CNN Inauguration Fun

Funny Moments from President Obama's First Term:




Who Aged Best in the White House?




Also From CNN ~ 100 Years of Inagurations in 2 Minutes:

Obama Fights Off Bully Romney for the Win

gif from Atlantic Wire
Honestly, if anyone says that Mitt Romney (A) Won this Debate (B) Tied this Debate or (C) Gained Ground with any focus group, they didn't see the same debate that I watched at my house.

It was a no-contest this time: Obama Won, and He Won Big.

Romney tried to bully moderator Candy Crowley as well as President Obama, but their attitude was "bring it on." They were ready for him.

Often Mitt stood there babbling as fast as he could in an attempt to out-talk Obama again, but the President just calmly sat watching him with a smile on his face, and when his turn came he let Mitt have it, pointing out lies and inconsistancies. A few times things got heated as the candidates invaded each other's personal space.

It seemed to me that the nuttier Romney acted, the more serene Obama appeared to be.

As Rev. Al Sharpton said on MSNBC: "A Bully Got Whipped Tonight."

For proof, here's a gif from Atlantic Wire of Mitt Romney just after the debate. He looks as if he is about to hurl.

President Obama took on the bully. I substance, demeanor, and debate style he was far more effective than Mr. Romney. No doubt a good night.
— Reverend Al Sharpton (@TheRevAl) October 17, 2012

Obama is a dreamer who hasn't fulfilled his promises to working folks. Mitt is apampered bully/salesman with no clue about such people.
— Howard Fineman (@howardfineman) October 17, 2012

Transcript of Townhall Debate Via ABC News

All Over but the Shouting for Romney

It's all over but the shouting. Well, except the debates, but I don't think those are going to make much difference. Maybe it's just all over but the crying, recriminations, blame game, and circular firing squad. Well, actually all that has started even in the national media, so we have to look away when it becomes embarrassing. And try not to enjoy it too much, heh . . .

Whatever: the fact remains that many of the Electoral Maps are beginning to look the same as the race tightens up and early voting is beginning in many states. The idea that this is still a "horse-race" between Romney and Obama, or that many states are in the "toss-up" category is probably bogus. I don't rule out voter suppression or election day shenanigans, but Romney almost needs to win every swing state in order to get to 270 electoral votes, and I just don't see how that could happen at this point.

Business Insider quotes Romney saying last week: "I’m very pleased with some polls, less so with other polls, but frankly at this early stage, polls go up, polls go down."

Yep, polls do go up and down, yet many voters are locking in their choices by getting to a voting booth now or sending in their absentee ballots. The election is "happening now," as Wolf Blitzer likes to say.

Business Insider also points out the pitfalls of Romney's almost impossible path to victory because every state they mention is leaning Obama at the present time. If Romney loses one, he basically loses all of them.

Florida is a virtual must-win for Romney. If he loses, he would have to take swing states Ohio, Iowa, New Hampshire, Colorado, Wisconsin, Nevada and Virginia to get past 270. That's an extremely illogical path to victory — especially because two of those states (Ohio and Wisconsin) have moved to the "lean Obama" column on the RCP average.

. . . Without Ohio, Romney has to win Florida, as well as New Hampshire, Iowa, Nevada, Virginia and Colorado.

. . . if Romney loses [Virginia] he'll have to hang onto Ohio, Florida, New Hampshire, Iowa and Colorado as the most plausible path to victory. If Ohio keeps leaning as left as it has been lately, Romney will have to do something implausible — like steal away Michigan or Pennsylvania, two states where Obama has a huge advantage.

. . . If Romney cannot win North Carolina, it's a twofold kick in the gut. First, it would likely mean he's not performing well in other, less-reliable Republican states. Second, he'd have to hold onto Ohio, Florida, Virginia, New Hampshire, Iowa and Colorado to get to 270.

. . . Without Colorado, Romney would have to hold onto Florida, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina and Nevada.

So there it is - even if Romney holds onto Colorado or North Carolina, what are the chances of all those other states going his way? His chances are slim to none. Obama wins. End of story. I'm not taking anything for granted - just look at the maps!

Nate Silver's 538 Blog on New York Times


CNN Election Map


Real Clear Politics Map

Earth to GOP: The Polls are Arithmatic

"Skew" is another interesting phrase the GOP loves to use. Here's the defintion via Online Etymology Dictionary:

skew (v.)    late 15c., from O.N.Fr. eskiuer "shy away from, avoid," O.Fr. eschiver (see eschew). Meaning "depict unfairly" first recorded 1872, on notion of being slanted. Statistical sense dates from 1929. Related: Skewed; skewing. The adjectival meaning "slanting, turned to one side" is recorded from c.1600; noun meaning "slant, deviation" first attested 1680s.

It is ridiculous to imply that "all" the polls are "skewed" except for certain bad polls by biased people like Rasmussen or Karl Rove that show their guy Romney leading. Isn't it more likely that they are the ones who are skewed instead of the 15 other pollsters, some of whom are non-partisan or who take a poll of polls average?

But none of that matters if you are Republican clinging to false hope. They just can't accept that the very likable and inspirational - although African American - President Obama is way ahead in the polls. Because . . . arithmatic.

As of tonight, Nate Silver of 538 Blog is giving Barack Obama an 84% chance - well, let's be scientific and say "83.9%" chance of winning the Presidency.

Mitt Romney has, therefore, only 16.1% chance, no rounding necessary.

That's the mathematical truth, unless you are a Republican in denial.

The polls are what they are - just a statistical snapshot of the country's rejection of goofy-strange Mitt Romney as President of the United States. Simple as that.

But denial is strong in them, like the Force. For instance, here's a stammering and sputtering Karl Rove spinning about how "unscientific" the polls are, but even Bill O'Reilly isn't drinking the kool-aid on Fox News:

O'REILLY: . . . Are these polls dishonest?

ROVE: No. Look, we endow them with a false scientific precision they simply don't have. If you've got nine points more Democrats than Republicans and you're nine points more --
(CROSSTALK)

O'REILLY: You you're going to have a poll that reflects that.

ROVE: -- yes, nine points more Obama. Think about this. Romney and Obama get each roughly the same percentage of Republicans and Democrats as -- as their opponent. That is to say they carry their -- their base overwhelmingly. Romney, among Independents is winning by three points.

So -- so if Romney is winning the Independents and winning the Republicans do you think in a battle ground state like Florida, he's nine points down and the answer is no....

ROVE: . . . So look, we've got to be careful about, you know, we have a proliferation of these polls. There have been 87 national polls in the last 30 days. That's more polls than were run in the last six months of the 1980 presidential race.


O'REILLY: All right.

ROVE: Last week -- last week alone, we had 51 state level polls; and the week before that, 41.
(CROSSTALK)

O'REILLY: I understand that but -- but here -- here -- look, from my point of view as a news analyst and I believe that the folks know I'm honest in that regard, when news agencies like the CBS News on the radio report the polling and it shows that Barack Obama has leapt out to a big lead in Florida and Ohio, that gets inside people's minds. They remember that. And that can only help the President. That helps the President.

ROVE: Sure.

O'REILLY: Because the perception is he is going to be the winner.

. . . O'REILLY: All right, real quick, real quick, your board, the Karl Rove board where is the race in Ohio and Florida in your opinion?

ROVE: Well, toss-up in both states.

O'REILLY: Toss-up? It could go either way at this point in history.

ROVE: Sure.

O'REILLY: All right, Mr. Rove. We appreciate that.

Then tonight, we have Wolf Blitzer of CNN taking a stand for a change, although he rolls it back quickly to the "toss-up" idea, via Media Matters:


Transcript from CNN

Ashleigh Banfield: CNN's Wolf Blitzer joining me live from Washington, D.C.

Wolf, the Romney camp and their allies are suggesting that a lot of those so-called mainstream polls are skewed in some way, that they're not accurate. I want to play a short clip from Mr. Romney's political director, Rich Beeson.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICH BEESON, POLITICAL DIRECTOR, ROMNEY CAMPAIGN: We trust our internal polls. I don't make any campaign decisions based off what I read in the "Washington Post." So I'm not going to get into the specifics of what our polls say or don't say. I trust our numbers and that's what we're basing our decisions off of.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: But he won't give us those numbers.

So, Wolf, here's how it goes. Every time bad numbers come out, I hear campaigns saying, we don't use those numbers, we use our own. But I never hear that when the numbers are good. Am I wrong?

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST, "THE SITUATION ROOM": You're not wrong, but the fundamental fact of what's going on right now is the numbers in these key battleground states, according to almost all of the reputable national polls out there, show that Obama is ahead in most of these key battleground states. That's obviously disconcerting to a lot of Republicans. Some of them, like Karl Rove, for example, have repeatedly gone out there and suggested that these polls are biased against the Republicans because they're oversampling Democrats, for example, as opposed to Republicans. And as a result, don't trust these polls, they're not reliable. So it's sort of convenient for a lot of these Republicans, like Karl Rove, to go after the NBC poll or the ABC poll or CNN polls.

But what they don't say is that the FOX News polls are showing almost exactly the same thing. FOX has some good polls. For example, their most recent battleground states, Ashleigh, in Ohio and Virginia, show Obama ahead of Romney by seven points. In Florida, the FOX News poll shows the President ahead of Romney by five points. Very similar to all these other so-called mainstream poll numbers. You don't hear them complaining about the FOX News polls. They're complaining about the others, so there is an imbalance there.

If you take a look at all these polls, and we at CNN did a poll of polls, you show -- it clearly shows that the President is ahead slightly in almost all of these key battleground states. And I think that's pretty significant.

BANFIELD: We were just showing Virginia, and now here is Florida, and they're saying exactly what you just said, Wolf. And here is the thing. Yes, we're 40 days out. But early voting -- we started the program talking about the significance of early voting and the volumes of people who do early voting. Which brings me to my next question, regardless of what the Romney camp is saying about their internal polls, is it entirely possible they are seeing these polls that are now, as I said, solidifying with early voters and saying it may be time to spend the money on down-ballot contenders and go for the House and go for the Senate because we've lost those states at this point?

[Blogger Note: Wolf immediately rolls back his comments so as not to offend the GOP. Typical. The truth is never enough.]

BLITZER: Yes, I think it's way too premature to say they've lost those states. It's early. I've seen polls turn around the final 40 days of an election. They certainly can turn around in this election. And let's not forget --
(CROSSTALK)

BANFIELD: But even with the early voting numbers, Wolf?

BLITZER: Even with the early voting numbers. This is not over by any means, Ashleigh. There's three presidential debates, one vice presidential debate. And I remember very vividly -- you probably were too young to remember -- the 1980 race.

Soledad O'Brien Calls Out Tea Party Dog Whistle

While sitting in the doctor's office this morning holding a fistful of insurance forms (ironically), I happened to see this smackdown of Tea Party fanatic Amy Kremer by Soledad O'Brien. Kremer had no explanation for why she thinks Obama doesn't love his country, beyond the fact that she doesn't like him, and that he is a black man in the White House.

My husband thought heard Kremer say something about the Tea Party only talking about fiscal responsibility, not social issues. Yeah, well tell that to Paul Ryan, Todd Akin, Michele Bachmann and every other doofus backed by Tea Party money.

It is a social issue to talk about cutting off Medicaid and Medicare and letting people drift away without a safety net. Or when someone thinks they have the right to say who "loves their country" and who doesn't. Are they going to segregate us all based on that? To them, no Democrat loves their country, so it's a bogus argument.

But props to Soledad O'Brian for calling it a dog whistle! Indeed!

   

O'BRIEN: Welcome, everybody.

Our team this morning: Dana Bash is with us. She's CNN senior congressional correspondent.

Mayor Michael Nutter joins. He's the Democratic mayor of Philadelphia.

Amy Kremer is with us. She's the Chair of the Tea Party Express. It's nice to see you, Amy. Thanks for being with us.

Ryan Lizza is a Washington correspondent for "The New Yorker."

Welcome, welcome, welcome.

. . . [*snip*] . . .

 

O'BRIEN: Amy, let me ask you a question. Because someone sent to me this tweet -- I swear to God I can't see anything anymore -- that you sent out at the end of August at 10:55 p.m. "Huge difference between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama is that Mitt loves America. We need a president that loves this country." I think that's from -- I missed this one, but someone forwarded it to me.

Do you think that President Obama doesn't love this country? What does that mean?

KREMER: I think that he is more about a global -- being a global -- oh, what's the word? Being more one world, global, with you know other countries and it's not about the shining city on the hill, the greatness that has always been America that our founding fathers were about. I do believe that. I -- I mean, I absolutely believe it. I'm not going to run from that.

Look, I mean, President Obama, and I know I'm going to take a lot of heat for this, but he's never run anything. Mitt Romney, you asked me what is the case for Mitt Romney, Mitt Romney time and time again has taken companies that are failing and turned them around to make them successful.

I mean, he turned the Salt Lake City Olympics around. He ran the state of Massachusetts. Because what I'm saying is we are -- we are failing. We are about to go off this fiscal cliff. And we need somebody that can turn it around.

President Obama has not turned it around. I'm sorry he hasn't --

 

 

NUTTER: But the Governor has also -- but the Governor has also taken over companies and put people out of work. At the expense of losing jobs and making money for himself and for his investors. If you're going to tell one side of the story, tell the other side.

KREMER: I mean and you know and President Obama's energy policy, if it's -- and in President Obama's energy policy if it's implemented, it's going to cost -- I mean let me see. I have the numbers right here because I'm not very good with numbers. But it's going to cost us 7.3 million jobs by 2020. And $1 trillion in compliance costs between 2020 and 2030.

(CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: I just never understand what any of that has to do with loving the nation. I mean, I honestly, I always feel like that's a code word for something else.

(CROSSTALK)

KREMER: I just I mean, I don't feel like he is --

NUTTER: What is the basis for questioning the President's love for this country? How can you say that?

KREMER: I just I don't believe that he loves America the way that we do.

NUTTER: Based on what? We who?

KREMER: He is more about one world -- I mean more about --

NUTTER: What does that mean?

KREMER: I just explained it to you.

NUTTER: Well, clearly, I'm not understanding.

KREMER: Well, I mean, don't know how else to explain it.

LIZZA: His foreign policy -- his foreign policy that you look at it and say, oh that's Obama wants America to be gone and he wants one world?

KREMER: I mean we are not leading. We're waiting on others to tell us what to do. That's never been the American way.

 

 

 LIZZA: What specifically? What specifically?

KREMER: I believe it was Syria. Was it Syria that or one of the conflicts where we -- the French told us we could go and do what we needed to do. Were -- that's -- that's not the American way. We need to lead.

NUTTER: Well, maybe this is America now.

KREMER: But this is the thing the foreign policy -- it's not about foreign policy we're never all going to agree on foreign policy. But why the Tea Party Movement has been so successful is because of the fiscal responsibility.

LIZZA: I think what you're saying is leading from behind, right?

KREMER: Yes.

LIZZA: So I was the journalist that actually reported that quote. So the leading from behind is something that was told to me. And actually, what it refers to is the strategy in the UN, the U.S. led a coalition in the UN to get military authorization to topple Gadhafi.

So the quote actually is the opposite of what you're saying. It actually refers to the strategy that Obama used in the UN to get all of the nations to support the U.S.'s use of force resolution because after the Bush years, it was really hard for the U.S. to go to the UN and get support because Bush was really, really unpopular.

O'BRIEN: But people didn't care about foreign policy. I guess my question is, when I hear somebody say that someone doesn't love the country, and you know I'm very susceptible to the dog whistle thing.

KREMER: The what?

O'BRIEN: That dog whistle that there is a message in that. When someone says that somebody doesn't love the country and you're talking about the President I just find that to be a very odd comment.

KREMER: I don't believe -- I mean look, we're sitting -- I mean we're sitting here, is our goal really in this administration to be the leader that we always have been, to be that shining city on the hill?

(CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: What does that have to do with love for your country? Mitt loves his country and President Obama doesn't?

KREMER: If you love this country and you want to restore our heritage and that sort of thing, you go out there and you lead. You don't wait on others to tell you what to do. And you take those bold steps. I mean, I don't think that that's what the objective of this administration is.  

                         O'BRIEN: So I'm going to stop you there. Mr. Mayor, stop. Because I have had so many people screaming in my ear that we have so gone over. I thank you for this conversation. We've got to take a break. We're back on the other side. 

Strange First Night at the RNC

I watched as many of the speeches as I could stomach from the Republican National Convention and to me there were several problems. The worst was Mitt Romney's unhappy expression the whole night. He stumbled onto the stage after being introduced by his wife, and he looked like a sad clown that has been sprayed with seltzer water too many times. He was NOT having a good time!

There was no cohesion between speeches. Mrs. Romney gave a rather shrill and squeaky speech about how much she loved Mitt and how much he loves everyone - love, love, love. Then Chris Christie from new New Jersey gave a more rabble-rousing speech about how love was just okay, but respect was so much better! Then he forced everyone to get to their feet and clap for him, and since most of the evening had been so boring, people complied. It just seems strange that the two speeches that were meant to introduce Mitt Romney to the country instead cancelled each other out and left people scratching their heads. I found them equally repulsive.

The camera panned onto Condileeza Rice a few times and she seemed to be crying, but I don't think it was for happiness. Her Party is going down the crapper.





John Boehner gave a really stupid speech about drunks in a bar, which suited his big red nose. I'm not sure how all the bar jokes went over with the Evangelical dry-county teetotal Tea Partiers from the heartland. Doh! Maybe he should have thought of that in between cocktails.


And then there were the really nasty hate-filled speeches ~ Reince Priebus and Janine Turner from Northern Exposure, especially. Ugh. Next time, just wear your sheets and hoods, folks. I found them both creepy to the max. This is totally Godwin, but either one could have started clicking their boots and shrieking "Sieg Heil!" and it would have seemed perfectly in keeping with their tone.




Rick Santorum's speech was another embarrassing homage to his grandfather's "big meaty hands" - people on twitter were counting and said he mentioned hands 24 times, and even said "hand America jobs," which sounds faintly obscene. I honestly don't know what he is thinking anymore, but then I never did.


The strangest thing of all was that each speaker from Nikki Haley to Chris Christie talked about their immigrant ancestors and family success stories. But wait . . . this is the party which wants to cut out all immigration, build a wall, put barbed wire on it, shoot people at the border, and force Grandma to deport herself. WTF? Why would any of them glowingly gush about their own successful families who came here with nothing and captured the American Dream if all they want to do is deny that dream to everyone else in the world? I'm stumped on that one. I think every time they said "my great-grandfather immigrated here" the audience squirmed, both in the hall and at home.

Just a few hours earlier they had given ugly Jan Brewer of Arizona, the queen of anti-immigration and Hispanic/Latino hate, a thunderous ovation just for announcing that Arizona was nominating Mitt. Total mixed message.

Finally, the piece de resistance was an incident that happened off-camera, but happened to a camera woman for CNN. You can't make this stuff up. I wonder what will happen tonight?

GOP attendee ejected for throwing nuts at African American CNN camera woman + saying "This is how we feed animals." @takeactionnews #TAN
— David Shuster (@DavidShuster) August 29, 2012

, @cnn statement on GOP attendee removed for incident with African American camera woman. 2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/cnn-re… via @tpm_dk
— David Shuster (@DavidShuster) August 29, 2012

Talking Points Memo

The CNN official declined to confirm specific details of the incident to TPM but generally confirmed an account posted on Twitter by former MSNBC and Current anchor David Shuster: “GOP attendee ejected for throwing nuts at African American CNN camera woman + saying ‘This is how we feed animals.’”
It is not clear whether the alleged culprit was a delegate or attending the convention in some other capacity.
In a written statement, CNN addressed the matter but divulged few details: “CNN can confirm there was an incident directed at an employee inside the Tampa Bay Times Forum earlier this afternoon. CNN worked with convention officials to address this matter and will have no further comment.”

From Politico

The RNC referred POLITICO to GOP Convention spokesperson Kyle Downey for comment. . . .
UPDATE: GOP convention spokesman Kyle Downey tells POLITICO, "Two attendees tonight exhibited deplorable behavior. Their conduct was inexcusable and unacceptable. This kind of behavior will not be tolerated."

John Sununu Loses it with CNN's Soledad O'Brien

Why is it that Republicans can't go on national TV without trying to out-shout someone? It's either just a macho thing, or they are running scared. I'll take the latter.

Because let's face it, no surrogate can prove that Romney isn't being influenced by Paul Ryan now. There's just no distance between them, as presidents and veeps are mostly one unit. But Sununu sounds in denial about that.

In this clip, Romney surrogate John Sununu erupts at Soledad O'Brien on CNN over whether Romney is embracing the Ryan Budget view on Medicare. Sununu gets so flustered he tells O'Brien to "put an Obama bumper sticker on her forehead." OMG At the end he gives a non-apology apology, and Soledad calls him out on that, too! Good for her!



CNN Transcript August 14, 2012

SUNUNU: It is. The nominee is Mitt Romney. Paul Ryan joins Mitt Romney. The budget plan, the approach on Medicare and all of that is going to be the Romney plan. What he has is a man as his number two who understands the details of budgets who has demonstrated a willingness to take on tough issues and who knows how to communicate with the public --

O'BRIEN: Isn't the Ryan plan the Romney plan --

SUNUNU: No, it isn't.

O'BRIEN: Let me read you a quote.

SUNUNU: It isn't. You keep wanting to say it and I'm telling you, it's not.

O'BRIEN: Then let me read you a quote from Mitt Romney. This is from Ryan Lizza's article. On March 20th in Chicago, "I'm very supportive of the Ryan budget plan. He said, I think it would be marvelous if the Senate were to pick up Paul Ryan's budget and adopt it and pass it along to the president." That sounds like a lot of support. Am I wrong?

SUNUNU: It's support for the concepts that are in the Ryan plan. But Mitt Romney for six months has had on the table his package, his plan and his approach for dealing with Medicare. If all you want to do is keep repeating the garbage that comes out of the White House, then you've got a problem. The American public is going to see that the plan that is being put forward is the plan Mitt Romney has put forward.

O'BRIEN: Let's read then what comes out of MittRomney.com, which I have right here. Key elements of mitt's plan, nothing changes for current seniors, Medicaid is reformed as a premium support system, repackaged as a fixed amount benefit they can use to purchase an insurance plan. All insurance plans must offer what Medicare provides today. This is from MittRomeny.com It sounds awfully like the Paul Ryan Medicare plan.

SUNUNU: But it's very different. For example, when Obama gutted Medicare by taking $717 billion out of it, the Romney plan does not do that. The Ryan plan mimicked part of the Obama package there. The Romney plan does not. That's a big difference.

O'BRIEN: But you know, and I understand that this is a Republican talking point because I've heard it repeated over and over again. And these numbers have been debunked as you know by congressional --

SUNUNU: No, they haven't.

O'BRIEN: Yes they have.

SUNUNU: I have the Congressional Budget Office right here dated July 24th from Doug Elmandorf. Read page 13 and 14 --

O'BRIEN: I can tell you what it says. It cuts a reduction in the expected rate of growth, which you know, not cutting budgets to the elderly, benefits will be improved, the focus is on hospitals and focus is on health insurance.

SUNUNU: He gutted the program by $711 million.

O'BRIEN: The expected rate of growth is being cut.

SUNUNU: It reduces services to Medicare beneficiaries currently on the package. What the difference is, is that Romney says no impact to anybody 55 or over. The -- it is clear in here that the reduction in services starts on January 1st, 2013. And Obama stole that money to put it in the --

O'BRIEN: The hospitals agreed to that and drug providers agreed to that because their theory is they will make up by the number of people that come into the system. It doesn't reduce or cut the benefits. The older people who --

SUNUNU: It does --

(CROSSTALK) SUNUNU: Soledad, stop this. All you're doing is mimicking the stuff that comes out of the White House and gets repeated on the Democratic blog boards out there. If you're going to mouth garbage that comes out of the White House.

O'BRIEN: I'm telling you what FactCheck.com tells you. I'm telling what the CBO and CNN's independent analysis does.

SUNUNU: I have the CBO report right here.

O'BRIEN: And I'm telling you what it says. I've read it several times.

SUNUNU: Put a Obama bumper sticker on your forehead when you do this.

O'BRIEN: You know, let me tell you something, there is independent analysis that details what this is about.

SUNUNU: No, there isn't.

O'BRIEN: Yes, there is.

SUNUNU: (CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: Sir, let me finish. There's independent analysis, fact check.com, the CBO and CNN has already done its own independent analysis, and name calling to me and somehow acting as if by repeating a number of $716 billion that you can make that stick when that figure is being stolen from Medicare, that's not true. You can't just repeat it and make it true, sir.

SUNUNU: Reduction in services and reduction --

O'BRIEN: A reduction in the expected rate of growth, a reduction in the expected rate of growth.

SUNUNU: And reduction in services and reduction in support for Medicare advantage. That is taking money from the program.

O'BRIEN: Which by the way, Paul Ryan, right, has in his budget, which by the way -- SUNUNU: Mitt Romney does not.

O'BRIEN: Which Romney has said in the quote I just read to you, he thinks it's brilliant.

SUNUNU: But he likes the Ryan plan for its guts, but he has his own plan out there, which is carefully crafted to protect the seniors from 55 and up and does not take the $700 billion that Obama took.

O'BRIEN: John Sununu, always nice having you, pleasure.

SUNUNU: Yes.

O'BRIEN: It doesn't sound like he means it.

BERMAN: I just wish John Sununu would come out of his shell a little bit. He's very timid in the morning.

The Fierce and "Decent" Harry Reid

Who would have thought that the Democrat who would finally throw down the gauntlet and not back down an inch on Romney's taxes would be the usually reticent Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid? And this story is getting bigger and bigger almost by the hour.

Harry Reid to Huffington Post

"His poor father must be so embarrassed about his son," Reid said, in reference to George Romney's standard-setting decision to turn over 12 years of tax returns when he ran for president in the late 1960s.

Saying he had "no problem with somebody being really, really wealthy," Reid sat up in his chair a bit before stirring the pot further. A month or so ago, he said, a person who had invested with Bain Capital called his office.

"Harry, he didn't pay any taxes for 10 years," Reid recounted the person as saying.

"He didn't pay taxes for 10 years! Now, do I know that that's true? Well, I'm not certain," said Reid. "But obviously he can't release those tax returns. How would it look?

"You guys have said his wealth is $250 million," Reid went on. "Not a chance in the world. It's a lot more than that. I mean, you do pretty well if you don't pay taxes for 10 years when you're making millions and millions of dollars."

On Wednesday, Reid spoke out again on the Senate Floor, repeating his accusation that Romney hasn't paid any taxes in ten years.

So, the word’s out that he hasn’t paid any taxes for 10 years. Let him prove that he has paid taxes, because he hasn’t. We already know from one partial tax return that he gave us, he has money hidden in Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and a Swiss banking account. Mitt Romney makes more money in a single day than the average middle-class family makes in two years or more.

Then he told reporters that he has more than once source to back up his claim.

LA Times Story

In a conference call with Nevada reporters on Wednesday, he broadened what he said were his sources for the contention that Romney was able to avoid federal taxes.

"I have had a number of people tell me that," said Reid, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, while refusing to elaborate. "I don't think the burden should be on me," Reid told the home-state reporters. "The burden should be on him. He's the one I've alleged has not paid any taxes. Why didn't he release his tax returns?”
On Thursday morning, Reid said that a nominee for a Cabinet position couldn't get confirmed by the Senate if he made as limited a release of tax information as Romney has thus far.
"Let him prove that he has paid taxes, because he hasn't," Reid declared, then adding that “Mitt Romney makes more money in a single day than the average middle-class family makes in two years or more

This is throwing the Romney camp for a loop - and as we know, it doesn't take much to get them into a tizzy of alleged victimization by the mean old Democrats. Romney said on Sean Hannity via Mediaite:

Well, it’s time for Harry to put up or shut up. Harry’s going to have to describe who it is he spoke with, because, of course, that’s completely and totally wrong. It’s untrue, dishonest, and inaccurate. It’s wrong. So I’m looking forward to have Harry reveal his sources, and we’ll probably find out it’s the White House.

Also on Thursday, Romney spokesperson Eric "Etch-A-Sketch" Fehrnstrom accused Reid of "McCarthyism," which is rich coming from a campaign that has ignored the witch hunts of Michelle Bachmann and her pals.

Harry Reid's statements are baseless and untrue, and I would ask him one simple question - 'Have you no sense of decency, Sir?' Is there nothing that you won't do to debase yourself and the office you hold, in the name of dirty politics? . . . This reminds me of the McCarthy hearings back in the 1950s.

From Huffington Post

"I don't think there is anything behind it. He hasn't produced any evidence," Fehrnstrom said Thursday in an interview with Fox News. "I'm telling you speaking on behalf of the governor that those charges are untrue, they are baseless and there is nothing to back them up."
"This reminds me of the McCarthy hearings back in the 1950s," he added.
Fehrnstrom's line, "Have you no decency, sir?" is a paraphrase of what Army lawyer Joseph N. Welch asked Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy in 1954, when he famously stood up to the powerful, witch-hunting senator who was falsely accusing people of being Communists.

On this issue, not only is Reid standing fast, but he is practically begging the media to keep talking about Romney's taxes, and especially to investigate people at Bain who would know the truth.

The elegant flourish of the whole thing is that Romney can't complain that people are picking on him because he is a Mormon, since Reid is also a Mormon. Ann Romney tried to play that card in the "You People" interview in which she mentioned tithing to the church, and how that meant they could be trusted on the tax issue. But it doesn't really work when another Mormon is saying it, plus where are all the other Mormons out there who should be speaking out on Romney's behalf? *crickets*

Tonight both CNN and MSNBC covered the tax return issue for hours. Lawrence O'Donnell offered a Romney-tax montage and discussion, while CNN's Dana Bash told Anderson Cooper that Reid's sources are good or he wouldn't be standing firm.

Mitt Romney could "shut up" Harry Reid. Mitt Romney could "shut up" all of us by doing what every presidential candidate does and show his tax returns. Every day that Mitt Romney refuses to show his tax returns costs him politically and therefore logically casts more and more suspicion on why he is not releasing his tax returns.
~ Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC


Tax Montage & Discussion from Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell

 

Transcript: Dana Bash on CNN's Anderson Cooper, August 2, 2012

DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. We now have a couple of responses, Anderson. Let me read you the first one, that is, "Senator Reid stands by his comments. Governor Romney's continued refusal to release his tax returns raises legitimate questions about what he is hiding and whether he paid any taxes at all. Governor Romney can easily end this debate by following the precedent set by his father and releasing his tax returns."

And as you were coming on the air, Anderson, I got a follow-up like the statement, which also stands by what they call his credible source that Romney has not paid taxes for 10 years, and he's calling Romney playing tricks, many tricks at his disposal for avoiding taxes. So not backing down at all.

I got to tell you, covering Harry Reid for a lot of years, there are times when he says things off the cuff that make his aides wince, like talking smelly tourists in the capitol. I'm not making this up. This is not one of those times.

This is one of those times where he knows exactly what he's doing. He's doing it on purpose. He's doing it for political reasons because he wants this issue, Romney's taxes, to be talked about on programs like yours, and wants it to be headlines in newspapers, and wants Mitt Romney to respond on this issue, which they think is a negative for Romney as opposed to issues that Romney wants to talk about.

. . . But this is -- when Harry Reid doesn't like somebody, he goes for the jugular. And that is what he is doing now. He is an old boxer and he still likes to be a political street fighter. He knew full well that he was going to be questioned over and over again on who his source was. And he said -- he's told people close to him who I have spoken today that he didn't care. He's not telling going to tell who his source is.

But I did speak, I just have to tell you, that I did speak to one source who's very close to Senator Reid who claims to also know who this Bain investor is that Reid spoke with, and insists that this is a credible person and this person if we knew the name we would understand that they would have the authority and the ability to know about Romney's tax returns. Whether we'll find it out ever, who knows. But they're doing this on purpose so that this is the discussion.

Yoohoo, Sununu ~ Shut Up!

I honestly don't know where ex-Governor of New Hampshire John Sununu has been all these years, but I wish he would go back there and stay off the television talk shows.

The Romney campaign dragged him out of a vault and labeled him a "surrogate." What could go wrong, right? LOL ~ Well, he seems to have caught the same strain of infectious stupidity that the rest of the surrogates are carrying.

"I wish this President would learn how to be an American."

(That's rich - Sununu's father was Palestinian, and his mother was from El Salvador. John was born in Cuba, while Obama was born in Hawaii. Who probably knows more about being an American than someone who is . . . American? Mitt Romney was born in Mexico - your point?)

"This guy (President Obama) doesn't understand how to create jobs. So it's no surprise on why he failed so miserably the past four years in terms of job creation. He has no idea how the American system functions. And we shouldn't be surprised about that, because he spent his early years in Hawaii smoking something, spent the next set of years in Indonesia, and frankly when he came to the U.S. he worked as a community organizer which is a socialized structure and then got into politics in Chicago. There has been no experience in his life in which he's earned a private sector paycheck that meant anything."

Ah, then came the non-apology apology to Wolf Blitzer on CNN:

SUNUNU: Well, I said the - first of all, I was responding to the president's really terrible remarks in Virginia over the weekend, where he told the businesspeople of America they shouldn't take credit for building their businesses. That clearly is insulting to them and - and, in my opinion, expresses a lack of understanding of how jobs are created.

I was making the point that in America, entrepreneurs deserve credit and there is an American formula for creating jobs. And I used that phrase three or four times in that call.

And - and I wanted to come back to that same theme in that riff that you just played there. And instead of saying that he's got to learn the American formula for creating jobs, I - I did say those words that are there. And, frankly, I made a mistake. I shouldn't have used those words. And I apologize for using those words.

But I don't apologize for the idea that this president has demonstrated that he does not understand how jobs are created in America. He thinks that jobs are created by giving grants to your cronies, to your bundlers and your contributors, like he did with Solyndra. Like he did with Vista (ph), like he did with the wind projects that took jobs out of this country. The common denominator is that they all had owners and investors that were bundlers and contributors to his campaign.

That's what he means, perhaps, when he says government creates jobs, American taxpayer dollars going to cronies.

BLITZER: So when you - . . . are you apologizing directly to the president?

SUNUNU: Yes, I'm apologizing for using those words. I shouldn't have used them.

CNN's Other Problem ~ Erin Burnett

I flipped over to CNN the other night because I wondered how they were covering their own bad reporting about the Supreme Court decision, and instead I landed in Erin Burnett's show - always a bad moment. I couldn't stand her when she was on CNBC, but at least she had the late great Mark Haines there to pull her back from her corporate rants. On CNN, that's what they pay her to do, I guess.

Her message: "America just woke up with a tiger in the bathroom."

Viewer: Huh? What the hell is she on about there?

Other message: "We are all losers, because we have to hate what ACA does not do - lower the cost of health care."

Me: Change the channel fast!

Seriously?

It's insulting to our intelligence to hear a lecture on the "high cost of health insurance" on the day it became more affordable, especially from someone who started out working for Goldman Sachs, and who made their career out of tossing around million dollar figures on Squawk Box as if it were chump change. Did I mention her significant other who works for Citigroup? She's gone back to that evil bank manager voice that she used in her first piece with CNN about Occupy Wall Street, when she found some teenager who was hypnotized by her boobs and lectured him on the error of his ways. Poor kid.

In this piece she shakes her head in mock-sympathy and sounds as if she's been weeping over the ACA ruling all day. Then she delivers her condescending Debbie-Downer opinion that the only important thing is bringing down the cost of health care, and help for the poor just doesn't matter.



Well guess what, Erin? Now insurers have to give rebates when they make us overpay! And the really poor won't be "overpaying" or paying much at all, and that's what the plan is for.The rest of us can keep what we have, but we also get to keep our kids on the plan until age 26, which will save millions of dollars of out of pocket expenditures by families.

That we should be unhappy that more people are insured is one of the stupidest talking points, but the Republicans are lucky to have news people like Erin to get the message out there. Let's all feel sorry for the big insurance companies and their investors, right?

When CNN cleans house in a few weeks (if it even takes that long) she should be right at the top of the list. Buh-Bye, Debbie Downer!

Media Matters Story

CNN's Erin Burnett cherry-picked numbers to claim that the health care reform law was "a massive fail" because medical costs are expected to grow more in 2014 than they did in 2010.
But the massive fail here is on Burnett: health care costs in 2010 grew at historically low rates as the country emerged from a deep recession, making it an inappropriate point of comparison.
. . . Burnett took one of the lowest rates of health spending growth on record and compared it to the year that will bring the largest impact on growth, and declared that everybody loses.
CNN's viewers most certainly did.

Trump Trumps Himself on CNN - Goes All Kooky Birther

Today Mitt Romney became the Heir Apparent to the Republican Throne by delegate count. He is in Las Vegas with Donald Trump on a fund-raising mission. So what does The Donald do to help his man? He goes on CNN, gets in a fight with Wolf Blitzer, and goes completely crazy-ass over the Birther Issue.
You have to watch it and listen to Trump to believe it. He says Obama was born in Kenya and nothing will change his mind, not even the state of Hawaii issuing a valid birth certificate. Is this helping Mitt Romney?






The other day George Will called Trump a "bloviating ignoramus," and leave it to Trump to prove him right again just two days later. Trump responded that Will was "the dumbest political commentator of all time," but I would say no - that would be Trump as well, and this piece of videotape proves it.

Politics makes strange bedfellows, indeed. For Romney to be legitimate (poor choice of words, I know) he needs to get the big bloviated bedbug out of his campaign.