Simply Red were a British soul band that sold more than 50 million albums over a 25-year career. Their style drew influences from blue-eyed soul, New Romantic, rock, reggae and jazz. Since their early days the main driving force behind the band was singer Mick Hucknall, who by the time the band was disbanded in 2010 was the only original member left.[1]
Simply Red originated from the 1976 Sex Pistols gig at the Lesser Free Trade Hall in Manchester, England. Manchester art student Mick Hucknall was one of the many young music fans present, along with Mark E. Smith of The Fall as well as original members of the bands Joy Division, The Smiths and Buzzcocks. The first incarnation of the band was a punk group called The Frantic Elevators, which existed for 7 years, with limited releases on local labels. They split in 1984 with only limited local attention and critical acclaim for their final single, “Holding Back the Years“.
Obama Campaign Building Vandalized With Words ‘Muslim Lier’ In Iowa
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/05/obama-vandalism-muslim-iowa_n_1942505.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003
President Barack Obama’s campaign building in Des Moines, Iowa, was vandalized with the words “Muslim Lier” (intended to be “Liar”), spray-painted on a large banner.
_____________
Ignoramus ass clowns. Learn to spell before you try to insult someone
Rikyrah
check your email.
Uuggh, that ugly little gnome Jack Welch is on Hardball. Shameful racist bastard.
President Obama has f’d up their mind! He’s much too much for them!
Rep. Jon Hubbard: Slavery was good for black people
http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2012/10/05/republican-extremists-in-their-own-words
Extremism is no vice among Arkansas Republicans. And, no, I’m not talking about neo-Confederate Republican Rep. Loy Mauch, who once tried to have Abraham Lincoln’s bust removed from the Hot Springs Convention Center.
There’s also Rep. Jon Hubbard of Jonesboro, famously unhinged, who’s put some of his choicest thoughts on paper in a book available on Amazon, “Letters to the Editor: Confessions of a Frustrated Conservative.” I’d heard a lot about this book and was talking to Lindsey Millar this morning about ordering a copy. But Michael Cook at Talk Business has already written about some choice excerpts. I confess that publicizing thoughts such as these might only serve to encourage the Republican voter base. But the truth will set someone free. Excerpts selected by Cook and others:
Slavery was good for black people:
“… the institution of slavery that the black race has long believed to be an abomination upon its people may actually have been a blessing in disguise. The blacks who could endure those conditions and circumstances would someday be rewarded with citizenship in the greatest nation ever established upon the face of the Earth.” (Pages 183-89)
If you think slavery was bad, you should have seen Africa:
African Americans must “understand that even while in the throes of slavery, their lives as Americans are likely much better than they ever would have enjoyed living in sub-Saharan Africa.”
“Knowing what we know today about life on the African continent, would an existence spent in slavery have been any crueler than a life spent in sub-Saharan Africa?” (Pages 93 and 189)
Black people are ignorant:
“Wouldn’t life for blacks in America today be more enjoyable and successful if they would only learn to appreciate the value of a good education?” (Page 184)
Integration was bad for white people
“… one of the stated purposes of school integration was to bring black students up to a level close to that of white students. But, to the great disappointment of everyone, the results of this theory worked exactly in reverse of its intended purpose, and instead of black students rising to the educational levels previously attained by white students, the white students dropped to the level of black students. To make matters worse the lack of discipline and ambition of black students soon became shared by their white classmates, and our educational system has been in a steady decline ever since.” (Page 27)
LMBAO
Please add 2 more of these FINGERS for rikyrah and me. WE BE 3 CHICS!
LMBO@ Ametia!
Dear Jon Hubbard
My ENTIRE BLACK ASS!
Obama Fundraiser to Put Out Bin Laden Film Two Days Before Election
http://www.nationaljournal.com/2012-presidential-campaign/obama-fundraiser-to-put-out-bin-laden-film-two-days-before-election-20121005#.UG9dTMD8pIE.twitter
A movie depicting the manhunt for Osama bin Laden is set to be released on the National Geographic Channel two days before the general election, Yahoo! TV reports.
The film is being distributed by the Weinstein Company, whose co-founder, Harvey Weinstein, is a major Obama fundraiser. In August, he held a fundraising event for the president at his home in Connecticut.
The timing would suggest that the company is attempting to highlight a major moment in the Obama presidency just days before the election, though the company has not said as much.
“The events portrayed in the film were vetted by a team of experts, including a recently retired Navy SEAL, a top CIA operative and one of the most renowned bin Laden historians,” reads a press release for the film, called “Seal Team Six,” according to USA Today.
A trailer for the movie shows the training of Seal Team Six members, intelligence officers discussing strategy and shows a clip of President Obama briefly.
MITT SAID IT; HE MEANT IT!
Remember when Mitt Romney said 47% of Americans are “victims” who don’t “take responsibility for their lives”? Seventeen days after it leaked, he’s saying he didn’t mean a word of it.
My President!
Sweet! TCB, Mr. President!
President Obama drew massive crowds yesterday at the University of Wisconsin. Check out some of the local front pages this morning:
Wisconsin State Journal: http://bit.ly/UIStjK
The Sheboygan Press: http://bit.ly/PEAqZz
Journal Sentinel: http://bit.ly/PeTuDi
OshKosh: http://bit.ly/QA4I1X
Mitt Romney’s comments about getting rid of Big Bird are ruffling feathers up and down Sesame Street and across the country.
The DNC has released a new video: “Protect Big Oil, Fire Big Bird.” http://bit.ly/OHP6wE
“Big Bird,” writes the Washington Post’s Suzy Parker, “could serve as a bright yellow reminder that the Romney administration is keen on deep cuts to beloved institutions.” http://bit.ly/VqUKEM
“You find something else to cut off!”—An 8-year-old girl writes a letter to Mitt Romney about his plans to fire Big Bird: http://huff.to/WuPjTr
Mitt Romney’s tax math just doesn’t add up: http://bit.ly/T9N0X5
Fact check: Romney would not protect people with pre-existing conditions. http://bit.ly/SOUkSG
Despite his distortions, Romney would jeopardize education opportunities by slashing Pell Grants: http://bit.ly/OakT7W
Fact check: Romney’s false attacks belie his plans to gut the clean energy industry: http://bit.ly/OakRNc
Paul Krugman on why Romney’s mendacity concerning pre-existing conditions is a particularly “sick joke”: http://nyti.ms/WuP4HR
This MOFO right here:
October 5, 2012, 4:14 AM
Scalia: Abortion, death penalty “easy” cases
WASHINGTON Justice Antonin Scalia says his method of interpreting the Constitution makes some of the most hotly disputed issues that come before the Supreme Court among the easiest to resolve.
Scalia calls himself a “textualist” and, as he related to a few hundred people who came to buy his new book and hear him speak in Washington the other day, that means he applies the words in the Constitution as they were understood by the people who wrote and adopted them.
So Scalia parts company with former colleagues who have come to believe capital punishment is unconstitutional. The framers of the Constitution didn’t think so and neither does he.
“The death penalty? Give me a break. It’s easy. Abortion? Absolutely easy. Nobody ever thought the Constitution prevented restrictions on abortion. Homosexual sodomy? Come on. For 200 years, it was criminal in every state,” Scalia said at the American Enterprise Institute.
He contrasted his style of interpretation with that of a colleague who tries to be true to the values of the Constitution as he applies them to a changing world. This imaginary justice goes home for dinner and tells his wife what a wonderful day he had, Scalia said.
This imaginary justice, Scalia continued, announces that it turns out ” ‘the Constitution means exactly what I think it ought to mean.’ No kidding.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57526578/scalia-abortion-death-penalty-easy-cases/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=cheatsheet_afternoon&cid=newsletter%3Bemail%3Bcheatsheet_afternoon&utm_term=Cheat%20Sheet
BREAKING: U.S. Appeals Court Upholds Injunction in Ohio Early-Voting Case
Hitting Paul Ryan at home
By Greg Sargent
Mitt Romney’s selection of Paul Ryan as his vice presidential nominee has drawn national attention to Ryan’s Medicare plan. One measure of this: Rob Zerban, the Democrat challenging Ryan for his House seat in Wisconsin, has been able to raise some $770,000 for his race — outraising Ryan himself.
According to the Zerban campaign, 84 percent of his contributions come from outside Wisconsin, underscoring the intensity of feeling among Democrats nationally towards Ryan and his plan.
In this context, the new ad that Zerban is set to run against Ryan is worth watching. With Ryan set to debate Joe Biden next week, Ryan is under fire in his own district:
The ad strikes a moral tone against the Ryan plan, calling it “dangerous,” “cruel,” and “deeply wrong.” And it flatly claims Ryan’s plan “ends Medicare,” an assertion that has drawn scowls from fact checkers, even though Ryan’s plan would end Medicare’s core mission over time. (Paul Krugman has said the plan would “kill the program.”) Zerban claims: “I will never cut Medicare benefits. Ever.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/hitting-paul-ryan-at-home/2012/10/05/298019c6-0efc-11e2-bb5e-492c0d30bff6_blog.html
I can’t wait for the VP debate. Lil Eddie’s gonna get his azz punked.
going over to Steve Benen right now to check if his weekly MITT’S LIES post is up.
He could have done one totally on the debate. I wonder how long this week’s list is going to be.
LOL Can’t wait. Steve Benen’s been working overtime, and should be paid a gazillion $$$ for tracking all of Mitt’s lying fuckery.
President Obama speaking in Cleveland Ohio
http://www.ustream.tv/cbsnews
The “L” Word
By Betty Cracker
October 5th, 2012
Soledad O’Brien (who apparently didn’t get the CNN memo that stated, “Effective immediately, CNN staffers should emulate their Fox News counterparts at all times because we’re getting our asses kicked in the ratings, for Pete’s sake!”) had a question today for Romney surrogate Rep. Phil Gingrey of Georgia:
In case you can’t get off the boat, here’s a summary: O’Brien asked if advocating one set of policies on the campaign trail in front of herds of ravening wingnuts and then trotting out an entirely different set of policies before a national audience might not expose the candidate to charges of, well, LYING. Gingrey replies that “lying” and “campaigning” are basically interchangeable terms since of course you must tell each audience what it wants to hear to get elected.
He goes on to say that even though he, Gingrey, is a wingnut extremist of the first order, he was “perfectly comfortable” with Romney’s weathercock act because he knows it’s necessary to tell whopping lies to get elected, so what’s the big whoop? We knew this, of course—we haven’t been calling this the “post-truth” campaign for nothing. Still, it’s somewhat startling to see it stated so baldly
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2012/10/05/the-l-word/#comment-3803066
Linda @DebtTrut
Republicans own voting machines 2B used in all of Texas,Hawaii and Oklahoma. They R made by Hart Interacative. Hart connected to BAIN
NOM ‘Laundered A Quarter Of A Million Dollars’ Equality Group Charges
by David Badash on October 5, 2012
Mainers United For Marriage, a group working to support legalization of same-sex marriage in Maine, is charging NOM with having “laundered a quarter of a million dollars” into the Maine marriage campaign, in continued violation of Maine’s state ethics laws. On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to even hear a case NOM tried to file, after losing several appeals that are requiring NOM, the National Organization For Marriage, to do what every other non-profit is required to do: make their list of donors public once it reaches a certain threshold…
http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/nom-laundered-a-quarter-of-a-million-dollars-equality-group-charges/politics/2012/10/05/50352
President Obama Answers Questions From Indian Country Today Media Network in Unprecedented Exchange
http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/10/04/president-obama-answers-questions-from-indian-country-today-media-network-in-unprecedented-exchange-137584
Not only is this the first time President Obama has done a Q&A with the American Indian press, it is believed to be the first time a sitting president of the United States has conducted such an interview with Native media. It’s a first that aligns with the image Obama has worked hard to cultivate in Indian country. Adopted as “One Who Helps People Throughout the Land” when he was campaigning for president on the Crow Nation reservation in May 2008, he has since hired several Native American staffers, held three annual tribal summits and taken administrative action on multiple long-standing trust and water settlements. He has also supported and signed pro-tribal legislation, including the Indian Health Care Improvement Act, the Tribal Law and Order Act and the Helping Expedite and Advance Responsible Tribal Homeownership [HEARTH] Act. His record has pleased many tribal leaders; some hail him as one of the best presidents for Indian country in recent history.
OBAMA / BIDEN 2012! STRAIGHT DEM TICKET!
Goldman Drops A Bomb On People Who Think The Unemployment Rate Was Cooked
http://www.businessinsider.com/goldman-drops-the-neutron-bomb-on-people-who-think-the-unemployment-rate-was-cooked-2012-10?utm_source=twbutton&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=moneygame
Goldman thinks the unemployment rate number is solid despite all the hyperventilating and BLS terrorism out there.
The most eye-catching part of this report is the 0.3-point drop in the unemployment rate, to 7.8%. For the most part, this looks like a genuine move, as it comes alongside large increases in both the labor force (+418,000) and the tally of jobs in the survey of households (+873,000) of which 187,000 was due to government.
_____________
***dancing***
LOL Thanks for these pics & links. They make for a great thread. See thread
3ChicsPolitico – Obama Campaign 2012
President Obama: “Gov. Romney was fact-checked by his own campaign”
CNBC heartbroken that Americans are finding jobs http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/10/05/967021/cnbc-host-jobs-conspiracy/ …
Liberalinsc@Liberalinsc1
PBS Statement Regarding October 3 Presidential Debate http://j.mp/SAr8Cs
LIVE on C-SPAN: President Obama Campaign Event in Fairfax, Virginia at http://bit.ly/PeSIpS .
Conversations: Rep. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, discusses the current crisis in Libya and Muslims in America
By Michelle Boorstein, Published: October 4
As the first Muslim elected to Congress, Rep. Keith Ellison(D-Minn.) is often a go-to person for Muslim Americans, Muslim leaders overseas and others focused on the intersection of Islam and government. He has served on the Foreign Affairs Committee and the House Democracy Partnership, which works with lawmakers in emerging democracies. Washington Post religion reporter Michelle Boorstein asked Ellison about some of the Islam-related stories in the news.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/conversations-rep-keith-ellison-the-first-muslim-elected-to-congress-discusses-the-current-crisis-in-libya-and-muslims-in-america/2012/10/04/2feaf338-0d64-11e2-bd1a-b868e65d57eb_story.html?wpisrc=nl_fedinsider
Whoo hoo!
Not in 2-D Kansas anymore: 3-D ‘Wizard of Oz’ is coming to home video in 2013
by Hillary Busis
Next fall, there will be no place like home — provided one’s home is equipped with a 3-D television.
Warner Bros. announced today that a new 3-D conversion of The Wizard of Oz is coming to DVD and Blu-ray in 2013. The release is part of the studio’s 90th anniversary celebration; a special 100 film DVD collection and 50 film Blu-ray collection will also be released in honor of this milestone. Additionally, the studio has put together a pair of documentaries — Tales from the Warner Bros. Lot and The Warner Bros. Lot Tour, which gives viewers a virtual version of the tour given at Warner’s Burbank headquarters.
The Wizard of Oz first hit theaters in 1939. In 2009, a four-disc 70th anniversary edition of the film was released on Blu-Ray; it included a variety of production documentaries, outtakes, and still galleries, but only two dimensions.
http://insidemovies.ew.com/2012/10/04/wizard-of-oz-3d/
DEBATE VICTORY VALIDATES ROMNEY STRATEGY OF NONSTOP LYING
Posted by Andy Borowitz
NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report)—Taking a victory lap after their candidate’s win in the first Presidential debate Wednesday night, Romney campaign insiders today attributed his success to his strategic use of relentless lying.
“We worked for hours on this during the practice debates,” said the campaign manager Matt Rhoades. “We were, like, ‘Mitt, if you find yourself on the verge of saying something true, bite your tongue.’ ”
Mr. Rhoades said that the nominee was allowed to say his real name and acknowledge that he used to be a Governor, “but other than that, he was on a very short leash, truth-wise.”
While Mr. Romney’s talent for lying was in evidence during the Republican primary debates, it was nothing like the “mad skills” he displayed Wednesday night, the campaign manager said.
“All the hard work and practice lying really paid off,” Mr. Rhoades said. “Plus hanging out with Paul Ryan.”
Get the Borowitz Report delivered to your inbox.
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2012/10/debate-victory-validates-romney-strategy-of-nonstop-lying.html#ixzz28RCjZAS6
Dear VP Biden,
I’m so looking forward to the debate next Thursday night.
I hope you make Lil Eddie Munster bend over so that you can give him a good ass whupping
Lots of Love & good wishes,
Ametia
Seconded!
He has class, style, intellect, good looks, & don’t forget that off the charts——> swagger!
http://youtu.be/7UwHfwGVoEY
That’s why they’re mad!
Damn President Barack Obama….No President has ever looked so FINE!
Bow Chicka Bow Wow!
**splashes water on face**
He’s ALL.OF.THAT.
Joe Scarborough: Jobs Report Numbers ‘Don’t Add Up’ (VIDEO)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/05/joe-scarborough-jobs-report-numbers_n_1942430.html?1349446884
MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough repeatedly questioned the methodology of the unemployment rate during Friday’s show following the announcement that the rate had dropped from 8.1 to 7.8 percent.
Scarborough was part of a broader trend of conservatives questioning the jobs figures. In the show’s final half hour, devoted primarily to the jobs report, he said the number “doesn’t make sense,” is “confusing” and suggested that the .3 percent drop – following the addition of 114,000 jobs – is a “mixed bag” for the White House.
“Somebody’s got to explain this,” Scarborough said. “This doesn’t make sense. This doesn’t make sense.”
Wassamattu, Joe?
Fuck you JOEY SCAR! You don’t add up with that deadinterninyouroffice dude
Jobs Report Brings Unexpected Good News for Obama
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/05/jobs-report-brings-unexpected-good-news-for-obama/
9:56 a.m. | Updated After a lackluster debate, President Obama faced the prospect of a second piece of bad political news with Friday morning’s jobs report. Instead, Mr. Obama — and the economy — received some unexpected good news.
Economists will spend the rest of the day parsing the numbers and arguing over exactly the best way to describe the report, but there is little question about its overall thrust: positive.
The unemployment rate dropped sharply, to 7.8 percent from 8.1 percent, because the Labor Department’s survey of households showed a large gain in the number of employed people in September. The survey of businesses showed a smaller gain, but the survey also showed that hiring gains in July and August were larger than expected.
Stocks rally on drop in jobless rate to 7.8% http://usat.ly/OaaDMO “
ThinkProgress@thinkprogress
GOP National Lawyers Assoc. advice for losing candidates: “Get your operatives out on the streets” to challenge voters http://thkpr.gs/PEibn3
VOTER INTIMIDATION IS A FEDERAL OFFENSE, BITCHES!
Roll up on me with that nonsense, and see what will happen.
ThinkProgress@thinkprogress
UPDATE: 7 prominent conservatives who insist today’s job numbers are faked http://thkpr.gs/QXkKoO
Right, they claim the Black POTUS is fake too. LMBAO I’m really enjoying these mofos complete meltdown and alternate reality. They can’t cope with the FACTS.
October 05, 2012 9:29 AM
BLS Truthers
By Ed Kilgore
You expect this sort of thing from the more distant regions of the fever swamps, but not from an American business titan:
Former General Electric Co. (GE) Chief Executive Officer Jack Welch accused the Obama administration on Twitter of manipulating today’s employment data for political advantage.
Roseanne Badowski, Welch’s secretary, said the retired CEO is the only one with access to the Twitter account and is now unavailable for the rest of the day in meetings.
Yeah, we’ve all used the “I said something stupid so from now on I’m in meetings” bit.
But I gather this insane BLS Truther stuff is spreading pretty widely through the conservative chattering classes. I guess they are so angry at the premature killing of their buzz over Wednesday night that it has to be a conspiracy.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2012_10/bls_truthers040318.php
Romney’s $5 Trillion Tax Dodge
Brian Beutler-October 4, 2012, 12:01 PM
If you watched Wednesday night’s presidential debate you witnessed an amazing role reversal for a modern Republican. President Obama accused Mitt Romney of wanting to cut taxes — specifically by $5 trillion — and Mitt Romney claimed he’d be strongly opposed to such a terrible idea.
A Republican, opposed to a giant tax cut? Here he is in his own words.
“I don’t have a $5 trillion tax cut. … I’m not looking for a $5 trillion tax cut. … Let me repeat what I said. I’m not in favor of a $5 trillion tax cut. That’s not my plan.”
Romney’s objection is that the $5 trillion tax cut is only one half of his plan. But crucially, it’s the only part of his plan that he’s detailed with any specificity.
The $5 trillion from the nonpartisan, independent, Tax Policy Center. It’s an estimate of how much cutting everyone’s tax rates 20 percent below where they are right now would add to deficits over 10 years. That gross tax cut figure is not in dispute. Romney’s complaint is that it only accounts for one big piece of his tax plan. But what’s still unclear, perhaps more unclear after the debate, is the other big piece: how Romney plans to pay for it.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/10/romneys-5-trillion-tax-dodge.php
Coal Miner’s Donor
A Mitt Romney benefactor and his surprisingly generous employees.
IT IS BOTH a pundit’s truism and a mathematical reality that Mitt Romney’s path to the White House runs through Ohio. And that path, in turn, runs through a firm called Murray Energy.
Over the years, CEO Robert Murray has brought in GOP pols from as far away as Alaska, California, and Massachusetts for fund-raisers. In 2010, the year John Boehner became House speaker, the firm’s 3,000 employees and their families were his second-biggest source of funds. (AT&T was in first place, but it has nearly 200,000 employees.) This year, Murray is one of the most important GOP players in one of the most important battleground states in the country. In May, he hosted a $1.7 million fund-raiser for Romney. Employees have given the nominee more than $120,000. In August, Romney used Murray’s Century Mine in the town of Beallsville for a speech attacking Barack Obama as anti-coal. This fall, scenes from that event—several dozen coal-smudged Murray miners standing behind the candidate in a tableau framed by a giant American flag and a COAL COUNTRY STANDS WITH MITT placard—have shown up in a Romney ad.
The ads aired even after Ohio papers reported what I was told by several miners at the event, a bit of news that an internal memo confirms: The crowd was not there of its own accord. Murray had suspended Century’s operations and made clear to workers that they were expected to attend, without pay. “I tell ya, you’ve got a great boss,” Romney said in acknowledging Robert Murray from the stage. “He runs a great operation here.”
The accounts of two sources who have worked in managerial positions at the firm, and a review of letters and memos to Murray employees, suggest that coercion may also explain Murray staffers’ financial support for Romney. Murray, it turns out, has for years pressured salaried employees to give to the Murray Energy political action committee (PAC) and to Republican candidates chosen by the company. Internal documents show that company officials track who is and is not giving. The sources say that those who do not give are at risk of being demoted or missing out on bonuses, claims Murray denies.
The Murray sources, who requested anonymity for fear of retribution, came forward separately. But they painted similar pictures of the fund-raising operation. “There’s a lot of coercion,” says one of them. “I just wanted to work, but you feel this constant pressure that, if you don’t contribute, your job’s at stake. You’re compelled to do this whether you want to or not.” Says the second: “They will give you a call if you’re not giving. . . . It’s expected you give Mr. Murray what he asks for.”
And what he asks for offers a lesson for 2012: Even in a year of hyperventilation about super PACs, dubious older ways of raising political dollars still matter.
http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/108140/coal-miners-donor-mitt-romney-benefactor#
Romney’s $5 Trillion Tax Dodge
By Editorial Board, Published: October 4T
he Washington Post
HERE IS ONE way to distill the confusing charges and countercharges of the first presidential debate:
President Obama has no adequate plan to cope with the frightening level of debt the U.S. government is accumulating.
Republican nominee Mitt Romney has a plan to make it worse.
To understand that harsh assessment, you have to spend a few minutes with some facts that Mr. Romney did his best to obscure Wednesday.
“First of all, I don’t have a $5 trillion tax cut,” he said.
In fact, Mr. Romney has proposed lowering income tax rates, abolishing the estate tax and making other changes that would cost $5 trillion over 10 years. When he says he has no such plan, he means that he intends to make up for the lost revenue by closing loopholes — what’s benignly known as “broadening the base.” Moreover, he says he can close so many loopholes for rich people that the middle class will end up paying less.
But even if you close every rich person’s loophole, you don’t save enough money to do everything Mr. Romney wants to do. The Republican cites studies that he says prove that wrong, but when you look closely, they prove him wrong. For example, Harvard economist (and Romney adviser) Martin Feldstein showed that you could pay for Mr. Romney’s tax cut by taking away deductions — mortgage interest, charitable, state and local tax — from households making more than $100,000. But then Mr. Romney said he considers households earning up to $250,000 to be middle class. So the math collapses again.
Moreover, these deductions are popular — with the real estate industry, with museums and churches and charities that rely on donations, and with taxpayers. So Mr. Romney won’t say which he would trim. He suggested recently that, instead of abolishing any, he might just cap how much a taxpayer can deduct — a plan similar to one Mr. Obama has proposed. But then he’s even less likely to make up for his lost revenue.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/romneys-ruinous-tax-plan/2012/10/04/191ed8f8-0e28-11e2-bb5e-492c0d30bff6_story.html?Post+generic=%3Ftid%3Dsm_twitter_washingtonpost
Romney says most small businesses will see a tax hit. Here’s why he’s wrong.
Posted by Dylan Matthews on October 4, 2012 at 12:41 pm
In the tax portion of last night’s debate, Mitt Romney repeatedly claimed that President Obama will raise taxes on small businesses. “Fifty-four percent of America’s workers work in businesses that are taxed not at the corporate tax rate but at the individual tax rate,” he argued. “And if we lower that rate, they will be able to hire more people.”
Obama replied that 97 percent of businesses who pay individual rates wouldn’t see their taxes go up. But Romney disputed the relevance of that figure. “But those businesses that are in the last 3 percent of businesses happen to employ half — half of all the people who work in small business,” he argued. “Those are the businesses that employ one-quarter of all the workers in America.”
So who’s right? First, the 97 percent figure is if anything an underestimate. According to the Tax Policy Center, in 2011 only 1.4 percent of individual filers reporting “business income” paid the top 33 percent or 35 percent tax rates. The other 98.6 percent either paid the Alternative Minimum Tax (which Obama would replace with the Buffett rule) or else paid taxes at lower rates, which Obama has said he won’t alter.
That said, the 447,000 households paying top rates on business income tend to get more of their income from businesses than those in lower brackets do:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/10/04/romney-says-most-workers-at-small-businesses-will-see-a-tax-hit-heres-why-hes-wrong/?wprss=rss_business
October 04, 2012 2:32 PM
The Audacity of Mendacity
By Ed Kilgore
We have four weeks and five days before Election Day, with more and more people casting early votes each day that goes by. There are two more presidential debates, a vice presidential debate still to go. Roughly a gazillion dollars will be spent on late paid media in the battleground states, with Republicans holding a significant but not overwhelming advantage, and another gazillion dollars worth of GOTV activities, with Democrats holding a significant but not overwhelming advantage in that segment of the campaign.
No one will obviously know what if any real impact the first debate has on candidate preferences until the polls start coming out, and while Romney may get a “bump” (largely from Republican voters who were eventually coming around anyway), it could be small enough that all the “game-changing” talk today will seem silly. But without question, Romney got a psychological lift when he most needed it, and for the moment, got conservative critics off his back without taking their suicidal advice to put on a Barry Goldwater mask and unleash the Real Paul Ryan.
Immediate polls aside, the bad news for Romney and the good news for Obama is that the latter’s failure last night to take advantage of the openings the former offered in reframing his record and agenda did not take those openings away. Today’s Team Obama seems to be aggressively playing catch-up (per TPM’s Benjy Sarlin):
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2012_10/now_what040303.php
The Favorability Impact
by BooMan
Thu Oct 4th, 2012 at 07:06:19 PM EST
Take this post with a grain of salt. Why? Because I am discussing a single poll, and we don’t want to go overboard in drawing conclusions from one data point. Credit goes to Kos for examining the internals of the post-debate Ipsos/Reuters poll, where he discovered something very interesting about how each candidate managed to improve their favorability numbers last night.
Mitt Romney went from 46-51 unfavorable before the debate to 51-49 favorable after the debate. But he gained exactly nothing from independents and almost nothing from Democrats. His favorable numbers went up because Republicans loved his aggressive approach.
Obama’s overall favorable numbers remained unchanged at 56-44. His numbers with Democrats also remained unchanged at 90-10. But he flipped a 46-54 deficit with independents to a 54-46 positive rating. The post-debate sample included fewer Democrats than the pre-debate sample, which helps explain why Obama’s overall rating remained constant even as he did so well with independents.
Again, this is a single poll. But if these numbers hold up in other polls, it tells us that Obama actually won the debate with people in the middle who are what we call persuadable voters. It could be that people recognized that Romney was more aggressive and therefore assume he won the debate, but they weren’t personally impressed. Republicans loved the debate because Romney got to use a bunch of their crazy talking points without the usual contradiction. It made them feel good to watch someone get away with that for a change and also to see someone be rude, arrogant and condescending to the president they love to hate. There’s a real benefit to this for Romney. He energized his own troops. He gave them hope. He gave them a reason to keep working. He pulled a lot of people out of their apathetic stupor. Riling up the troops is important and will deliver votes to Romney. But it comes at a cost, too.
Remember, in the famous 47% speech, Romney explained why he wasn’t being more combative and condescending to the president.
http://www.boomantribune.com/
Paul Krugman: “No. 1,” declared Mitt Romney in Wednesday’s debate, “pre-existing conditions are covered under my plan.” No, they aren’t — as Mr. Romney’s own advisers have conceded in the past, and did again after the debate.
Was Mr. Romney lying? Well, either that or he was making what amounts to a sick joke. Either way, his attempt to deceive voters on this issue was the biggest of many misleading and/or dishonest claims he made over the course of that hour and a half….
…. What Mr. Romney did in the debate was, at best, to play a word game with voters, pretending to offer something substantive for the uninsured while actually offering nothing. For all practical purposes, he simply lied about what his policy proposals would do.
How many Americans would be left out in the cold under Mr. Romney’s plan? One answer is 89 million. According to the nonpartisan Commonwealth Foundation, that’s the number of Americans who lack the “continuous coverage” that would make them eligible for health insurance under Mr. Romney’s empty promises. By the way, that’s more than a third of the U.S. population under 65 years old.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/04/romneys-sick-joke/?smid=tw-NytimesKrugman&seid=auto
Posted at 11:58 AM ET, 10/04/2012
TheWashingtonPost
Romney’s policies are still deeply unpopular, which is why he relentlessly obfuscated about them
By Greg Sargent
Mitt Romney decisively won last night’s debate in a way that may or may not change the fundamentals of the race. But here are a few fundamentals that his performance has not altered:
1) Mitt Romney’s approach to deficit reduction is deeply unpopular. At the debate, Romney again confirmed what he had during the GOP primary debates: He won’t accept one additional dollar in tax revenues from the rich in exchange for $10 in spending cuts. This is a deeply unpopular position. Polls have shown solid majorities support a mix of tax hikes on the rich and spending cuts to cut the deficit.
2) Romney supports unpopular tax cuts for the rich. Romney’s proposed 20-percent across the board tax cut would disproportionately benefit the rich. Romney got around this by saying: “I will not reduce the share paid by high-income individuals.” But this is a ruse: He can still reduce the amount they pay, without reducing the share of the overall burden they pay — indeed, that’s what an across the board tax cut is.
Romney also said: “I cannot reduce the burden paid by high-income Americans.” This is also a ruse. Romney has said he would not reduce incentives for investment savings. But the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center found that this would not leave enough high end loopholes behind that could be ended to match the amount of the wealthy’s 20 percent tax cut. So his plan would reduce their burden — full stop. This is a deeply unpopular position: majorities support tax hikes on the wealthy, which is why Romney had to obfuscate the true nature of his proposal.
3) Romney supports a deeply unpopular plan to change Medicare. When you get past the noisy exchanges, Romney confirmed his support last night for reforming Medicare by transforming it into a voucher system in a manner that will, over time, end the program’s core mission. Solid majorities in key swing states oppose this plan.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/romneys-policies-are-still-deeply-unpopular-which-is-why-he-relentlessly-obfuscated-about-them/2012/10/04/b61cc8ec-0e35-11e2-bd1a-b868e65d57eb_blog.html
Posted at 01:34 PM ET, 10/04/2012
TheWashingtonPost
Obama campaign’s response to the new mendacious Mitt: Facts
By Greg Sargent
The Obama campaign is already going up with a new ad in the seven key swing states hitting Mitt Romney for misleading people about his tax plan last night. The spot is a first glimpse into how the Obama campaign will adapt to the Romney we saw at the debate, after the President got caught badly flat-footed in his crosshairs:
The ad’s approach is straightforward: It corrects Romney’s obfuscations with facts. It shows Romney claiming his plan won’t cut taxes by $5 trillion, then points out that the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center found that it would, in fact, cost $4.8 trillion over 10 years.
“Why won’t Romney level with us about his tax plan, which gives the wealthy huge new tax breaks?” a narrator asks. “Because according to experts, he’d have to raise taxes on the middle class — or increase the deficit — to pay for it. If we can’t trust him here…how could we ever trust him here?” During that last line, you see Mitt on the debate stage, and then a shot of the Oval Office.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/obama-campaigns-response-to-the-new-mendacious-mitt-facts/2012/10/04/165e9b76-0e46-11e2-bb5e-492c0d30bff6_blog.html
Posted at 02:54 PM ET, 10/04/2012
TheWashingtonPost
Will Romney’s debate lies become the story?
By Jonathan Bernstein
The question for the press over the next few days is increasingly clear: Will the big story be about Mitt Romney’s debate victory — which, in turn, is almost certainly all about style points and Barack Obama’s flat performance? Or will it be about Romney’s repeated failures to stick to the facts?
The story here is that monolithic information flows can be fairly powerful, albeit limited both by basic partisanship and by those who, for other reasons, have already made up their mind. However, for those who might be still deciding, if everything they hear about the debate is positive for Romney, it certainly could affect their vote.
The most likely alternative story the press could wind up telling is pretty simple: Romney failed to tell the truth last night. That’s the story that the Obama campaign is pushing in their instant ad taken from the debate, which hits Romney on his tax plan; it’s the story that many of the liberal blogs are running with today, probably because that’s what wonky bloggers are apt to do anyway.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/will-romneys-lies-be-a-thing/2012/10/04/fc9ba078-0e52-11e2-ba6c-07bd866eb71a_blog.html
No, “moderate Mitt” isn’t back
A month before the election, he’s suddenly embraced the same rhetorical strategy George W. Bush used in 2000
By Steve Kornacki
The news overnight was that Mitt Romney had decided to do a mea culpa for the secretly recorded “47 percent” remarks that rocked his campaign a few weeks ago, calling them “just completely wrong” in an interview with Sean Hannity.
This came 24 hours after a debate in which Romney labored to present himself as more of a pragmatist than an ideologue, objecting insistently when President Obama tried to link him to conservative economic ideas that would threaten the safety net. And it came a little over a week after Romney invoked his own Massachusetts healthcare law – a law that served as the blueprint for ObamaCare and that Romney ignored as much as possible during the Republican primaries — as proof of his commitment to aiding poor and middle-class Americans.
These developments are leading the press to declare that Romney is moving to the center – and some pundits to celebrate the supposed return of Mitt the Massachusetts Moderate. But this is a complete misreading of what Romney’s actually up to.
Yes, it’s true, he’s been striking a more moderate tone of late. And for good reason. In the Obama-era, the Republican Party has moved far to the right, reflexively opposing every major Obama initiative (even those grounded in traditionally Republican principles) and imposing stringent purity tests on its own candidates. The result is that the GOP never bothered these past four years to formulate a coherent and marketable policy blueprint. To the masses, the GOP’s main selling point has been – and continues to be – this simple message: We’re not Obama. To the extent the party has spelled out affirmative policy ideas, it’s mainly created headaches for Republican candidates running in competitive general election contests.
http://www.salon.com/2012/10/05/no_%E2%80%9Cmoderate_mitt%E2%80%9D_isn%E2%80%99t_back/
Campaign Surrogate Admits Romney Is Changing Positions Just To Win Votes
Romney campaign surrogate Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA) admitted that the GOP presidential candidates was changing his positions and moving towards the middle in order to win over voters, during an appearance on CNN’s Starting Point on Friday morning. Gingrey’s comments, reminiscent of Romney advisor Eric Fehrnstrom’s claim that Romney would “Etch-A-Sketch” his positions after the GOP primary, came in response to the candidate’s recent claim that his 47% remarks were “completely wrong.” [….]
http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/10/05/966031/campaign-surrogate-admits-romney-is-changing-positions-just-to-win-votes/
Posted at 09:04 AM ET, 10/05/2012
The Morning Plum: Don’t be fooled by Mitt’s moderate makeover
By Greg Sargent
At the debate on Tuesday, Mitt Romney masterfully obscured his true positions on everything from taxes to education to health care. He presented himself as the technocratic centrist he used to be and gave voice to a balanced approach to the role of government that is sorely lacking from his actual policy proposals.
The next step in this makeover came last night, when he disavowed his remarks about the freeloading 47 percent:
Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney is disavowing his controversial remarks dismissing “the 47 percent” of Americans who don’t pay federal income taxes, saying in an interview Thursday night that the comments were “just completely wrong.”
“My life has shown that I care about 100 percent, and that’s been demonstrated throughout my life,” Romney told conservative commentator Sean Hannity on Fox News. “And this whole campaign is about the 100 percent.”
The problem here, of course, is that after the freeloading 47 percent video came to light, Romney stood by the remarks he had made, allowing that they were not “elegantly stated,” but saying that describing them as “a message which I am going to carry and continue to carry.” It seems clear from that videotape that Romney does subscribe to the “makers and moochers” worldview, at least in some form, even if he has now recognized that it’s toxic to his presidential hopes.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line
Sununu pushes his luck
By Steve Benen
Thu Oct 4, 2012 4:47 PM EDT.
Romney campaign chairman John Sununu has been a little unhinged in his attacks on President Obama — and sometimes, more than a little — and in the wake of last night’s debate, the Republican was in rare form with MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell this afternoon.
Note Sununu’s particular choice of words: he isn’t just condemning the president in a rather classless way, he’s using words like “lazy,” “incompetent,” and “disengaged.” Asked if he wanted to take the words back, Sununu used the identical words again.
Sununu also said today, “When you’re not that bright you can’t get better prepared.”
There was a point, not too terribly long ago, when Mitt Romney claimed to be outraged by sleazy, personal attacks, dragging the presidential campaign into the gutter. Given this, should we assume Romney will accept Sununu’s resignation today?
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/10/04/14226908-sununu-pushes-his-luck?lite
Sorry Spectacle
By mistermix October 5th, 2012
Who knows if it was intentional, but not mentioning the 47% was in hindsight a smart move on Obama’s part, because Romney had an apology all ready to go. Instead of trotting it out in front of a debate audience, he did it on Hannity’s show last night.
The DC media is in day two of shiny new object mode, but I see even the liberal Washington Post showing a wee bit of skepticism about handsome, commanding, manly Mitt:
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2012/10/05/sorry-spectacle/
Will Mitt’s Mendacity undermine his big win?
By Steve Benen
–
Thu Oct 4, 2012 3:46 PM EDT.
88
In late August, Mitt Romney’s chief pollster, asked about the campaign’s welfare lie, said, “[W]e’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers.” After watching last night, I guess he wasn’t kidding.
What will be interesting to watch at this point is whether a meme starts to develop. Phase One of the post-debate analysis saw a consensus quickly coalesce: Romney won with relative ease. Perhaps Phase Two will consider how the Republican managed to do so well?
This is admittedly only a sampling, but this piece from New York’s Jon Chait caught my eye:
Romney won the debate in no small part because he adopted a policy of simply lying about his policies. Probably the best way to understand Obama’s listless performance is that he was prepared to debate the claims Romney has been making for the entire campaign, and Romney switched up and started making different and utterly bogus ones.
As did this one from Rolling Stone’s Tim Dickinson:
Mitt Romney turned in a polished performance in last night’s presidential debate – and revealed himself to be an accomplished and unapologetic liar. In an evening where he sought to slice and dice the president with statistics, Romney baldly misrepresented his own policy prescriptions, made up numbers to fit his attacks and buried clear contrasts with the president.
CNN’s David Gergen, hardly a liberal, was thinking along the same lines as Chait, saying last night he thinks Obama was surprised that Romney was “flat out lying” during the debate. Plenty of others were thinking along the same lines.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/10/04/14226171-will-mitts-mendacity-undermine-his-big-win?lite
Mitt walks back the 47% comments on FOX NEWS:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45755883/vp/49296865#49296865
THERE IS NO WALING THIS COMMENT BACK, MOFO. YOUTUBE, BITCH!
Why the Pundits Are Wrong About the Debate
Everyone is freaking out about Obama’s debate performance. But the President did what anybody paying close attention would have known he would do. He played it safe.
October 4, 2012 |
Today you will not be able to swing a dead cat without hitting laments about Obama’s awful performance in last night’s presidential debate and assessments that Romney is back in the race
Why didn’t Obama come out swinging? Why was he so dull? Where was his energy? It’s a game-changer! Romney could take the White House! OMG!!!
Yawn.
Last night I placed a five-dollar bill into a bowl at the start of the debate, clipped to a prediction that Romney would be declared the winner. Not especially because I think that Romney is a better debater, or that I feared Obama would make some horrible gaffe – but because that’s how The Script has to go in these cases.
Obama did what anybody paying close attention would have known he would do. He played it safe. And he stuck to a rather dull rhetorical style because – he has a rather dull rhetorical style. Also because that’s what you do when you’re the frontrunner. You don’t say or do anything wild and crazy. You let your opponent jump up and down and make excitable noises. Which is precisely what Romney did. Some have read Romney’s stance as aggressive, others as pushy, but there’s one word that you’re unlikely to hear: “presidential.” Makes for good theatrics. But it won’t win you the White House.
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/why-pundits-are-wrong-about-debate
Poll: Hispanics in Florida favor President Barack Obama over Mitt Romney, 61-31
By Marc Caputo
mcaputo@MiamiHerald.com
Hispanic voters in Florida heavily favor President Obama, strongly back his immigration positions and are highly enthusiastic about voting, according to a new poll released Thursday.
Also, about half of all the voters know someone who is illegally in the country, according to the survey of 400 registered Florida Hispanics conducted by Latino Decisions for America’s Voice, a group that advocates for liberal immigration policies.
Obama pulls 61 percent Hispanic support compared to 31 percent for Republican Mitt Romney, the poll showed.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/10/04/3034352/poll-hispanics-in-florida-favor.html#storylink=cpy
OUCH!
JOBS-UNEMPLOYMENT RATE!
The U.S. economy added 114,000 jobs last month, while the unemployment rate fell to 7.8%, the Labor Department says.
The number of jobs added is roughly in line with economists’ forecasts. However, the decline in unemployment was greater than expected and the number of jobs added in August was revised higher than originally reported.
The country generally needs at least 150,000 new jobs each month to keep up with population growth.
7.8 percent bitches!!!
….hush your mouth! lol
LMBAO And the RWNJ are in complete MELTDOWN over the numbers.
See Mittens some of us know our ARITHMETIC.
Seems to me we had a Friday just about a week ago! What’s with that? Elect a Democratic congress to help President Obama cut back on Fridays!
Romney wants two Fridays every week! Until we get the deficit under control, we must have fewer Fridays!
:)
Of course Romney CHEATS- LIARS CHEAT.
Did Romney Cheat? – Vid – You Decide
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/04/1140213/-Did-Romney-Cheat-Vid-You-Decide
http://youtu.be/dkrwUU_YApE
What did Nancy say?
^5
BWA HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAA
Morning, 3 Chics! Happy Friday!
Good Morning, SG2 & Everyone! Happy FRY-day. :-) Loves me some Simply Red.
Good Morning, Ametia, SG2 and Everyone :)