Good Morning. Someone is celebrating their 50th birthday.
His name is Bond……James Bond.
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming’s death in 1964: Kingsley Amis, Christopher Wood, John Gardner, Raymond Benson, Sebastian Faulks and Jeffery Deaver; a new novel, written by William Boyd, is planned for release in 2013.[1] Additionally, Charlie Higson wrote a series on a young James Bond and Kate Westbrook wrote three novels based on the diaries of a recurring series character, Moneypenny.
The fictional British Secret Service agent has also been adapted for television, radio, comic strip and video game formats as well as being used in the longest continually running and the second-highest grossing film franchise to date, which started in 1962 with Dr. No, starring Sean Connery as Bond. As of 2012, there have been twenty three films in the Eon Productions series. The most recent Bond film, Skyfall, stars Daniel Craig in his third portrayal of Bond: he is the sixth actor to play Bond in the Eon series. There have also been two independent productions of Bond films, Casino Royale, a 1967 spoof, and Never Say Never Again, a 1983 remake of an earlier Eon-produced film, Thunderball.
The films are renowned for a number of features, including the musical accompaniment, with the theme songs to the films having picked up Academy Award nominations on several occasions. Other important elements which run through most of the films include Bond’s cars, his guns and the gadgets he is supplied with by Q Branch.
James Bond in film
The James Bond film series is a British series of spy films based on the fictional character of MI6 agent James Bond (code designation “007”), who originally appeared in a series of books by Ian Fleming. Earlier films were based on Fleming’s novels and short stories, followed later by films with original storylines. It is one of the longest continually-running film series in history, having been in ongoing production from 1962 to the present (with a six-year hiatus between 1989 and 1995).[1] In that time Eon Productions has produced 23 films, at an average of about one every two years, usually produced at Pinewood Studios. The series has grossed just over US$5 billion to date, making it the second-highest-grossing film series (behind Harry Potter)[2], and the single most successful adjusted for inflation.[3] Six actors have portrayed 007 in the Eon series, with the Sean Connery films largely setting the style and mood of the series, and Roger Moore starring in the most films.
Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman co-produced the Eon films until 1975, when Broccoli became the sole producer. Since 1995, Broccoli’s daughter Barbara and stepson Michael G. Wilson have co-produced them. Broccoli’s (and until 1975, Saltzman’s) family company, Danjaq, has held ownership of the series through Eon, and maintained co-ownership with United Artists since the mid-1970s. From the release of Dr. No (1962) up to For Your Eyes Only (1981) the films were distributed solely by United Artists. When Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer bought United Artists in 1981, MGM/UA Entertainment Co. was formed and distributed the films until 1995. MGM solely distributed three films from 1997 to 2002 after United Artists retired as a mainstream studio. From 2006 to present MGM and Columbia Pictures have co-distributed the film series, following the 2005 acquisition of MGM by a consortium led by Columbia’s parent company, Sony Pictures Entertainment. In November 2010, MGM filed for bankruptcy. Following MGM’s emergence from bankruptcy, Columbia has been co-production partner of the series with Danjaq.
Independently of the Eon series, there have been three additional film or television productions with the character of James Bond – a 1967 satirical film spoof, Casino Royale, based on the novel of the same name, a 1983 remake of Thunderball entitled Never Say Never Again starring Sean Connery and a 1954 American television adaptation, Casino Royale.
The First Bond (and, IMO, THE James Bond):
Sean Connery.
Sean Connery as James Bond in:
Dr. No (1962)
From Russia with Love (1963)
Goldfinger (1964)
Thunderball (1965)
You Only Live Twice (1967)
Diamonds Are Forever (1971)
Hurricane Sandy Rips Facade Off an Apartment Building in New York City
Nation’s oldest nuclear power plant put on alert due to storm-driven high waters: http://apne.ws/SXOyQj #Sandy
New England Weather tweeted this chilling picture of Coney Island, completely underwater. Reports on Twitter have said that first responders are no longer able to reach Coney Island residents as a result of the flooding.
The subtexts of ‘grown-up’ talk
By Steve Benen
Mon Oct 29, 2012 12:53 PM EDT
Mother Jones’ David Corn published the scoop on Mitt Romney’s infamous “47 percent” video in September, and ever since, he’s broken a series of related stories about other remarks the Republican has delivered behind closed doors. Today, Corn moves the ball forward, noting a speech Romney delivered in March in Orange County, California.
There’s a few interesting angles — Romney, for example, believes President Obama believes private enterprise is a “necessary evil,” and longs for Chinese business practices — but there was one element to the story that stood out for me.
In context, Romney had just explained that he decided to run in this cycle at his wife’s instance. The candidate then asked Ann Romney to say a few words.
“You know, the ship’s going over the waterfall, it’s almost there. And we look what’s happening in Greece, and we look what’s happening around the world, we look what’s happening internationally. This is a frightening world, and we need a grown-up, and we need someone that understands the economy. So I’m glad … Mitt is grown up to you all.”
Now, Ann Romney isn’t a candidate for public office, and the fact that she’s confused about the Greek crisis and fiscal issues isn’t terribly interesting.
But her talk about the nation needing “a grown-up” strikes me as troubling. Indeed, it rankles because of the larger pattern — Ann Romney just this month compared the president to an obstinate child; Josh Romney said the same thing; and during one of the debates, Mitt Romney also compared Obama to his children.
I try not to be overly sensitive about these things, but something is amiss.
——————————————————————————–
Regardless of your opinions about him, Barack Obama is a 51-year-old man. He’s the president of the United States during a time of several crises, including two wars. His status as a “grown-up” is not in doubt.
If the Romneys want to argue that Obama’s not good at his job, fine, we can have the debate. If they choose not to respect the president, that’s their business. But to question whether Obama is an adult, and to use this as a line of attack more than once, raises very different kinds of questions about the Romneys.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/10/29/14782234-the-subtexts-of-grown-up-talk?lite
Yes; these Romney MOFOs are whiney titty babies, because they are LOSING.
October 29, 2012
The press finally gets Romney’s mendacity?
TPM reports a veritable journalistic uprising in the form of “news articles, tweets, and other media” as members of the Fourth Estate, “usually reluctant to criticize campaigns directly, have taken Romney to task for running a misleading TV ad creating the false impression that Jeep will ship jobs to China.”
This–to jump on merely one of Romney’s fabrication–strikes me as distressingly peculiar. Why single out Romney’s Jeep ad? Can you think of any ad, on any subject, from job creation to budget balancing to women’s rights, in which Mitt Romney has troubled himself with the truth or consistency? Or on the stump. Friday, I think it was, I sat and listened to Romney lie at a rally–and I mean outright, brazenly lie–for a solid 15 minutes: Obama had doubled the deficit, he said, and slashed Medicare, he continued, and so it went, one utterly despicable falsehood after another. All it lacked was a promise to rescind the Treaty of Versailles
http://pmcarpenter.blogs.com/p_m_carpenters_commentary/2012/10/the-press-finally-gets-romneys-mendacity.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+pmcarpenterscommentary+%28p+m+carpenter%27s+commentary%29
http://twitter.com/passantino/status/263091522503856128/photo/1
McCaskill’s mother dies
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/29/mccaskills-mother-dies/
(CNN) – Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill’s 84-year-old mother, Betty Anne Ward McCaskill, died on Monday, the senator from Missouri said in a statement on Monday.
“For some time, mom’s health has not been good, and our family takes comfort that she is now at rest,” McCaskill wrote. “People all over the state have asked about her, and their prayers and concern have been greatly appreciated.”
_______________________
Deepest sympathy to the McCaskill family. My prayers are with you!
Prayers to The McCaskill family.
In 08, right before the election PBO’s grandmother passed away.
Sympathy to Senator McCaskill and her family.
LMBAO I… CAIN’T BREEVE….—-FLATLINES—–
BWA HA AH AH HA HA HA HA
My sides are sore…. **HOLLERING**
***dead***
Florida early vote totals revised, raising questions
http://thegrio.com/2012/10/29/florida-early-vote-totals-revised-raising-questions/
In Florida, counting votes has been controversial for some time; particularly since the 2000 election. And with early voting underway as of Saturday, there are already questions being raised about the vote count in Broward County.
Broward is a Democratic stronghold that Barack Obama is expected to carry by a large margin. But initial early vote totals reported by the office of the Broward Supervisor of Elections changed on Sunday, in some cases dramatically, causing some to question the numbers.
An analysis of the unofficial totals by early voting location on the Broward Supervisor of Elections website from Saturday, compared to the tallies posted on Sunday, shows that in one location, the E. Pat Larkins Community Center, located on Martin Luther King Blvd. in Pompano Beach, the revised totals showed 1,003 fewer votes. The initial tally reported from the polling place in the heavily black neighborhood showed 2,945 votes, but the revised tally was 1,401. Across the 17 Broward polling locations, 15 saw their vote totals revised, mostly by minute amounts of between 1 and 7 votes. But the three more significant changes, including the addition of 398 votes in Tamarac (a racially mixed community) and adding 99 votes to the totals from Pompano Beach City Hall, whose demographic is majority white.
The revisions mean that 536 fewer total votes were reported in Broward — a reduction from 28,330 votes to 27,794 votes. That could be significant in a close election in a state where the presidential contest was decided by just 538 votes in 2000.
A HELL NAW
BREAKING NEWS:
Sandy makes landfall near Atlantic City, N.J.
http://t.news.msn.com/us/sandy-makes-landfall-near-atlantic-city
Bill Clinton: Romney Is Running To Steal Credit For Obama’s Recovery
Benjy Sarlin-October 29, 2012, 11:09 AM
Former President Bill Clinton told an Orlando, Fla., audience that Mitt Romney’s vague economic plan is part of a scheme to get elected, then steal credit for President Obama’s coming recovery.
Clinton cited recent reports that top economists and financial firms are predicting a strong boost to growth soon, likely matching Romney’s current pledge to create 12 million jobs over the next four years, whether or not he’s elected.
According to Clinton, America is looking at 4 percent GDP growth soon, double the current rate, as long as “we don’t mess it up.” The danger then is that Romney will win the election then “cut taxes for wealthy people,” “gut the Medicaid program,” slash aid to education and scientific research, then claim these policies as the reason an already inevitable short term bump occurred in his first term.
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/10/bill-clinton-romney-is-running-to-steal-credit-for-obamas-recovery.php
HATES OBAMA BECAUSE HE’S BLACK.
There FIXED!
So unfortunate that she was able to reproduce,and become the next teacher of hate,that child wasn’t born with hate in his heart but it’s apperante that he will be tought how to hate,just as she was.So very very sad.Please keep tapping out the message Amyita
Hurricane Sandy Atlantic City, NJ pier collapsing
http://instagram.com/p/RXfhKxDL7F/
The Romney camp continues to falsely claim that Chrysler is shifting Jeep production to China. In an act of brazen dishonesty, the campaign has released a wildly misleading advertisement that repeats the false claim on the airwaves in Ohio: http://huff.to/SVsKVn
Truth Team provides a detailed debunk: http://bit.ly/S8IuEC
Asked directly on MSNBC this morning if Mitt Romney is not telling the truth when he claims that Chrysler is moving Jeep production to China – a claim Chrysler itself has debunked – Romney surrogate Marsha Blackburn couldn’t defend her candidate, saying only, “I don’t know.” http://bit.ly/Q2hGci
Lying sack-o-shit
President Obama is receiving key endorsements across the country – here’s the latest sampling:
· The Boston Globe – Mitt Romney’s hometown paper – endorses the President: http://bit.ly/TQ9eOD
· Pennsylvania’s Scranton Times: “For president: Barack Obama.” http://bit.ly/VzfeqI
· Pennsylvania’s York Daily Herald on why President Obama is “the better choice in this election”: http://bit.ly/V0CmTj
Eclectablog takes us inside Michigan’s GOTV efforts – Ann Arbor style: http://bit.ly/TQ8VU0
In his latest blog post, Jeremy Bird breaks down the early vote numbers: http://bit.ly/WVMeOW
AIN’T THIS A BITCH.
BEEN IN THIS COUNTRY 2 MINUTES, AND THINKS HE CAN THROW SHADE ON THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
…………………………………..
Rubio pushes variation of the ‘foreign’ smear
By Steve Benen
Mon Oct 29, 2012 9:05 AM EDT.
Over the summer, the Romney campaign began a not-so-subtle effort to attack President Obama as “foreign.” Saturday, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), before being pulled from the trail due to a family emergency, pushed a similar, more overt version of the same attack.
http://youtu.be/87-ZfxmKKow
For those who can’t watch clips online, the far-right senator said the president’s ideas are “the ideas of countries people come here to get away from.”
The crowd seemed to like the line, but I’m curious: can Rubio — or anyone else — actually identify an Obama idea that comes from “countries people come here to get away from”?
Obama’s ideas on taxes are effectively the same as Bill Clinton’s. Obama’s ideas on comprehensive immigration reform are effectively the same as George W. Bush’s. Obama’s ideas on health care reform are effectively the same as moderate Republicans’ from the 1990s and Mitt Romney’s own state-based policy.
Obama’s ideas on gay rights are effectively the same as Dick Cheney’s. Obama’s ideas on a cap-and-trade policy are effectively the same as those found in the McCain-Palin platform. Obama’s ideas on fiscal and monetary policy are effectively the same as mainstream economists’ for the last several decades. Obama’s ideas on foreign policy are so uncontroversial, Romney endorsed most of them during a debate last week.
From the beginning of his presidency, for good or ill, Obama has made a deliberate effort to stick to policy proposals that have traditionally enjoyed bipartisan support. So here’s a follow-up question for Marco Rubio: can you name one of these foreign ideas you find so offensive?
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/10/29/14778335-rubio-pushes-variation-of-the-foreign-smear?lite
Anchor baby is hankering for a good old-fashioned Azz whupping.
Ametia,just remember that flyes always find the biggest pile of shit to sit on and that’s what you get when rubio sits on romney.One hoge pile of shit!
Relying on a foundation of falsehoods
By Steve Benen
–
Mon Oct 29, 2012 9:57 AM EDT.
Late last week, Mitt Romney ran into a little trouble on one of his biggest vulnerabilities. Campaigning in Ohio, the Republican said he’d seen a story that Jeep may be moving “all production to China.” Romney wasn’t telling the truth, as Chrysler itself made clear.
When most candidates get caught telling a falsehood like this, they have decide how best to minimize the damage, possibly with an apology. Romney, however, plays by his own set of rules — he turned the falsehood into a television ad airing in Ohio.
http://youtu.be/kVv6w0EC7Qs
Everything about Romney’s ad is deceptive, and he surely knows it. Jonathan Cohn tears the ad to shreds, but I’d just add a few related observations.
Note, for example, the way in which the ad weaves together clear falsehoods and claims that are technically accurate but wildly misleading. Romney has “a plan” to help the auto industry? If he does, he’s hiding it well. Romney is supported by the Detroit News? The paper endorsed him, but called Romney’s approach to the auto rescue “wrong-headed.”
As for China, the ad leaves voters with the impression that Chrysler is moving operations abroad, which is plainly false. The company is going to build Jeeps in China for Chinese consumers, but American jobs are staying in America. Indeed, Chrysler is adding to the domestic workforce so it can — you guessed it — build more Jeeps here in the U.S.
Asked to defend the transparently deceptive ad, the Romney campaign referred Sam Stein to the Bloomberg News article the candidate referenced last week. But as everyone, including Romney and his aides, now know, that the right’s interpretation of the article is wrong. But therein lies the trick: the Republican campaign just doesn’t care.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/10/29/14779508-relying-on-a-foundation-of-falsehoods?lite
Quote For The Day
“IF YOU ARE RELUCTANT [TO EVACUATE], THINK ABOUT YOUR LOVED ONES, THINK ABOUT THE EMERGENCY RESPONDERS WHO WILL BE UNABLE TO REACH YOU WHEN YOU MAKE THE PANICKED PHONE CALL TO BE RESCUED, THINK ABOUT THE RESCUE/RECOVERY TEAMS WHO WILL RESCUE YOU IF YOU ARE INJURED OR RECOVER YOUR REMAINS IF YOU DO NOT SURVIVE.” – The National Weather Service in New Jersey yesterday, not messing around
Ametia, are you going to be on the conference call?
Yes; are you?
Yes, call me quickly.
Badass indeed LOL
Posted at 08:55 AM ET, 10/29/2012 Oct 29, 2012 12:55 PM EDT
TheWashingtonPost The Morning Plum: On the auto rescue, Mitt Romney has run out of answers
By Greg Sargent
Last week, Mitt Romney told an Ohio rally that Chrysler was considering moving all its Jeep production to China — a false claim based on a faulty interpretation of a Bloomberg article that said no such thing. It was easy to assume the Romney camp had simply made a mistake (which would not necessarily have justified running with such an incendiary claim without checking the facts first).
Now, however, there is no longer any doubt about what’s happening: The Romney campaign is deliberately misleading people with the Jeep-to-China claim, in a last-ditch effort to turn things around in Ohio, which benefitted enormously from the auto bailout Romney opposed. The Romney campaign is running a new ad that claims:
Obama took GM and Chrysler into bankruptcy, and sold Chrysler to Italians who are going to build jeeps in China. Mitt Romney will fight for every American job.
Sam Stein and Jonathan Cohn give us the full story on why this is so misleading. I wanted to add that this reflects, again, that on the auto rescue, Romney has simply run out of answers.
It’s worth recapping the Romney camp’s efforts to deal with the simple and unalterable fact that Romney opposed a policy that helped save an estimated one in eight Ohio jobs. At the most recent debate, Romney tried to fudge his differences with Obama, suggesting he agreed that the government should have acted up front to save the industry, which simply isn’t true. Confusingly enough, despite Romney’s suggestions that Obama followed his course of action in rescuing the industry, his running mate Paul Ryan is out there criticizing the auto bailout, claiming Romney and Ryan don’t favor government “picking winners and losers.”
Meanwhile, Romney political director Rich Beeson is trying to minimize the political impact of Romney’s opposition to the auto rescue, deriding the Obama campaign’s constant hammering of it as a “one trick pony.” Needless to say, if this were really a “one trick pony,” the Romney campaign would not need to run an ad deliberately misleading voters into thinking the result of the auto rescue will be that American Jeep jobs are getting shipped to China.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/the-morning-plum-on-the-auto-rescue-mitt-romney-has-run-out-of-answers/2012/10/29/89cb21ca-21af-11e2-8448-81b1ce7d6978_blog.html
PIC OF SANDY:
http://twitpic.com/b8j0ow
McCain equates Benghazi, Watergate
By Steve Benen – Mon Oct 29, 2012 8:35 AM EDT
Making his 19th Sunday show appearance of the year, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) got a little unhinged on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” equating the attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi with the Watergate scandal that brought down the Nixon presidency.
http://youtu.be/oJ0nQSoSzn4
For those who can’t watch clips online, McCain, apparently letting his contempt for President Obama get the better of him, argued, “You know what, somebody the other day said to me that this is as bad as Watergate. Well, nobody died in Watergate. But this is either a massive cover-up or an incompetence that is not acceptable service to the American people.”
As a substantive matter, the Republican senator can’t back up these criticisms with any evidence whatsoever. McCain is just recklessly throwing around unfounded charges on national television the week before an election, hoping something might stick.
What’s odd, though, is how weak this smear campaign really is. Remember, Mitt Romney tried to capitalize on the deadly attack in September, and it backfired. He tried again during the second debate, and was left looking ridiculous. By last week, the Republicans’ entire line of criticism against the administration had begun to unravel, and in the third presidential candidate debate, Romney didn’t even bother to go after Obama on this.
And yet, there was McCain, referencing Watergate — there’s that comparison again — and assuming his careless rhetoric will ensure he won’t have to wait long for his 20th Sunday show appearance of the year.
.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/10/29/14777826-mccain-equates-benghazi-watergate?lite
Cindy and nem need to come get this fool take out these, place in denture cup, and put grampy McShame to bed. Still bitter from that 2008 smackdown defeat, huh grampy?
LOL The GOP be playing this game come Wednesday, November 7, 2012.
On second thought this would be a great game to play on Halloween night! It’s quite scary isn’t it?
Atlantic Gulf Stream injected fuel into Hurricane Sandy, now it will gain energy from cold front: http://wapo.st/QQf7qJ
Field Negro: This Sandy is no Joke. Watching my Mayor now as he declares a state of emergency for the city. All you republicans who hate the government, I sure hope that you will not be needing the services of FEMA or any other government agency. Ask the folks at Bain Capital to give you a low interest loan to fix up your home.
http://field-negro.blogspot.com/2012/10/representing-phenomenon-of-demographic.html
LMBAO Whedon is BRILLIANT!
Bill Clinton rallies huge crowd in Orlando for Obama
President Obama: Talking Points Memo@TPM
Obama: “I am not worried at this point about the impact on the election…the election will take care of itself next week.”
_____________
Which ass clown asked if he was worried about an election and people’s lives are at stake?
YOU KNOW WHICH JACKAL…
could be any of those assclowns.
Economic Confidence Index reaches Obama-era highs
By Steve Benen
Mon Oct 29, 2012 11:30 AM EDT.
Every afternoon, Gallup publishes a new data, and much of the political world quickly scans the presidential horserace and President Obama’s approval numbers.
But I also like to scroll down just a little more to look at Gallup’s “U.S. Economic Confidence Index,” because it helps answer a fairly straightforward question: are Americans feeling better or worse about the economy. Yesterday’s results were especially noteworthy.
Looking at the results from left to right, you’ll notice that yesterday’s figures weren’t just an improvement, they represent the single best point of Obama’s presidency. In other words, according to Gallup, Americans currently feel more confident about the economy than any point since the president’s inauguration.
This is consistent with other recent reports showing consumer confidence at its best point in five years.
To reiterate a point from a couple of weeks ago, there’s a school of thought that suggests Americans economic impressions were locked in months ago, and recent improvements probably won’t have much of an effect on the presidential race.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/10/29/14780981-economic-confidence-index-reaches-obama-era-highs?lite
The heartland election
By E.J. Dionne Jr., Published: October 28
KALAMAZOO, Mich.
When Mayor Bobby J. Hopewell talks about the importance of manufacturing to this friendly Michigan town with a name that lends itself to song, he doesn’t reel off the usual list of heavy industries typically associated with the word “factory.”
He speaks of Kalsec, the Kalamazoo Spice Extraction Company founded in 1958 that produces and markets natural herbs and spices for food manufacturers. He mentions Fabri-Kal, a 62-year-old packaging company that describes itself as “the seventh-largest plastic thermoformer in North America.” Think of products in drug stores encased in heavy plastic. And he doesn’t leave out the pharmaceutical industry, long vital to his city’s economy.
Yes, we still make a lot of stuff in the United States of America, and one of the good things about this election is that it is likely to be decided in the nation’s industrial heartland — in the towns and cities of Ohio above all, but also in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
President Obama almost certainly needs these states to win reelection, and if he does, manufacturing is destined for a larger role in the American economic conversation. Many promises have been made this year to the people and the communities whose ability to thrive has long depended upon manufacturing. The campaign’s thrust should move them to the heart of our efforts to seek a path up from the financial catastrophe that engulfed the country in 2008.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ej-dionne-jr-the-heartland-election/2012/10/28/d69e3176-212e-11e2-ac85-e669876c6a24_story.html?wpisrc=nl_opinions
A behind-the-scenes look at the camera set-up of our Sandy Cam, which is documenting Hurricane Sandy from the 51st floor of the New York Times building with a photograph every 60 seconds. See the Sandy Cam here: http://nyti.ms/SRFaxH (Photo by Jon Huang/The New York Times)
Thanks for this.
The politics of FEMA’s future
By Steve Benen
Mon Oct 29, 2012 10:40 AM EDT.
With Hurricane Sandy poised to wreak havoc for millions of Americans, it seems like a good time to revisit Mitt Romney’s unusual vision for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
http://youtu.be/oqXk5XxHKx8
In this clip, Romney was asked at a debate for the Republican presidential candidates about emergency-response efforts, and he suggested FEMA should be shuttered, moving responsibility to the states.
“Absolutely. Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that’s the right direction. And if you can go even further and send it back to the private sector, that’s even better.
“Instead of thinking in the federal budget, what we should cut, we should ask ourselves the opposite question. What should we keep? We should take all of what we’re doing at the federal level and say, what are the things we’re doing that we don’t have to do?”
Asked specifically about the federal government playing a role in disaster relief, Romney added, “We cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids. It is simply immoral, in my view, for us to continue to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids.”
Again, in context, he wasn’t talking about debt reduction in the abstract; Romney was specifically talking about FEMA and the federal role in responding to communities hit by disasters.
What’s more, Romney appears willing to put his (lack of) money where his mouth is — Romney’s budget plan would mean at least a 34% cut to FEMA’s budget
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/10/29/14780248-the-politics-of-femas-future?lite
Of course privitizing disaster relief would put more money in Romney and his cohorts’ pockets.
The Boston Globe Endorses President Obama
Barack Obama deserves another term
Amid uncertainty, real progress
http://bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2012/10/28/election-endorsement-barack-obama-deserves-another-term/KuJG4aANDHHpEqKVYsLIaM/story.html
NBC Nightly News @nbcnightlynews
JUST IN: President Obama will deliver a statement on Hurricane #Sandy at 12:45 pm ET
Jeb Bush: Obama acting like a “10-year-old” in his campaign
http://huff.to/WVhnSI
Secret audio puts Mitt and Ann Romney’s ‘favorite family story’ in question
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/10/29/secret-audio-puts-mitt-and-ann-romneys-favorite-family-story-in-question/#.UI6Y5ccq8t8.twitter
We may now know why Mitt and Ann Romney have been so reluctant to appear on late night talk shows.
In secretly recorded audio published Monday by Mother Jones, taken from a $1,000-a-plate fundraiser the couple attended in March, Mitt strangely contradicts a tale he and his wife have been telling since 2008, reported to be a “favorite family story” of the Romneys.
Speaking to supporters at the Irvine, California home of private equity fund owner David Horowitz, Romney responded to remarks about Ann when he explained:
David, you mentioned Ann, and the fact that she insisted that I get in this race. That is the truth. I wanted to talk it over with her. And every time I’d say, ‘Let’s talk about the pros and cons,’ she’d say, ‘Talk to the hand, talk to the hand. We’re just doing this. We’ve got to do it.’ And so she absolutely insisted that I get in this because she was convinced that I was the only one that had the capacity to beat President Obama and then to get the country on the right track.
However, Romney’s claim about Ann’s never-gonna-question-it resolve appears to contradict what the couple has been telling audiences since 2008 — the most recent instance of which came during an interview Ann sat for last month with NBC host Jay Leno.
“Four years ago I made a video tape,” Ann told Leno. “On the video tape, I looked into the camera and I said, ‘Mitt, this is for you, sweetheart. I’m never doing this again,’ I showed it to him and he looked at it and he said, ‘You know, Ann, you say that after ever pregnancy.’ Which is true.”
Ann Romney on Leno
CHECK!
This bridge in Newport News is almost underwater.
Rachel Maddow Slams Romney for Lying About Jeep Moving Production to China
By: Jason EasleyOctober 28th, 2012
Meet The Press today, Rachel Maddow used the lie about Jeep moving production to China to slam Romney for having a truthfulness problem.
http://youtu.be/H5sjYVovIKE
Maddow used Romney’s recent Jeep fearmongering to drive the point home that Romney has a problem with telling the truth, “On the integrity issue, on the trust issue, Mitt Romney this went to Defiance, Ohio and told a group of 11,000 people “Jeep is about to move all of their production overseas. I read that somewhere. Jeep is going to move all of its production–” Not at all true. It’s okay for a candidate to make a flub, but not to correct it, to not say “I was wrong about that.” The campaign was asked: “Are you sure the candidate meant that because that doesn’t seem to be true?” No response clearing that up from the campaign. There’s been a truthfulness problem with the Romney campaign that connects even to the very basic issues like the economy in the states where it most matters.”
The Jeep moving to China lie has been causing a major headache for Chrysler. After Romney utter his Great Jeep Lie, Chrysler put out a statement telling the world that Romney was wrong, sloppy, and biased, “Let’s set the record straight: Jeep has no intention of shifting production of its Jeep models out of North America to China. It’s simply reviewing the opportunities to return Jeep output to China for the world’s largest auto market. U.S. Jeep assembly lines will continue to stay in operation. A careful and unbiased reading of the Bloomberg take would have saved unnecessary fantasies and extravagant comments.”
This hasn’t stopped Romney from repeating the claim, and upping the ante by releasing a misleading television ad centered around a something that isn’t true.
After the final presidential debate, Rachel Maddow called Romney’s avoidance of his own previous positions, “a character issue” that should disqualify him from office. A little over a week ago, Maddow looked at Romney’s position(s) on abortion, and concluded that the Republican candidate had adopted a strategy of blatant lying in order to get elected.
It took Rachel Maddow a while to come around and understand that Romney isn’t gaffing or flubbing. The man is intentionally not telling the American people the truth about what he really stands for. Since she has come to this realization, she is one of the few mainstream media members who is constantly hammering away on Romney’s unwillingness to be honest.
http://www.politicususa.com/rachel-maddow-slams-romney-lying-jeep-moving-production-china.html
Gingrich on rape, abortion: ‘Get over it’
By Steve Benen
–
Mon Oct 29, 2012 7:59 AM EDT
On ABC’s “This Week,” Richard Mourdock’s (R) offensive recent comments on rape and abortion were a topic of conversation, and the Obama campaign’s Stephanie Cutter noted that Mitt Romney stood by Mourdock, pandering to “the far extreme right wing.”
Newt Gingrich shared a different perspective.
http://youtu.be/c69nuWezMBo
Calling the issue “nonsense,” the former House Speaker said, “Every candidate I know, every decent American I know condemns rape. OK, so why can’t people like Stephanie Cutter get over it?”
I suspect that was a rhetorical question, but Gingrich appeared to be missing the point. To my knowledge, no one has suggested that Mourdock sympathizes with rapists or condones rape.
Rather, there are three other reasons this has become controversial. First, it’s just not common for U.S. Senate candidates to argue, out loud and on television, that rape pregnancies are divine creations. Second, the underlying policy point — that the government should force women impregnated by rapists to take their pregnancies to term — is quickly becoming a norm in Republican politics, embraced by Mitt Romney’s platform and running mate.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/10/29/14777400-gingrich-on-rape-abortion-get-over-it?lite
Rachel Maddow Busts David Gregory’s Rape Dodge for Romney
By: Jason EasleyOctober 28th, 2012
On Meet The Press today, David Gregory was caught red handed trying to distance Mitt Romney from Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock by Rachel Maddow.
GREGORY: Fair– fair point, Rachel, one of the things you’re seeing it was Tina Fey speaking this week in New York who– who seem to me sort of strike that cord about be– going beyond abortion, about do you trust women enough to let them make decisions about their own lives, this is how– how she talked about it?
(Videotape, Center for Reproductive Rights Inaugural Gala, Wednesday)
TINA FEY: If I have to listen to one more grave-faced man with a two dollar haircut explain to me what rape is, I’m going to lose my mind.
(End videotape)
GREGORY: And frankly to be– to be fair, I mean, the Romney campaign is probably singing the same thing. I’m going to lose my mind if we had to keep talking about rape in this election, because it– its association with the Republican Party that he does want to be associated with.
MS. MADDOW: Right. But then, he picked Paul Ryan. They have the fight over forced ultrasounds, the government telling you that you need to have a medically unnecessary procedure at the order of the state regardless of what you want and regardless of what your doctor says. And then he picked a guy, who picked a forced ultrasound bill for the country, Paul Ryan was onboard with that. Paul Ryan was a cosponsor with Todd Akin with bill to redefine rape. Paul Ryan was a cosponsor with bill to have personhood federally, which would not only ban all abortion it would ban in vitro fertilization. It would ban most hormonal forms of birth control. If you wanted to avoid this fight, don’t put Paul Ryan on the ticket. There’s a reason that Paul Ryan has been in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina…
David Gregory was trying to, “be fair” to Romney by claiming that he shouldn’t be lumped in with the legitimate rape and rape is God’s will zanies who populate the Republican Party, but Maddow busted him on it. Gregory was trying to sell the myth of moderate Mitt while ignoring the fact that both Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan share Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock’s beliefs.
There is a reason why Romney won’t pull his endorsement of Mourdock. Romney may disagree with what Mourdock said, but he shares many of the underlying beliefs of his party. Rachel Maddow rightly stopped Gregory in his tracks when he started floating talking points that sounded like they came directly from the Romney campaign.
http://www.politicususa.com/rachel-maddow-busts-david-gregorys-rape-dodge-romney.html
Saying a prayer for everyone in the storm’s path.
Press Wakes Up to Romney’s Lies, Says There’s ‘no excuse’ for ‘astonishingly misleading’ Jeep Ad
By: Sarah JonesOctober 29th, 2012
The Romney campaign has jumped the lie shark with their new ad slyly building on the lie that Chrysler is moving Jeep jobs to China. Romney told this easily disproven falsehood to Ohioans at a rally last week. Chrysler pointed out that a “careful and unbiased” understanding “would have saved unnecessary fantasies and extravagant comments.”
When asked to comment on Romney’s claims, the Romney campaign at first refused to comment and then defended the lie with an already debunked Bloomberg article that everyone knows is wrong. The press is not impressed. It seems they have finally met a lie they can’t excuse.
Here’s a roundup of the brutal reaction:
Detroit Free Press: “Not only was the story wrong, Romney took criticism for not knowing better and repeating it without questioning it.”
Toledo Blade: “‘The latest Romney ad, I will grant you, is a clever play on words to avoid saying things that are utterly false,’ Mr. Rattner said, referring to a new Romney ad out today. But he said the implication of the ad is ‘just not true. Chrysler is adding people. It’s made major investments in the Toledo Wrangler plant.’”
Huffington Post: “Where the ad goes from misleading to something more nefarious is in the text it shows. At one point, it displays a line from a Bloomberg story stating that Chrysler “plans to return Jeep output to China,” the implication being that the company is moving operations there as opposed to expanding operations that are already there.”
Wall Street Journal: “So far, the Romney campaign hasn’t issued a public statement on the flap.”
http://www.politicususa.com/press-finally-wakes-romneys-lies-no-excuse-astonishingly-misleading-jeep-ad.html
Anti-Obama Progressives are Voting for a Romney Disaster
Categories: Original Opinion
October 29,2012
By Bob Cesca: It’s difficult to make it through a day of political reading without stumbling onto another progressive screed in a long syllabus of screeds about how President Obama is worse than George W. Bush. I’m sure you’re familiar with the rogue’s gallery of writers and their grievances. Recently, however, these posts have added an extra layer of questionable judgment involving a plea to progressives to vote against the president in the forthcoming election.
So far, I’m aware of three major posts along these lines.
First, there was John Cusack’s interview/discussion with George Washington University constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley in which the activists discussed their “Rubicon Line” — actions by the president that went too far, thus forcing Cusack and Turley to vote for a third party candidate this year. Then there was Conor Friedersdorf’s post for The Atlantic in which he made a similar case against the president’s record on civil liberties and national security. Drones, indefinite detention and the like. Friedersdorf wrote a follow-up item here. And on Saturday, vocal anti-Obama progressive Matt Stoller wrote an extended post for Salon.com, which outlines exactly what he and other progressives expect to achieve by voting for a third party candidate.
It’s difficult to know where to begin because there were so many things about Stoller’s post that were nearsighted or downright wrong.
Stoller’s principal gripe with President Obama is the disparity between the stronger corporate recovery from the recession against the slower home equity recovery from the recession. Specifically, the president has “enshrined rights for the elite in our constitutional order and removed rights from everyone else.” This is an important point. Stoller appears to be a vocal champion of the “99 percent” — the plight of middle class homeowners and, presumably, other non-wealthy Americans — and is changing his vote to prove it.
Yes, homeowners have suffered greatly from the recession. Yes, billions of dollars were loaned to financial institutions in order to prevent a deeper slide into a full scale meltdown, while very little has been done to bail out homeowners whose houses are either underwater or facing foreclosure. Regarding this gap, Stoller noted a pivotal moment during the Bush-Obama transition in 2008 when Bush Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson approached Barney Frank about speeding up the disbursement of TARP funds. Frank suggested that they force banks to write down bad mortgages in exchange for the second round of TARP money. The way Frank tells it, they needed then-President-Elect Obama to sign off, but Obama never responded thus missing a golden opportunity to offer relief to homeowners. Taken at face value, and I assume Frank’s account is accurate, sure, the Obama team should’ve authorized the deal. But, in its defense, the administration has repeatedly pursued a write-down option, including a $25 billion write-down deal in February and another plan this past Summer, which was blocked by regulators, “to pay Fannie and Freddie as much as 63 cents for every dollar of mortgage debt they forgive.” The money would’ve been paid out of the TARP fund.
Stoller continues by listing a series of “broken promises” by the president, and while many of the items were beyond the president’s control, the more deceptive aspect of Stoller’s list was that it’s not taken from the 2008 Obama For America campaign, but, instead, from the 2008 Democratic Party platform. Anyone who’s followed this year’s RNC and DNC knows that the parties and their nominees don’t always share the same positions and goals. Yet according to Politifact, the president has kept, or compromised on, 269 promises, with another 106 promises “in the works.” He’s broken 86 promises but, again, they’re not necessarily policy reversals. Many simply haven’t been attempted yet.
The president hasn’t been flawless, that’s for sure. But has there ever been a flawless chief executive? Stoller singles out the achievements of FDR in the wake of the Great Depression but conveniently excludes FDR’s serious flaws — a courtesy Stoller clearly offers to most Democratic presidents except for Barack Obama. But what about FDR? Not only did he prematurely compromise with conservatives to engage in austerity which caused a double-dip recession, but FDR’s record during World War II would be decimated by modern progressives were they around at the time. Indefinite detention of Japanese Americans, the fire-bombing of Tokyo, the development of the atomic bomb. I can’t imagine Turley and Cusack ignoring these egregious trespasses without labeling them as “Rubicon Lines.”
http://thedailybanter.com/2012/10/a-vote-against-the-president-is-a-vote-for-mitt-romney/#.UI5u9AJOHWY.twitter
With Turnout up 20%, Democrats Lead Republicans 50%-31% in North Carolina Early Voting
By: Jason EasleyOctober 28th, 2012
The early voting numbers in North Carolina are trickling in, and they don’t look good for Romney. Democrats lead Republicans 50%-31% in early voting, turnout is up 20% overall, and young voter turnout is up 24%.
The Obama campaign’s attempt to win North Carolina for a second time is built on getting voters who are don’t vote in every election registered and voting early. Since July, Democrats have almost doubled Republicans in new voter registrations, 120,000-68,000. Since 2008, the number of African Americans who have registered to vote in the state has increased by 168,000. So far these efforts are paying off in early voting, as Democrats who didn’t vote in 2010 are outvoting Republicans by a 2 to 1 margin.
African-American voters make up 22% of North Carolina’s electorate, and their early voting turnout is up 23% over 2008. African Americans have already cast 72,000 more ballots in North Carolina than at the same time in 2008. Turnout among young voters is also up 24%, and it is a pretty safe bet that the vast majority of these young and African-American voters aren’t showing up to support Romney.
Overall, 50% of the early votes that have been cast have been by Democrats. Thirty one percent have come from Republicans. Early voting turnout is up 20% over the same point in 2008, and 1.3 million votes cast (an increase of 277,000 over this point in 2008.)
Unlike Ohio where both the polls and the early voting numbers both favor Obama, the polls in North Carolina show a tie or small Romney lead. The Republicans wanted to have North Carolina wrapped up by now, and they don’t. Romney has been unable to close the deal in the state, and if President Obama can pile up a huge early voting edge, Romney may have to fight for a state that his campaign wants everyone to believe is in the bag.
Obama only won North Carolina by 14,000 votes in 2008, and it would surprise no one if Romney won it in 2012. One thing that is becoming clear is that whoever wins the state will not have a large margin of victory. It would not be surprising if the Tar Heel State was decided by a similarly small margin to that of 2008.
http://www.politicususa.com/turnout-20-democrats-lead-republicans-50-31-north-carolina-early-voting.html
DAVID CORN STRIKES AGAIN
…………………
Romney to Business Crowd: Obama Sees You As an “Evil”
The GOP candidate—and his wife—are caught on tape at a private fundraiser dismissing the president as not a “grown-up” and an arch foe of commerce.
—By David Corn
| Mon Oct. 29, 2012 3:03 AM PDT
Ever since I revealed Mitt Romney’s 47 percent rant, tips and tapes have come through the transom—including this and this. And another source who asked not to be identified just sent me an audio recording of a private Mitt Romney fundraiser from earlier this year. At this event, Romney didn’t decry half of the nation, but he and Ann Romney each expressed disdain for President Barack Obama, with the Republican presidential candidate asserting that Obama considers businesspeople “a necessary evil” and his wife suggesting that the president was not a “grown-up.”
On March 27, as Romney was still fighting for the Republican presidential nomination, he and Ann attended a fundraiser in Irvine, California, at the home of Michelle and David Horowitz, a former cement business owner who runs a private equity fund. The $1,000-per-plate outdoors luncheon (or $2,500 for those wanting to participate in a photo reception with Romney) drew much of Orange County’s Republican elite.
Romney mainly delivered his standard stump speech to the 100-person-plus crowd, and he took only three questions. During the more intimate $50,000-per-plate 47 percent fundraiser in May, Romney didn’t give much of a speech, and he spent most of his time with these superdonors responding to their queries. (The bigger contribution apparently earns donors more quality time with the candidate.) But at the Horowitzes’ home in the exclusive Shady Canyon neighborhood, Romney did make several revealing comments.
After being introduced, the Republican candidate noted that he had been pushed into his second campaign for president by his wife:
David, you mentioned Ann, and the fact that she insisted that I get in this race. That is the truth. I wanted to talk it over with her. And every time I’d say, “Let’s talk about the pros and cons,” she’d say, “Talk to the hand, talk to the hand. We’re just doing this. We’ve got to do it.” And so she absolutely insisted that I get in this because she was convinced that I was the only one that had the capacity to beat President Obama.
Romney then asked Ann to say a few words, and she explained that she had been so insistent because she did not consider Obama to be a “grown-up”:
You know—the ship’s going over the waterfall, it’s almost there. And we look what’s happening in Greece, and we look what’s happening around the world, we look what’s happening internationally. This is a frightening world, and we need a grown-up, and we need someone that understands the economy. So I’m glad…Mitt is grown up to you all.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/10/romney-fundraiser-obama-business-evil
Ametia,
just wondering how your daughter and her family is doing …..are they prepared for the storm?
Spoke to both my daughters yesterday and this morning. One lives in D.C the other Baltimore. They’re prepared and hunkered down at home today. Thanks for asking and please keep all in the path of the storm in your prayers.
THANK YOU!
AMEN!
Good Morning, Everyone! : Ooooh weee! Bond WEEK? i certainly hope so!
Good Morning, Ametia, SG2 and Everyone :)
Good Morning, everyone! Happy Monday!