing in ads in multiple swing states that are reportedly backed by heavy buys, and Romney and his surrogates have been repeating it in one forum after another for weeks on end.
I didn’t expect this, but the epic dishonesty of Romney’s campaign is finally prompting something of a debate among media types about whether what we’re seeing here is unprecedented — and how to appropriately respond to it. This debate is focused partly on whether there’s a racial dimension to this attack. But it’s also about (as I noted here yesterday) what the media should do when one campaign has decided that there is literally no set of boundaries or standards it needs to follow when it comes to the veracity of the core asserrtions at the heart of its entire argument.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/call-out-the-lies-right-in-your-headlines/2012/08/29/6e263346-f1fe-11e1-adc6-87dfa8eff430_blog.html
Posted at 12:31 PM ET, 08/29/2012
TheWashingtonPost
The very narrow “we” in “we built it”
By Jamelle Bouie
It’s not often that a major political party stages its key national event around a falsehood, but that’s the case for this year’s Republican National Convention. The GOP theme is “We Built It,” a derivative of President Obama’s “you didn’t build that” speech.
Out of context, “you didn’t build that” sounds like an attack on private business. But taken in context, the meaning is clear — your business, successful or not, is partly dependent on public investments and a broader system which you didn’t build alone. Context aside, Republicans argue that their broader interpretation is correct — the president is hostile to “free enterprise.” Of course, that requires listeners to willfully disregard everything that came before the final sentence; regardless of how you spin the GOP’s take, it’s dishonest.
But “we built it” isn’t just mendacious — it’s exclusionary. Over the last month, Mitt Romney and the GOP have committed themselves to a narrow definition of “we.” In an explicit pitch to working class whites, the Republican Party has resurrected welfare as a national issue, falsely attacking Obama for “gutting” the program and ending work requirements, with an implicit message — recognized by many — that Obama is taking from “you” and giving to “them.”
Tom Edsall, a professor of journalism at Columbia University, noticed the same message in Romney’s Medicare ads, which hit Obama for taking from “your” Medicare and giving it to a program that’s “not for you.” Indeed, over the last week, Romney has, for all practical purposes, abandoned the pretense that he isn’t trying to capitalize on racial resentment. Over the weekend, he accused Obama of trying to “shore up his base” with the (fictional) welfare changes, saying that his action was “calculated to build support for him among people he wants to have excited about his reelection.” The Romney campaign has been called on this, repeatedly, but they refuse to budge — “we’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers,” said pollster Neil Newhouse.
Given the GOP’s efforts to play on racial resentment, it’s hard not see a particular subtext to the spectacle the convention offers: throngs of older white Republicans, yelling that they built this country.
That’s not to say that “we built it” is racist — it isn’t. But you have to consider this riff in the broad context of the election. When looked at in light of all the other aspects of Romney’s Atwater-esque campaign, the “we” in “we built it” seems awfully narrow.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/the-very-narrow-we-in-we-built-it/2012/08/29/a08e1620-f1e3-11e1-b74c-84ed55e0300b_blog.html
Florida Victory: Federal Court Removes New Restrictions on Voter Registration Groups
Press Releases
– 08/29/12
League of Women Voters of Florida, Rock the Vote, and Florida PIRG Hail Settlement as Victory for Florida Voters
http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/florida_victory_federal_court_removes_new_restrictions_on_voter_registratio
GOP Governor Acknowledges That Romney’s Welfare Attack Ads Are False
By Pat Garofalo posted from ThinkProgress Economy on Aug 29, 2012 at 12:27 pm
The Romney campaign has been running a series of blatantly false ads claiming that the Obama administration has waived work requirements included in the 1996 welfare reform law. Everyone from independent fact-checkers to major newspapers to President Bill Clinton (who signed the law) have said that the campaign’s attack is untrue.
Last night, however, failed presidential candidate Rick Santorum once again made the false claim, saying “this summer [Obama] showed us once again he believes in government handouts and dependency by waving the work requirement for welfare.” But evidently not every member of the Republican party received the memo about how to characterize what the administration did. When asked Wednesday morning whether the welfare claim is a lie, Gov. Sam Brownback (R-KS) replied, “as far as I have seen”:
JANSING: But you agree that these claims that the work requirement has been abolished are false?
BROWNBACK: As far as I have seen, but I don’t know all of the basis to it. I do know the basis to this dependency on the government and how big the government is and how big the entitlement state is and how much of a debt we’re leaving to our kids.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osUq7Q8Ol-8&feature=player_embedded
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/08/29/766141/brownback-romney-ads-fals/
Romney Party Yacht Flies Cayman Islands Flag
Source: aBC news
By MATTHEW MOSK (@mattmosk) , BRIAN ROSS (@brianross) , MEGAN CHUCHMACH (@megcourtney) and RHONDA SCHWARTZ
Aug. 29, 2012
Gov. Mitt Romney’s campaign toasted its top donors Wednesday aboard a 150-foot yacht flying the flag of the Cayman Islands.
The exclusive event, hosted by a Florida developer on his yacht “Cracker Bay” was one of a dozen exclusive events meant to nurture those who have raised more than $1 million for Romney’s bid.
“I think it’s ironic they do this aboard a yacht that doesn’t even pay its taxes,” said a woman who lives aboard a much smaller boat moored at the St. Petersburg Municipal Marina.
Romney’s Cayman-based investments have come under fire during the campaign.
The event, attended by no more than 50 people, along with Romney relatives, including older brother Scott, appeared on no public calendars. ABC News obtained a schedule of the Romney campaign’s “Victory Council” and waited dockside to speak with members.
Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/romney-party-yacht-flies-cayman-islands-flag/story?id=17105028#.UD5JiY7v3bz
‘Can I touch it?’ The fascination with natural, African-American hair
Share this on:Facebook Twitter Digg delicious reddit MySpace StumbleUpon LinkedIn July 25, 2011|By Lisa Respers France, CNN
Tamara Winfrey Harris says she had a total stranger reach for her hair in a restaurant.Tamara Winfrey Harris tells a story of being in a chain restaurant with her husband when their names were called for a table.
Just as the couple rose to go, a middle-aged white woman standing nearby reached out swiftly to touch Winfrey Harris’s hair which at the time was styled in natural twists.
“She missed by mere seconds, she was actually going to grab my hair as I walked past her,” recalled Winfrey Harris who runs the blog What Tami Said. “I turned around and she said, ‘Oh, your hair is neat.’ It just floored me because who does that, just reaches out and touches strangers?”
http://articles.cnn.com/2011-07-25/living/touching.natural.black.hair_1_chemical-straighteners-natural-hair-black-women?_s=PM:LIVING
A Horrible No-Good First Night
by BooMan
Tue Aug 28th, 2012 at 11:50:15 PM EST
Everyone wants to be polite to Ann Romney and say nice things about her speech. What I want to know is who wrote it. Because it was the most incoherent piece of crap I’ve ever seen anyone try to deliver. She came out of the box telling us that she didn’t want to talk about politics. She wanted to talk about love. And then she didn’t talk about love for about fifteen minutes. Instead, she talked about politics. And women. And how women sigh at night just a little bit louder than men. She did eventually get around to talking about her husband, and the tail end of her speech wasn’t all that bad. But it was disjointed and awkward. Parts of it seemed like a straight-up apology for their wealth. “Don’t hate us because we’re rich cuz it’s hard having five boys in your living room.” The audience was flat and after the first few minutes increasingly bored and listless.
Chris Christie’s speech might have been worse. He spent the first precious twenty minutes of his primetime network airtime talking exclusively about himself and his record as governor of New Jersey. Honestly, who cares? This wasn’t supposed to be an audition for 2016. Mitt Romney was looking on mostly stone-faced, probably wondering when, if ever, Christie was going to make an argument for Romney’s presidency.
And this merely continued a trend that went on all night. Ohio Governor John Kasich and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley spent all their time talking about how great the economies of the respective states are doing, which would seem to be a good argument for retaining the current president. Rick Santorum barely mentioned Romney at all, although he did at least repeat some of Romney’s most egregious and racially-motivated lies.
Everything about the convention today was bad. The backdrop for the speakers looked like something between a smoke-filled room and a cloudy sky, with the oscillating colors serving mainly as a nausea-inducing distraction.
The arena was half-filled and the place wasn’t miked in a way that could disguise the hollowness of the acoustics. The crowd was depressingly old and clearly up well past their bedtime. Obvious applause lines were barely noticed. Nikki Haley’s jaw was so clenched that she looked like a meth-head. Ann Romney’s dress only served to make her look more overweight than she actually is. Chris Christie scowled through his supposedly uplifting lines. Mitt Romney looked like he was deeply displeased with the proceedings.
The bottom line was that no one made the case for Mitt Romney. No one even wanted to talk about him, including his wife. The crowd didn’t seem to even be excited to be there.
But, really, Ann Romney’s speechwriter is the biggest hack in the universe. I wonder if she actually wrote it herself and no one had the balls to edit it .
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2012/8/28/235015/124
Condi Rice Can’t Name A Specific Obama Foreign Policy Failure
By Ben Armbruster on Aug 29, 2012 at 10:40 am
Today on CBS’s morning show, former Bush administration Secretary of State and top Mitt Romney surrogate Condoleezza Rice could not offer any specific foreign policy failures made by President Obama. Romney’s allies, led by Rice and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), are expected to attack Obama on national security grounds tonight in at the Republican National Convention in Tampa.
But when asked to offer specifics this morning on CBS, all Rice could come up with was some vague attack on Obama’s Syria policy, which, host Norah O’Donnell noted, the president himself might agree with:
O’DONNELL: Can you be specific about somewhere where you think President Obama has failed on foreign policy.
RICE: What we should do tonight, is talk about what a President Romney would mean for America. It’s not a time to look back, it’s a time to look forward. We have real challenges out there, in the Middle East, in Asia, in Europe, with our allies.
O’DONNELL: But if President Obama isn’t doing anything wrong, then why change things?
RICE: It’s a question of what a President Romney would do and there is no doubt that the United States’ voice has been muted and when the United States’ voice is muted the world is a more dangerous place.
O’DONNELL: How is the United States’ voice muted?
RICE: Just look at the situation in Syria for instance. We have a circumstance in which Assad is butchering his people. The Iranians are helping him to do so. The United States seems to be mired in the Security Council. The Russians and the Chinese say no, no, no and we don’t have an answer. When that is the case, it’s a dangerous place. …
O’DONNELL: But I think the president agrees with that as well. Having covered the White House, the question is whether … a President Romney would be willing to advocate and commit American troops, American lives, in a place like Syria right now.
http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/08/29/765771/rice-obama-foreign-policy/
I know right. Send in the black chic to take down the black president dude. Soooo transparent. and Rice of all people who stood by and watched GW Bush take OUR COUNTRY TO WAR.
I feel a bit responsible for this crazed obsession with fake followers permeating the press. It all began with a strange follower spike Mitt Romney experienced last month. Now it has come to a head with a new app by StatusPeople.
Depending on where you read about it, between 30% to 70% of Obama’s followers are Fake. The problem? StatusPeople only checks 1000 followers, and Obama has almost 19 million. From their site:
How does it work?
We take a sample of your follower data. Up to 1,000 records depending on how ‘popular’ you are and assess them against a number of simple spam criteria.
That’s 0.0053% of Obama’s followers. Not exactly statistically significant. Moreover, Obama gets around 35,000 new followers each day. You can get different results 35 times a day depending when you look, hence the variation in news coverage.
How many fake followers does Obama have? Nobody knows. As StatusPeople’s Rob Waller told Mashable: “It would be impossible to crunch all the follower data that Obama has in a reasonable manner via the Twitter API.”
Fake Followers is a great headline, but it isn’t backed up by any real data. StatusPeople may work for your account, but it just can’t analyze the third largest account on Twitter accurately.
http://140elect.com/2012-twitter-politics/are-70-of-obamas-followers-fake-no/
South Carolina Lawmaker Said ‘Amen’ To Email Comparing Blacks To ‘Bees Going After A Watermelon’
Ryan J. Reilly- August 29, 2012, 10:00 AM
State Rep. Alan Clemmons, who authored the South Carolina voter ID law being argued in federal court this week, admitted on Tuesday he welcomed a racist email he received from a friend in support of the law.
Clemmons replied with “Amen” and “thank you for your support” after a man named Ed Koziol wrote that black and poor voters would “be like a swarm of bees going after a watermelon” if the legislature offered a reward for obtaining identification cards, according to McClatchy.
At the trial, Clemmons called the response “poorly considered.”
A civil rights lawyer also asked Clemmons about packets of peanuts that were distributed with cards that read “Stop Obama’s nutty agenda and support voter ID.” Clemmons reportedly testified previously that he was the one who handed out the packets, but this time he said he could not remember doing so.
On his first day of testimony, Clemmons tweeted a photo from inside of the courtroom, violating the federal court’s ban on photography.
Closing arguments in the case are expected on Friday. A panel of federal judges is also expected to rule on Texas’ voter ID law this week.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/alan_clemmons_amen.php
Yep; THIS IS WHO THEY ARE.
STUDY: Massachusetts Minimum Wage Legislation Would Give 580,000 Workers A Raise
By Travis Waldron on Aug 21, 2012 at 5:29 pm
A century ago, Massachusetts became the first state in the country to pass a minimum wage law. Now, the state legislature is considering legislation to increase its minimum wage — currently at $8.00 an hour, $0.75 above the federal minimum — to $10.00 an hour. If the legislation becomes law, it will give more than a half-million low-wage workers a pay increase and could generate 4,500 new jobs because of increased economic activity, according to a study from the Economic Policy Institute:
Increasing Massachusetts’s minimum wage to $10.00 on January 1, 2013, would give a raise to more than 581,000 of the state’s lowest-paid workers. It would provide nearly $824 million in additional wages to directly and indirectly affected families, who would, in turn, spend those extra earnings. Indirectly affected workers—those earning close to, but still above, the proposed new minimum wage—would likely receive a boost in earnings due to the “spillover” effect (Shierholz 2009), giving them more to spend on necessities. […]
Using these same standard fiscal multipliers to analyze the jobs impact of an increase in compensation of low-wage workers and decrease in corporate profits that result from a minimum-wage increase, we find that increasing the Massachusetts minimum wage from $8.00 to $10.00 per hour would result in a net increase in economic activity of approximately $522 million and would generate roughly 4,500 net new jobs.
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/08/21/723311/study-massachusetts-minimum-wage-legislation-would-give-58000-workers-a-raise/
Report: Clint Eastwood headed to the RNC
Actor Clint Eastwood may be on his way to Tampa soon for the Republican National Covention, according to a report on Townhall:
A well-placed Republican source tells Townhall that Oscar-winning director and actor Clint Eastwood will travel to Tampa, Florida to attend Mitt Romney’s nominating convention this week. As the news media scrambles to identify the so-called “mystery speaker” scheduled to address GOP delegates on Thursday evening, some have speculated that the iconic Hollywood figure could fit the bill. Our source — who spoke on the condition of anonymity — could not confirm if Eastwood is, in fact, the intriguing “to-be-announced” speaker, but stated unequivocally that the Dirty Harry star will arrive in Florida late on Wednesday or early on Thursday, and will return to southern California on Friday.
Reps for Eastwood, who endorsed Romney a few weeks ago, told POLITICO on Monday that they weren’t sure if he’d make it to Tampa or not.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/click/2012/08/report-clint-eastwood-headed-to-the-rnc-133629.html
Updated: 4:47 p.m. Friday, Aug. 24, 2012 | Posted: 4:12 p.m. Friday, Aug. 24, 2012
Georgia’s AIDS drug program trims wait list to zero
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The state has eliminated a waiting list for a program that provides lifesaving medications to thousands of low-income, uninsured Georgians with HIV/AIDS more than two years after the list was first started.
Established in July 2010, the wait list for Georgia’s AIDS Drug Assistance Program rapidly ballooned to more than 1,600 — at one time becoming the largest in the country.
A spike in the need for the program was largely fueled by the economic downturn as people lost their jobs and health insurance. Meanwhile, the Georgia Department of Public Health ramped up efforts to get more people tested.
“The reduction of our wait list to zero is a remarkable accomplishment, especially considering where we were in 2011,” Public Health Commissioner Brenda Fitzgerald said in a statement Friday.
The state was able to erase the wait list in part with the help of $8.4 million in federal emergency funding. More than 350 patients previously enrolled in the program also moved to an insurance pool for people with pre-existing conditions established under the federal health care law — freeing up more spots in the drug program.
“Eliminating the waiting list required extraordinary work and ingenuity, said Patrick O’Neal, the director of health protection for the state Department of Public Health.
Virginia currently has the largest waiting list with 275 people, according to a report last week from the National Alliance of State & Territorial AIDS Directors.
http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local/georgias-aids-drug-program-trims-wait-list-to-zero/nRMRr/
Arizona GOP Favorite Doesn’t Want Middle Easterners In U.S. ‘Legally Or Illegally’
Nick R. Martin- August 28, 2012, 2:50 PM
Update: August 28, 2012, 5:39 PM
Gabriela Saucedo Mercer hasn’t even won the Republican primary for Congress in Arizona yet, but she is already facing attacks from the Democratic Congressman she is hoping to unseat in November over some incendiary comments she made in the past about Middle Eastern immigrants.
In an interview with a conservative website last year, Saucedo Mercer talked in depth about her views on immigration. A Mexican immigrant herself who became a U.S. citizen, she said the issue was important because people from places other than Mexico were among those coming across the border illegally.
“That includes Chinese, Middle Easterners,” she said. “If you know Middle Easterners, a lot of them, they look Mexican or they look, you know, like a lot of people in South America, dark skin, dark hair, brown eyes. And they mix. They mix in.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/gabriela_saucedo_mercer_middle_easterners.php?ref=fpb
Boehner Can’t Explain Why Voters Should Trust GOP With Control of White House and Congress Again
From House Speaker John Boehner’s press conference in Tampa this Monday, a reporter asked him to explain why voters should ever trust Republicans with control of both houses of Congress and the White House again after what they did to the country the last time around and Boehner’s response was basically, forgive tax cheats who’ve been hiding their money overseas and everything’s Obama’s fault with the economy now. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of Republicans or anything resembling an actual answer to the reporter’s question.
[….] It’s too bad that apparently none of them there were allowed any follow up because the next thing that should have been said is, you didn’t answer my question and when do you think the American people are going to hold you accountable for how you’ve governed, or better said, the refusal by Republicans to actually govern and do anything but obstruct since President Obama was elected.
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/boehner-cant-explain-why-voters-should-tru
Opening Night in Tampa: Love or Respect for Romney?
Chris Christie and Ann Romney pushed oddly mixed messages, each trying to prop up the nominee.
—By David Corn| Wed Aug. 29, 2012 3:00 AM PDT
Is the 2012 election about love, or is it about respect? At the first night of Mittfest in Tampa, there was some confusion on this point. After hours of predictable Obama-hates-freedom-and-business speeches, the evening culminated in back-to-back addresses by Ann Romney, Mitt Romney’s emissary to the human race, and Chris Christie, the take-no-guff Jersey guv
The candidate’s wife opened this way: “I want to talk to you tonight not about politics and not about party…Tonight I want to talk to you about love.” Naturally, it was the love she had for a guy she met at a dance many years ago and the love all Americans have for their homeland. But she quickly digressed to tell the delegates—and the national television audience—that Ann Romney knows darn-tootin’ well that many Americans have it tough these days, especially women. And she played the gal card: “If you listen carefully, you’ll hear the women sighing a little bit more than the men. It’s how it is, isn’t it? It’s the moms who always have to work a little harder, to make everything right. It’s the moms of this nation—single, married, widowed—who really hold this country together…You know it’s true, don’t you? You’re the ones who always have to do a little more.”
Here was the play for the female vote—a response to the Democratic charge of a Republican war on women. But was she engaging in Gender Warfare? Dividing the nation into moms and dads in order to score political points?
If not, this was the political equivalent of sending flowers to the little lady in hope of winning her over. And it was condescending. Speaking to the moms of the country, she said, “There would not be an America without you.” As if such a platitude would have real value to them. And referring to all women, she added, “We’re too smart to know there aren’t easy answers. But we’re not dumb enough to accept that there aren’t better answers.” Wait a minute: Who says women are dumb? What was she suggesting?
She referred not once to a single policy her hubby would implement that might make life better for the women whom she was claiming as sisters. Instead, she went on about how wonderful Mitt is as a husband, parent, and friend. (Newsflash: Ann Romney Endorses Husband!). She did the bio, covering their salad days—they “ate a lot of pasta and tuna fish”—and her breast cancer and MS, as if she could truly identify with those working moms the Romney campaign has had such a difficult time attracting.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/08/rnc-ann-romney-chris-christie-speeches
Must read- What You Should Know About Wednesday’s Republican Convention Speakers
By ThinkProgress on Aug 29, 2012 at 9:25 am
As the GOP kicks off its convention in Tampa, Florida this week, ThinkProgress will keep you updated every morning on everything you need to know about the featured speakers and we’ll live blog the festivities every night starting at 7:00 PM. Here is a rundown of Wednesday’s lineup:
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ)
While the former GOP presidential candidate should be commended for criticizing Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-MN) anti-Muslim witch hunt (something Romney refused to do), McCain has been unapologetic in his support for the Iraq war and now supports moving the country closer to war with Iran. McCain has defended Romney for taking credit for the auto bailout, but the Arizona Republican recently took aim at one of Romney’s super PACs, saying “corporations are not people.”
READ ON: http://thinkprogress.org/
Obama addresses Hurricane Isaac preparations
Source: WDSU-TV New Orleans
In a short address from the White House, President Barack Obama said the federal government was ready for whatever Isaac may bring to the Gulf Coast.
“At my direction, FEMA has been on the ground for over a week, working with state and local officials in areas that could be affected,” he said, noting that a disaster declaration for Louisiana was declared on Monday.
“As we prepare for Isaac to hit, I want to encourage all residents of the Gulf Coast to listen to your local officials and follow their directions, including if they tell you to evacuate.
“Now is not the time to tempt fate; now is not the time to dismiss warnings.”
~ snip ~
Read more: http://www.wdsu.com/news/local-news/new-orleans/Obama-addresses-Hurricane-Isaac-preparations/-/9853400/16293740/-/qf5v7o/-/index.html
NAILS IT. See the AVERAGE “YOU PEOPLE” are on to you Ann Romeny.
No amount of attempts at humanizing Mittens will help him Ann. And for pete’s sake; drop the finga thang. It’s not an attractive look for “YOU PEOPLE.”
THIS IS HORSESHIT
Why the GOP is winning the battle over Paul Ryan
Posted by Aaron Blake on August 29, 2012 at 6:30 am
TAMPA — Say what you want about Paul Ryan’s politics; even Democrats in Congress struggle to find a negative word to say about him.
At least, that’s what Republicans have been arguing for the last two weeks.
And when it comes to the American public, it appears to be true.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2012/08/29/why-the-gop-is-winning-the-battle-over-paul-ryan/?wpisrc=nl_politics
August 28, 2012
Romney Hailed as Regular Guy by Woman with Horse in Olympics
Posted by Andy Borowitz
TAMPA (The Borowitz Report)—On the opening night of the 2012 Republican National Convention, the Presidential nominee Mitt Romney received fulsome praise for being a “regular, down-to-earth guy” from his wife, Ann, whose dressage horse, Rafalca, competed in the London Olympics.
“Mitt has never let his success go to his head,” Mrs. Romney said. “Take away the seven-thousand-square-foot house in La Jolla and the bank account in the Caymans, he’s still the same fun-loving boy who pinned a gay kid to the ground and cut off his hair.”
Mrs. Romney adopted an intimate tone as she attempted to describe “the Mitt only I know.”
“Every now and then, Mitt will give me this devilish smile of his, and I know that can only mean one thing,” she said, flushing slightly. “He just fired someone.”
In a small flub that many delegates found endearing, Mrs. Romney said, “Mitt Romney is like you or me—he puts his pants on one leg at a time. Oh, wait. He has a fellow who does that for him. My bad.”
But the nominee’s wife brought the convention audience to its feet with her closing endorsement of her husband: “I promise you that if you elect Mitt President of the United States, he will never give less than thirteen per cent.”
Get the Borowitz Report delivered to your inbox for free by clicking here.
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2012/08/romney-hailed-as-regular-guy-by-woman-with-horse-in-olympics.html#ixzz24wli3n8i
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2012/08/romney-hailed-as-regular-guy-by-woman-with-horse-in-olympics.html#ixzz24wkkOohc
Christie Closes Night One
Aug 24, 2012 9:31 AM EDT
While Isaac pounds New Orleans, Republicans punish Barack Obama. Howard Kurtz, Lloyd Grove, and more Daily Beast contributors are in Tampa as the party makes its case for Mitt Romney.
An obscure rules change sparks boos on the convention floor and a battle between the establishment and activists. Michelle Goldberg on the convention’s bumpy beginning.
Snip
On the first night of the Republican convention, Ann Romney tried to make Americans like Mitt Romney. Then Chris Christie took the stage and reminded them that, ideologically, this campaign isn’t about Mitt Romney. It’s about Paul Ryan.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/features/2012/republican-national-convention.html?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=cheatsheet_morning&cid=newsletter%3Bemail%3Bcheatsheet_morning&utm_term=Cheat%20Sheet
REPOST
OH.NO.THIS. HEIFFER. DIDN’T.
Rice: United States’ “voice is muted” under Obama
There is no doubt the United States’ voice has been muted,” Rice said on “CBS This Morning,” adding, “When the United States’ voice is muted, the world is a more dangerous place.”
At a time when Syria is “butchering” its people and Iran is aiding, Rice said, the United States should stop relying on the United Nations Security Council to act.
“No one says we should be treating Syria as if it needs American boots on the ground,” Rice said, but there should be a “clear message that gets over the objections of the Russians and the Chinese. When the United States says Assad must go and then nothing happens to make Assad go, the U.S. has a credibility problem.”
Rice said the U.S. should “leave the Security Council aside” and instead work on arming the Syrian opposition in a way that is in accordance with a political plan. Under President Obama, she said, there’s no evidence that’s happening.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_162-57502340/rice-united-states-voice-is-muted-under-obama/?tag=nl.e875
Something is Nuts, Alright
by BooMan
Wed Aug 29th, 2012 at 09:27:18 AM EST
In a demonstration that blacks like Condi Rice, Michael Steele, Ron Christie, Artur Davis, Allen West, and Tim Scott are less tokens than statistically insignificant, a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll showed zero percent support for the Romney/Ryan ticket among African-Americans. That said, the GOP ticket probably isn’t too pleased with headlines about two conventioneers getting ejected for throwing nuts at a black CNN camerawomen and saying, “This is how we feed the animals.”
There are bad apples in every crowd, but it’s hard to imagine the level of hate those two people must feel toward black people to behave that way. The RNC Convention released an official policy, but that won’t change the bad optics.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2012/8/29/92718/3795
Posted at 09:05 AM ET, 08/29/2012
The Morning Plum: Mitt Romney, the hope and change candidate
By Greg Sargent
For many Republicans and conservatives, the words “hope and change” conjure up what infuriates them most about Barack Obama’s ascension to the presidency in 2008. For them the phrase captures Obama’s ability to seduce voters into accepting that he is their savior without even a glance at his true beliefs, instincts and intentions toward the country — which, if they’d been unmasked aggressively enough, would have ensured his defeat.
The first night of the GOP convention made it clear that it’s now Mitt Romney who is running as the “hope and change” candidate — with a crucial twist.
Romney advisers essentially confirmed this direction to Mark Halperin the other day. As Halperin put it: “Team Romney remains convinced that voters crave a more concrete form of hope and change.” Romney advisers say they will begin casting Romney more aggressively as the “change” agent in the campaign’s final stretch. As one Romney adviser put it: “If you’re voting for change, you’re voting for Mitt Romney.”
Ann Romney’s speech to the GOP convention last night was all about giving voters hope that change lies ahead, but she did so with a twist — even if you don’t find the man or his words hugely compelling, you can trust that Mitt will be able to pull this off.
“No one will work harder. No one will care more. No one will move heaven and earth like Mitt Romney to make this country a better place to live,” Ms. Romney said. “You can trust Mitt. He loves America. He will take us to a better place.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line
Moron’s Prodigal Moron Son Loses
By mistermix August 29th, 2012
Ben Quayle, who was last heard trying to spin his participation in a drunken, naked dip in the Sea of Galilee as an effort to get baptismal water for his daughter, lost his primary to Dave Schweikert last night. After redistricting, Quayle chose to run in a primary for the safe seat AZ-6 instead of going for the even-money open seat, AZ-9, and he got spanked. Adios, pendejo.
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2012/08/29/morons-prodigal-moron-son-loses/
Missing an opportunity to define the race
By Steve Benen – Wed Aug 29, 2012 9:21 AM EDT.
Successful presidential campaigns often have a clear, well-defined theme. In 1992, Bill Clinton talked about “change vs. more of the same.” In 2000, George W. Bush offered “compassionate conservatism.” In 2008, Barack Obama stressed the importance of “hope and change.”
And in 2012, Mitt Romney has, well, an out-of-context quote he accidentally endorsed and a welfare claim he made up out of whole cloth.
Putting aside the specific speeches, what I learned watching the convention last night is just how weak the Republican case against President Obama really is. The GOP argument is supposed to be easy — the economy is struggling, the public is dissatisfied with the direction of the country, and according to the president’s critics, Obama has a trail of failures they can point to.
So why do Republicans feel it’s necessary to cling to garbage, making manufactured nonsense the centerpiece of an entire national campaign? Brian Beutler said something last night that resonated with me: “Imagine if the entire Dem convention was organized around ‘I like being able to fire people.’ Would be … odd.”
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/08/29/13547114-missing-an-opportunity-to-define-the-race?lite
Ann Romney makes the case for love
By Steve Benen – Wed Aug 29, 2012 8:39 AM EDT
The truncated schedule of the Republican National Convention no doubt created a series of challenges for organizers. Each night had been carefully planned to stress specific messages and themes, but Hurricane Isaac forced the RNC to start pushing speeches together.
Last night, that was unfortunate. The two biggest primetime speakers were New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), who made the case for respect trumping love, and Ann Romney, who said the exact opposite — what matters, she said, is love of family and love of country.
All of the media praise for Ann Romney’s speech was well deserved — she delivered her remarks like a pro — but I’m not at all sure if she succeeded in her goal.
If you’ve followed coverage of the convention this week, you’ve no doubt seen one word many times: “humanize.” Ann Romney’s speech was intended to make her husband appear more likable, more relatable, and more like an actual person.
But if that was the purpose, the speech missed the mark. The remarks made it easier to like Ann Romney, but not Mitt Romney. Given all the buzz about “humanizing,” I expected a speech that cast the candidate in a warm, glowing light, but she spoke at length about qualities we already knew — Romney worked hard, made money, and loves his family and country.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/08/29/13546507-ann-romney-makes-the-case-for-love?lite
And don’t forget, Rachel, Ann made it plain as ICE that she and mitt are AMURKINS.
Steve Benen:
Nearly three weeks ago, Mitt Romney suggested attack ads rejected by “the various fact-checkers” shouldn’t be on the air. Candidates exposed by the fact-checkers should feel “embarrassed” and pull the falsehoods from the air.
Last week, Romney switched gears. Told that “the various fact-checkers” consider his ridiculous welfare smear to be a blatant lie, the Republican said fact-checkers are fine, so long as they agree with him. If not, they must be biased.
…. just consider what Team Romney is saying: they can lie with impunity and they don’t give a damn who disapproves. So long as it leads to more power in Romney’s hands, anything goes.
…. If Romney wins, make no mistake, it will establish a new precedent, and campaigns will receive an unmistakable lesson — go ahead and lie; you’ll be rewarded for it.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/08/28/13528235-abandoning-the-pretense-of-caring-about-facts?lite
Harold Meyerson:
The Republican ticket may hail from Massachusetts and Wisconsin, but Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan head the most Southernized major U.S. political party since Jefferson Davis’s day. In its hostility toward minorities, exploitation of racism, antipathy toward government and suspicion of science, today’s Republican Party represents the worst traditions of the South’s dankest backwaters.
…. This transformation of the GOP has also been spurred by the Southernization of the economy. The U.S. economy’s dominant sector is no longer the unionized manufacturing of the Northeast and Midwest, whose leaders included such Republican moderates as George Romney, and whose white working-class employees were persuaded by their unions to back Democratic candidates. Instead, the economy is dominated by a mix of the low-wage, nonunion retail and service sectors, and by high finance, which has shown itself fiercely opposed to regulation and taxation, happy to reap and shield its profits abroad at the expense of U.S. workers, and willing to invest plenty in a party that does its bidding.
That party is meeting in Tampa this week. Cut through its self-justifying rhetoric and we’re left with a GOP whose existential credo is, “We’re old, we’re white and we want our country back.” The rest, as the sages say, is commentary.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/harold-meyerson-in-modern-gop-the-old-south-returns/2012/08/28/4d673034-f144-11e1-892d-bc92fee603a7_story.html?tid=pm_opinions_pop
Roland Martin On Artur Davis’ RNC Address: You Just Heard A Political Fraud
http://youtu.be/x2YbeixHwLo
Arthur Davis sat on that Panel last night and practically licked “Miss Ann’s AZZ. he’s prolly still looking for his tongue this morning.
Charles Pierce: …. the Republican Party did something remarkable at its convention on Tuesday. It set out on an experiment to see exactly how much unmitigated hogwash the American political system can contain on a single evening. The Republican Party has set out at its 2012 convention in search of the Event Horizon of utter bullshit. It has sought to see precisely how many lies, evasions, elisions, and undigestible chunks of utter gobbledegook the political media can swallow before it finally gags twice and falls over dead, leaving the rest of America suckers all the same. What you didn’t see in primetime, from Arthur Davis to Ted Cruz, and from one 2016 contender to another, was the GOP embarking upon the task of seeing exactly how much nonsense it could produce at top volume before democracy screams and gives up, like Noriega in Panama when they played the metal music at him.
It was something to see, I’ll tell you. An entire evening based on a demonstrable lie…..
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/rnc-tampa-night-one-12158408
Yep, check out all the HORSESHIT above on the evening speeches. From Shcukin & buckin Arthur Davis to Miss Ann’s “WE LOVE YOU WOMEN!” nonsense. You really have to sit and watch the spectacle.
Ohio’s Husted fires Democratic election board members
By Steve Benen – Tue Aug 28, 2012 4:38 PM EDT.
The Rachel Maddow Show has been closely following voter-suppression efforts, most notably in Ohio, where Ohio’s Republican Secretary of State, Jon Husted, has been threatening to fire Tom Ritchie Sr. and Dennis Lieberman, two Democratic members of the Montgomery County board of elections.
And what is it, exactly, that Ritchie and Lieberman did to earn Husted’s wrath. The Democratic officials committed the crime of voting to expand voting hours in their county.
Today, Husted followed through on his threat.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/08/28/13531160-ohios-husted-fires-democratic-election-board-members?lite
TPM Editor’s Blog
Convention Attendee Booted After Nut Throwing Stunt
Josh Marshall- August 28, 2012, 10:33 PM
RNC attendee booted after allegedly throwing nuts at black CNN camerawoman, said ‘This is how we feed the animals’
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2012/08/convention_attendee_booted_after_nut_throwing_stun.php?ref=fpblg
Great comment on Politico:
Not sure why that attendee was removed. S/he was just expressing the views espoused by the GOP. That is why the attendee felt at home and quite comfortable doing something so vile at the KKKonvention. S/he heard the dog whistles and was just responding appropriately.
The Republican Party: Partying like it’s 1861
If you didn’t see any of the circus acts at the RNC, you have to, no way i can write about some of them.
WARNING! Oh oh! too late
Tee hee hee
LMAO
Lawdy, they licked their palmsm smoothed their hair down, and propped the puppets up on stage last night. And look at Arthur Davis, just a skinnin & a-grinnin!
Godd Morning, Everyone! :-)
Good Morning, Ametia and Everyone :)
Me and Hubby had plenty of popcorn for the sideshow last night. SMGDH. Janine Turner from Northern Exposure….looked like a recylced HO.