Showing posts with label karl rove. Show all posts
Showing posts with label karl rove. Show all posts

Monday, December 31, 2012

21 Unforgettable Election Memes of 2012

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(pic credit: SnarkAmendment)


There are some unforgettable sights of Election 2012, and I'm not even sure this list is complete or can do justice to what is here. But these are images burned into our minds and retinas forever.

Cross-Posted on Snark Amendment

1. Callista Gingrich's Shining Helmet Hair

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source: Newsweek Tumblr

Callista sat directly in front of me during our CafeMom Coffee Break with Newt Gingrich a few weeks ago, and I kept sneaking peeks at her hair throughout the event. Under the lights, it practically glowed. She looked like some sort of fussy, retro angel.
I'm just dying to touch that hair!
~ Lindsay Ferrier on The Stir

I Almost Got Callista Gingrich's Hair
. . . The color alone took three hours to achieve. Three hours of bleach and gloss and glaze and goop and my head being knocked about left and right. The gloss (or maybe it was the glaze?) burned my scalp; when I mentioned this, Pejman looked right at me and said, “Beauty tingles.”
Holly Allen on Salon

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2. Rick Santorum's Ubiquitous Sweater Vest

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source: Fear Rick's Vest Tumblr





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3. Romney's "Dog on the Roof" Story

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source

Before beginning the drive, Mitt Romney put Seamus, the family’s hulking Irish setter, in a dog carrier and attached it to the station wagon’s roof rack. He’d built a windshield for the carrier, to make the ride more comfortable for the dog.
As the oldest son, Tagg Romney commandeered the way-back of the wagon, keeping his eyes fixed out the rear window, where he glimpsed the first sign of trouble. ”Dad!” he yelled. ”Gross!” A brown liquid was dripping down the back window, payback from an Irish setter who’d been riding on the roof in the wind for hours.
As the rest of the boys joined in the howls of disgust, Romney coolly pulled off the highway and into a service station. There, he borrowed a hose, washed down Seamus and the car, then hopped back onto the highway. It was a tiny preview of a trait he would grow famous for in business: emotion-free crisis management.
~ Time Swampland, quoting the original Boston Globe story

Among those who professed shock at the story was Fox News host Chris Wallace. "I have a yellow lab named Winston. I would no sooner put him in a kennel on the roof of my car than I would one of my children. Question: What were you thinking?" Wallace asked the former governor.
Replied Romney with a nervous laugh, "This is a completely airtight kennel, mounted on the top of our car. He climbed up there regularly, enjoyed himself, he was in a kennel at home a great deal of the time as well. We loved the dog, it was where he was comfortable and we had five kids inside the car and my guess is he liked it a lot better in his kennel than he would have liked it inside."
~ Reported by NPR

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4. Mitt Romney's Etch-A-Sketch

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source: Jed Lewison, Daily Kos

HOST on CNN: Is there a concern that Santorum and Gingrich might force the governor to tack so far to the right it would hurt him with moderate voters in the general election?
Eric Fehrnstrom, Romney Advisor: Well, I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch-A-Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all of over again.
~ Think Progress

When you run as somebody you're not, it's hard to keep straight who you're supposed to be.
~ Democratic Strategist Bob Shrum on Hardball



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5. War on Women

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source: Matt Bors

What does it say about the college co-ed Susan Fluke [sic] who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex -- what does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She's having so much sex she can't afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex.
. . . So Miss Fluke, and the rest of you Feminazis, here’s the deal. If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, and thus pay for you to have sex. We want something for it. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch.
~ Rush Limbaugh talking about Sandra Fluke

If the Democrats said we had a war on caterpillars and every mainstream media outlet talked about the fact that Republicans have a war on caterpillars, then we’d have problems with caterpillars. It's a fiction."
~ Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt” airing this weekend, via Daily Kos

Women + insects = adding 10 pts more to gender gap
~ Stephanie Cutter, Obama's Deputy Campaign Manager, on Twitter

We are seeing it. We are seeing the fabric of this country fall apart, and it's falling apart because of single moms.
~ Republican Primary Candidate Rick Santorum (lost)

If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.
~ Missouri Senate Candidate Todd Akin, R-Missouri (lost)

I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize life is that gift from God, and I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.
~ Senate Candidate Richard Mourdock, R-Indiana (lost)

More War on Women Quotes Here on Current
When Caterpillars Eat Your Brain
Conservative Women Rush to be Rush Babes for America
Tea Party Candidate Wants to Hurl Acid at Female Senators
Paul Ryan's Problem with Women
McDonnell and Cuccinelli Fight War on Women in Virginia
Doofus Todd Akin VS. Wildcat McCaskill
Barbarian Mourdock of Indiana Calls Rape a "Gift from God"
Wingnuts Get Nasty when Fluke is Nominated as Time Person of the Year

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6. Off-Shore Tax Havens in the Cayman Islands

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The firm today has at least 138 funds organized in the Cayman Islands, and Romney himself has personal interests in at least 12, worth as much as $30 million, hidden behind controversial confidentiality disclaimers. Again, the Romney campaign insists he saves no tax by using them, but there is no way to check this.
~ Vanity Fair

Today we’re learning more about Mitt Romney’s bets against America. Vanity Fair’s raising important questions about Romney’s offshore accounts in foreign tax havens, including his mysterious corporation in Bermuda, his funds in the Cayman Islands, and the Swiss bank account he opened. The question is, why? Was he avoiding paying his fair share of U.S. taxes? Was he hedging against the dollar? Until he releases his tax returns from that period, Americans will never know. This raises serious questions. If he has nothing to hide, why doesn’t he just release his tax returns?
~ Obama Spokesman Ben LaBolt



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7. Rafalca the Dancing Horse

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source: Atlantic Wire



As a living, breathing, clippety-cloppeting, velvet-nosed and liquid-eyed avatar of Romney’s extreme wealth, she’s given her uncle Mitt the kind of handicap his advisers fear might make his path to the White House heavy going. That may be why the Republican presidential hopeful betrays scant interest in his wife’s four-legged protégé.
During Romney’s accident-prone sojourn in London in late July, he told NBC‘s Brian Williams that he didn’t even know when Rafalca would be appearing at the Games — “I have to tell you,” he said, “this is Ann’s sport.”
~ Time Magazine

Obama is going to need all the help he can get because Romney is surging, thanks in part to his new secret weapon. Long time viewers know that every year I declare a sport of the summer. Last year it was the elegant art of canoe dancing....Last week I declared that this year's sport of the summer will be Dressage, or "Horse Ballet."
. . . The Romneys are the proud owners of a German Oldenburg mare named Rafalca. There is no better way to dispel the myth that Romney is a detached patrician elite than competitive horse prancing. I mean, it's basically Nascar in a velvet top hat.
~ Stephen Colbert on Comedy Central
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8. The Romney Shambles

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Romney could not have played more into the image of the callow American if he’d showed up at Buckingham Palace in Dockers. In his honor, the nation even resurrected a little-used epithet, “wazzock,” which refers to, as John Cassidy wrote, “a hapless idiot who blunders around saying or doing things he or she shouldn’t” (or, literally, a bull’s penis). This weekend, the BBC reported that, according to Harvey Weinstein, David Cameron, the Tory Prime Minister, has told people that Romney’s graceless performance has won him “the unique distinction of uniting all of England against him with his various remarks.”
~ Lauren Collins on The New Yorker

Who is this klutz, this clodhopper, this lawn sprinkler of national insult? Well, he`s Mitt Romney. Remember him, the guy who promised to restore and upgrade the special relationship with Great Britain and has instead barfed on the Buckingham Palace lawn?
~ Chris Matthews on MSNBC's Hardball





Romney Shambles Day One: Disconcerting London Gaffes
Romney Shambles Day Two: British Press Pounces
Romney Shambles Day Three: On to Israel
Romney Shambles Day Four: Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran
Romney Shambles Day Five: Poland
Romney Shambles Day Six: Warsaw Speech
Romney Shambles Review

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9. Ann Romney Versus "You People"

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source: @AzureGhost

We've given all you people need to know and understand about our financial situation and about how we live our life. . .
~ Ann Romney to Robin Roberts on ABC News

. . . The other thing they have to understand is that Mitt is honest, his integrity is just golden. We pay our taxes, we are absolutely . . . beyond paying our taxes we also give 10% of our income to charity, so we have no issues that way.
The only reason we don't disclose anymore is, you know, we just become a bigger target.
~ NBC Interview with Natalie Morales

This is hard and, you know, it's an important thing that we're doing right now and it's an important election and it is time for all Americans to realize how significant this election is and how lucky we are to have someone with Mitt's qualifications and experience and know-how to be able to have the opportunity to run this country.
~ Ann on Radio Iowa



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10. Birtherism

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My investigators believe that the long-form birth certificate was manufactured electronically and that it did not originate in a paper format as claimed by the White House.
~ Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona via LA Times

He said he was born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia… Now they’re saying it was a mistake. Just like his Kenyan grandmother said he was born in Kenya, and she pointed down the road to the hospital, and after people started screaming at her she said, ‘Oh, I mean Hawaii.’ Give me a break.”
~ Donald Trump on Daily Beast

Speaking about his Michigan roots, he said, "No one's ever asked to see my birth certificate. They know that this is the place that we were born and raised." The joke was received with hearty applause by the audience. . . .
~ Mitt Romney Speaking in Michigan, via Huff Post


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11. Lyin' Paul Ryan

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source

HH: Are you still running?
PR: Yeah, I hurt a disc in my back, so I don’t run marathons anymore. I just run ten miles or yes.
HH: But you did run marathons at some point?
PR: Yeah, but I can’t do it anymore, because my back is just not that great.
HH: I’ve just gotta ask, what’s your personal best?
PR: Under three, high twos. I had a two hour and fifty-something.
HH: Holy smokes. All right, now you go down to Miami University…
PR: I was fast when I was younger, yeah.
~ Paul Ryan Radio Interview with Hugh Hewitt as he lies about his Marathon Time

Runner's World checked 11 years of results for Grandma's Marathon, from 1988 through 1998, and found a finisher in the 1990 race by the name of Paul D. Ryan, 20, of Minneapolis.
Ryan's middle name is Davis, and he was 20 in 1990. The finishing time listed was 4 hours, 1 minute and 25 seconds.
~ Research by Runner's World Magazine proving that Ryan was Lying

"No, I never asked for stimulus," Ryan said when questioned on reports that he had sought funds.
Ryan's statement directly counters the evidence of four letters obtained by the AP which the congressman wrote to Energy Secretary Steven Chu, praising energy programs supported by the stimulus and requesting funds for initiatives in his district.
~ Associated Press report that Paul Ryan openly lied to the media about whether he asked for stimulus funds for his district

On Paul Ryan's Republican National Convention Speech:
"Three Words: Dazzling, Deceiving, Distracting"
. . . to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to facts, Ryan’s speech was an apparent attempt to set the world record for the greatest number of blatant lies and misrepresentations slipped into a single political speech. On this measure, while it was Romney who ran the Olympics, Ryan earned the gold.
~ Sally Kohn on Fox News

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12. Clint Eastwood Talks to an Empty Chair

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I don't . . . I don't . . . I don't know . . . Clint Eastwood is 82 years old. And I don't know if that's what was going on there . . . That was the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen at a political convention in my entire life, and it will be the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen if I live to be one hundred.”
~ Rachel Maddow on MSNBC

I could never wrap my head around why the world and the President that Republicans describe bears so little resemblance to the world and the President that I experience. And now I know why.
There is a President Obama that only Republicans can see.
~ Jon Stewart on The Daily Show

Clint Eastwood Talks to an Empty Chair in Tampa
Romney Advisers on Hotseat Over Chair Debacle
Media Turn Clint Eastwood Every Which Way but Loose
Clint Eastwood Blames Mitt for Stupid Chair Skit

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13. The 47%

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~ Romney on a secretly recorded video posted by Mother Jones

Here was Romney raw and unplugged—sort of unscripted. With this crowd of fellow millionaires, he apparently felt free to utter what he really believes and would never dare say out in the open. He displayed a high degree of disgust for nearly half of his fellow citizens, lumping all Obama voters into a mass of shiftless moochers who don't contribute much, if anything, to society, and he indicated that he viewed the election as a battle between strivers (such as himself and the donors before him) and parasitic free-riders who lack character, fortitude, and initiative.
~ Journalist David Corn, who leaked the 47% video with the help of the Anonymous filmmaker and James Carter IV, grandson of President Jimmy Carter

All of us make mistakes. . . . What people want to know, though, is you're not writing off a big chunk of the country because the way our democracy works.
This is a big country. And people disagree a lot, but one thing I’ve never tried to do – and I think none of us can do in public office – is suggest that because someone doesn’t agree with me that they’re victims or they’re unpatriotic.
~ President Obama on CBS, The David Letterman Show

Today Mitt Romney Lost the Election
You can mark my prediction now: A secret recording from a closed-door Mitt Romney fundraiser, released today by David Corn at Mother Jones, has killed Mitt Romney's campaign for president.
~ Josh Barro on Bloomberg

Romney Goes Totally Ayn Rand in Secret Video
Obama Will Win 47 States with Help of Moochers
Romney Fall-Out Continues from Video-Gate
View from the Far Right as Romney Falls From Grace
Ann Romney Thinks Her Horse is Classier Than the 47% Dems
Romney Dumps a Tax Return - So There, Take That!

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14. Fire Big Bird and Cut PBS

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New Minas on Daily Kos

What things would I cut from spending? Well, first of all, I will eliminate all programs by this test, if they don't pass it: Is the program so critical it's worth borrowing money from China to pay for it? And if not, I'll get rid of it. Obamacare's on my list. ... I'm sorry, Jim, I'm going to stop the subsidy to PBS. I'm going to stop other things. I like PBS, I love Big Bird. Actually like you, too. But I'm not going to -- I'm not going to keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for. That's number one.
~ Mitt Romney to PBS Moderator Jim Leher during First Presidential Debate





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15. Binders Full of Women

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source: @TeaPartyCat

And I -- and I went to my staff, and I said, "How come all the people for these jobs are -- are all men." They said, "Well, these are the people that have the qualifications." And I said, "Well, gosh, can't we -- can't we find some -- some women that are also qualified?"
And -- and so we -- we took a concerted effort to go out and find women who had backgrounds that could be qualified to become members of our cabinet.
I went to a number of women's groups and said, "Can you help us find folks," and they brought us whole binders full of women.
~ Mitt Romney During Presidential Debate, via ABC News







More Here:
Snark Amendment: Romney's Binders Full of Women Debate Meme
Binders Full of Women Tumblr
Binders full of Women on Wired
Know Your Meme: Binders Full of Women
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16. Joe Biden's Grinning Malarkey

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source: Gifwich Tumblr

Mr. Biden, clearly delighted to come to President Obama’s rescue, relished his role, addressing his opponent as “my friend” but dismissing his arguments as “malarkey.” He laughed at Mr. Ryan’s remarks so often and so heartily that at times he seemed like a guest at a comedy club roast, not a vice president debating the fate of the nation with his opponent.
~ New York Times

It reminded me ... of watching a musk ox run across the tundra with somebody underfoot. And in this case, when it came to style, it was Paul Ryan underfoot....
~ Previoiusly Debated VP Candidate Sarah Palin





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17. Horses and Bayonets

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source: thecarryall.com
more here at horsesandbayonets.tumblr

You mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military's changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines.
~ Barack Obama During 3rd Debate





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18. Hurricane Sandy

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I’ve got a job to do here in New Jersey that’s much bigger than Presidential politics and I could care less about any of that stuff… if you think right now I give a damn about presidential politics then you don’t know me.
~ Romney's Surrogate, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, when asked if he would let the Republican candidate visit the state

If President Obama wins re-election on Tuesday, the historical memory of the race might turn on the role played by Hurricane Sandy.
Already, some analysts are describing the storm as an “October surprise” that allowed Mr. Obama to regain his footing after stumbling badly in the first presidential debate and struggling to get back on course. Some Republicans seem prepared to blame a potential defeat for Mitt Romney on the storm, and the embrace of Mr. Obama by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and other public officials.
~ Nate Silver on the importance of Hurricane Sandy

The election isn't gonna be moved. It's gonna happen Tuesday. Of course, the opposite theory is, “What the hell is Christie doing? He's giving Obama a chance to look presidential, clean up a state, look competent, look like he cares and so forth. What's a Republican doing propping up Obama?"
~ Rush Limbaugh





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19. Nate Silver Vs. Unskewed Polls

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source: The Penguin Press Tumblr





Nate Silver could be a one-term celebrity.
~ Dylan Byers on Politico

Nate Silver is a man of very small stature, a thin and effeminate man with a soft-sounding voice that sounds almost exactly like the “Mr. New Castrati” voice used by Rush Limbaugh on his program. In fact, Silver could easily be the poster child for the New Castrati in both image and sound. Nate Silver, like most liberal and leftist celebrities and favorites, might be of average intelligence but is surely not the genius he's made out to be. His political analyses are average at best and his projections, at least this year, are extremely biased in favor of the Democrats.
~ Dean Chambers, founder of Unskewed Polls, on Examiner ~ this paragraph has now been edited out of the article

Nate Silver: Patron Saint of Confirmation Bias
. . . When the left wakes up on Wednesday, surveying the electoral wreckage around them, they may regret allowing themselves to be lulled into such a false sense of security.
~ Michael Flynn on Breitbart


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20. Karl Rove's Meltdown on Election Night

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Fox News Loses Its Mind Over Election Results
~ Headline on NY Mag








This is a bad day for Republican pollsters, and it’s something that they should be held accountable for. You have to tell your clients the truth, and you have to be accurate. And to miss so many states and to be this far off, your Fox News viewers ought to be outraged, because day in and day out they were told that Mitt Romney was going to win, and the fact is Ohio was ​never​ up, Wisconsin was ​never​ up, Pennsylvania was ​never​ up…the published polls were correct. Nate Silver was correct. But the Republican establishment polls were wrong.
~ Republican Pollster Frank Luntz

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21. Obama Wins Again For All the Right Reasons

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"A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words"
Kevin Drum on Mother Jones

From a righteous rant by Rachel Maddow on MSNBC (click here for full transcript)

That happened (the re-election of Barack Obama). That really happened.
We are not going to have a Supreme Court that will overturn Roe versus Wade.
There will be no more Antonin Scalias and Samuel Alitos added to this court.
We're not going to repeal health reform.

Nobody is going to kill Medicare and make old people in this generation or any other generation fight it out on the open market to try to get health insurance.
We are not going to do that.
We are not going to give a 20% tax cut to millionaires and billionaires and expect programs like food stamps and kid's insurance to cover the cost of that tax cut.

We'll not make you clear it with your boss if you want to get birth control under the insurance plan that you're on.
We are not going to redefine rape.
We are not going to amend the United States Constitution to stop gay people from getting married.

We are not going to double Guantanamo.
We are not eliminating the department of energy or the department of education or housing at the federal level.
We are not going to spend $2 trillion on the military that the military does not want.
We are not scaling back on student loans, because the country's new plan is that you should borrow money from their parents.

We are not vetoing the Dream Act.
We are not self-deporting.

We are not letting Detroit go bankrupt.
We are not starting a trade war with China on Inauguration Day in January.

We are not going to have, as a President, a man who once led a mob of friends to run down a scared gay kid, to hold him down and forcibly cut his hair off with a pair of scissors while that kid cried and screamed for help, and there was no apology not ever.

We are not going to have a Secretary of State John Bolton.
We are not bringing Dick Cheney back.
We are not going to have a foreign policy shop stocked with architects of the Iraq War.
We are not going to do it.
We had the choice to do that if we wanted to do that as a country, and we said no last night, loudly.

Ohio really did go to President Obama last night.
And he really did win.
And he really was born in Hawaii.
And he really is legitimately President of the United States, again.

And the Bureau of Labor Statistics did not make up a fake unemployment rate last month.
And the Congressional Research Service really can find no evidence that cutting taxes on rich people grows the economy.
And the polls were not screwed to oversample Democrats.
And Nate Silver was not making up fake projections about the election to make conservatives feel bad. Nate Silver was doing math.

And climate change is real.
And rape really does cause pregnancy sometimes.
And evolution is a thing.

And Benghazi was an attack on us, it was not a scandal by us.
And nobody is taking away anyone's guns.
And taxes have not gone up.
And the deficit is dropping, actually.

And Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction.
And the moon landing was real.
And FEMA is not building concentration camps.
And U.N. election observers are not taking over Texas.

And moderate reforms of the regulations on the insurance industry and the financial services industry in this country are not the same thing as communism.

. . . And the if the Republican party and the conservative movement and the conservative media is stuck in a vacuum-sealed door-locked spin cycle of telling each other what makes them feel good and denying the factual, lived truth of the world, then we are all deprived as a nation of the constructive debate about competing feasible ideas about real problems.

Last night the Republicans got shellacked, and they had no idea it was coming. And we saw them in realtime, in real humiliating time, not believe it, even as it was happening to them. And unless they are going to secede, they are going to have to pop the factual bubble they have been so happy living inside if they do not want to get shellacked again, and that will be a painful process for them, but it will be good for the whole country, left, right, and center.


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Friday, December 7, 2012

Off-Kilter Republicans in a State of Decline

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The past week has been dotted with Republican fail the likes of which we have rarely seen in the modern era, and it shows just how off-kilter they are. Of course, as my witty husband says, were they ever 'on kilter'? Well, maybe not in terms of a philosophy we can all understand, but at least they were able to stay on the same page and agree on the same mass delusions. Right now, not so much. In fact, the re-election of Barack Obama seems to have thrown them into complete disarray that seems to echo a death knell for the national party. It's sort of like watching a rabid skunk foaming at the mouth and jumping around snapping at invisible enemies in the air. You can be pretty darn sure the rabies will get them in the end.

For instance, take Rick Santelli, please. The CNBC guy threw another tantrum on the air last Friday, calling for a "Waaaahmbulance" over Obama and tax reform. Do these guys not realize that we all know they are crying for themselves and their own bank accounts, not for the other 99% of Americans? Cry me a river. He really does seem to be foaming at the mouth, though, doesn't he?

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New York Mag reported that Karl Rove and Dick Morris are now in Disgrace at Fox News for their ridiculous and over-zealous predictions that Mitt Romney would win the presidency in the landslide:
According to multiple Fox sources, Ailes has issued a new directive to his staff: He wants the faces associated with the election off the air — for now. For Karl Rove and Dick Morris — a pair of pundits perhaps most closely aligned with Fox’s anti-Obama campaign — Ailes’s orders mean new rules. Ailes’s deputy, Fox News programming chief Bill Shine, has sent out orders mandating that producers must get permission before booking Rove or Morris.

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. . . Multiple sources say that Ailes was angry at Rove’s election-night tantrum when he disputed the network’s call for Obama. While the moment made for riveting television — it was Ailes’s decision to have Kelly confront the statisticians on air — in the end, it provided another data point for Fox’s critics. A spokesperson for Ailes denied any rift between Ailes and Rove, and said the two plan to meet this week.

Rove may have lost Ailes for the present, but he is still probably laughing all the way to the bank with his Super-Pac money. Dick Morris is in a different place, tangled up with Glenn Beck and his scary conspiracy theory, Agenda 21. As you may recall, a guy in Georgia named Chip Rogers organized an embarrassing seminar on how Obama was practicing "Mind Control" on us all (thanks to the evil U.N.) and soon the black helicopters will come to take our guns (if we have any) and herd us into the concentration camps.

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Dick Morris was featured in a video shown at the conference which in turn was filmed by progressive watchdog group Better Georgia. Now the be-clowned and delusional Chip Rogers has resigned from the GA Legislature and Dick Morris has no cover for any of this. With any luck, he will just fade into the woodwork, never to be seen again.

Another "Dick" had to resign this week: Former House member Dick Armey, who broke his association with tea party group Freedomworks over a badly negotiated book deal - at least that's what he says. Cushioning the blow is the fact that he is running away with an $8 million golden parachute - for doing what, I wonder?
Time Magazine has more here.

Then in a move that surprised many on the Right and the Left, Senator Jim DeMint R-SC left the Senate to become the new head of the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation. While most think he did it for the money, other pundits assume DeMint was tired of having to vote with the more moderate members of his party (the few that are still there), and wanted to be among a group of like-minded wingnuts. That's probably a mistake for the Party, as Ezra Klein pointed out in a Washington Post piece called The Death of the Think Tanks.

Incredibly, the pundit who has often been most-described as "rabid" in the past - Ann Coulter - seems to have found a truth antidote and is now the voice of reason. She went on Fox News and schooled Sean Hannity on the new reality, telling him that Democrats are "going to win" the tax battle with the House, and it's "not winning" to raise taxes on everyone just to save the top 2%, a message he did NOT want to hear! Transcript Here


And finally, we reached the height, the apex, the crowning glory of Republican Off-Kilterness yesterday when Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell, pretending to introduce legislation on the Debt Ceiling in an effort to show up Harry Reid, was forced to filibuster his own bill when "Honey Badger" Reid called his bluff.

*DERP* With leaders like McConnell, Boehner, Jim Demint, and the Fox Fools, it can only get worse before it gets better!

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Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Video ~ Nate Silver Orders Breakfast

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No offense to the "real" Nate Silver, but this parody from ThePitNYC is hilarious. And it's just another homage to a statistician who often seems super-human to the rest of us who are math-challenged. Also, I posted as counterpoint a little poke at Karl Rove who set himself up as the Fox News Math Fail guy on election night - "caught in a landslide, no escape from reality." I never get tired of that!

Warning: Some adult language content.



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Friday, October 12, 2012

Repubs Know Ryan Got a Whoopin'


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Some of the GOP reactions to the Biden - Ryan Debate last night are priceless.



Yeah, I bet, LOL. Lehrer was a slug compared to Martha Raddatz. And while your boy Ryan tried to talk as fast as the Music Man, Biden managed to get more words in than Obama.

Sarah Palin had to say something, of course, and it was actually a sort of compliment made in Palin's Alaskinesque - Northern Shaman way: Joe Biden is the mighty musk ox of the tundra:

Via Mediaite
"Really tough format, Sean, for someone like a Paul Ryan or anybody else up against Joe Biden, when the moderator allowed one candidate to absolutely run roughshod over the conversation, over the opponent," Palin told Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity on Thursday night. "That’s a tough format. It reminded me ... of watching a musk ox run across the tundra with somebody underfoot. And in this case, when it came to style, it was Paul Ryan underfoot because of the moderator allowing Biden to do the interrupting, to kind of take control of the conversation."

The RNC released an unintentionally funny video with ominous music playing as Joe Biden laughs his head off. I dare anyone to watch this without giggling or at least smiling. Great job, Brownie - I mean Reince Priebus!


Peggy Noonan, who took Republican candidate Mitt Romney to the woodshed multiple times just a few weeks ago, now has jumped back on the GOP loyalty train, and is spinning like there's no tomorrow. She won't say that Biden won, but she won't say that Ryan lost either:







Tea Partier Erick Erickson wrote on Red State that Joe Biden spent half an hour "Braying like a Biblical Donkey," whatever that means.

Erick also went on Soledad O'Brien's show slamming the moderator, Martha Raddatz.
And remember while reading the following transcript that Erickson works for CNN now, so he is one of the so-called "journalists" he implies are covering for Raddatz. Also he seems to be insulting Soledad, who is his colleague now - ugh. In his comments he echoes Karl Rove because he misses Jim Lehrer who "got out of the way" and let Romney run roughshod over Obama. Ha - not so fun when the shoe is on the other foot, as it was last night.

CNN Transcript

ERICKSON: . . . I did think it was interesting in how much Martha Raddatz pressured Paul Ryan on specific policies and specifics of his proposals, and she didn't do that so much with Joe Biden. It's striking that for all the lack of specifics she may be getting from the Romney campaign, you're not getting them any more from the Obama campaign for what they're going to do for the next four years.

O'BRIEN: You know, you tweeted that about Martha. You tweeted this. I'm sorry, but I think Martha did an atrocious job as a moderator, lost control of both sides repeatedly.

ERICKSON: I absolutely think she did.

O'BRIEN: I think you've lost your mind.

ERICKSON: I think you're a journalists and journalists are going to give her cover. I thought she was horrible.

O'BRIEN: I've never met her before today. She walked by. I said hi. In terms of information --

ERICKSON: Look, you've got to --

O'BRIEN: Let me just finish and I'll let you respond. Hang on a second.

ERICKSON: -- with Joe Biden and Paul Ryan.

O'BRIEN: Right. For me a moderator who let's them go at it each other a little bit so you can get the argument but then jumps in and moves it to the right direction that's very helpful as someone who was just watching. I got to watch it in the hall. Why do you disagree?

ERICKSON: Because I think she only interrupted to move the debate forward when Paul Ryan was speaking. She rarely did it with Joe Biden. She let Joe Biden do the interruption. Her wheel-house was foreign policy. Two-thirds of the debate was on foreign policy. And, you know, when you're debating foreign policy in a vice presidential debate, I guess that's all well and good but we have this unemployment number, jobs decline and I just think moderators shouldn't make the focus of the debate their wheel-house.

O'BRIEN: I'm going to disagree with you on that. I thought she did a terrific job, thought she was super strong. Did you think Jim Lehrer did a good job? We can disagree.

ERICKSON: At least -- I think with Jim Lehrer, at least he got out of the way and let them talk. I think when Joe Biden was so aggressive last night you need the moderator to intervene a little more. With Jim Lehrer, I thought he was asleep for most of the debate but wound up being substantive. I haven't been impressed with the moderators so far this year. But Candy Crowley will hit it out of the park, I guarantee.

O'BRIEN: Thank you, Erick.
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Friday, September 28, 2012

Earth to GOP: The Polls are Arithmatic

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"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.

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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.
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Saturday, June 23, 2012

Romney and Rove at Camp Cozy Pac in Utah

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Please Pac(k) Money

Karl Rove runs a giant Super Pac called "Crossroads" that spends millions making negative campaign ads aimed at democratic candidates, mainly at President Obama but also people running for Congress. Comedian Stephen Colbert calls these types of groups "Spooky Pacs" because they don't have to reveal just who the donors are.

Mitt Romney as a candidate is supposed to stay far away - from the Pac, but apparently things are getting murky. This weekend Rove and Romney are cozying up at a "Victory Retreat" of huge donors at an exclusive ski resort in Deer Valley, Utah.

Martin Bashir on MSNBC aptly called this type of fundraising "The Hot Tub Cash Machine" (scroll down for video).
The New York times is more blunt: Democracy for Sale

Sunlight Reporting Group - Possible List of Attendees and Donors

Today someone snapped a picture of Rove and Tag Romney, son of the candidate, riding around in a golf cart at this retreat. Isn't this illegal?

Picture of Karl Rove in a golf cart at Mitt Romney's pri... on Twitpic
Via Buzzfeed



Washington Post - Romney Hosting Super Pac Fundraiser in Utah:
Romney is allowed to talk to groups working on his behalf and even raise money for them, something he’s done several times. The only thing he’s not allowed to do is talk about the strategy for spending money boosting his candidacy or attacking President Obama.

At the retreat, Rove simply has to avoid listening to any of the talk about campaign strategy to stay in the clear.

“Karl Rove is on a panel with other media personalities,” said Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul. “We are fully aware of what the law requires and we follow both its letter and its spirit.”

Rove is an unpaid strategic adviser and “key fundraiser” to Crossroads, said Jonathan Collegio, a spokesman for the group.


The other day the Obama camp threw down the gauntlet and filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission against Rove and Crossroads:

Salon: Obama Goes to War with GOP Secret Pac:
. . . the Obama campaign is arguing that the group is essentially violating the tax laws governing its nonprofit status and therefore must reveal its funders. Bob Bauer, the Obama campaign’s top lawyer, argues that Crossroads GPS should no longer be protected as a charity, because it is clearly a political organization. “Crossroads seems to believe that it can run out the clock and spend massive sums of money in this election without accounting for a trace of its funding,” Bauer wrote in the complaint, which was filed today and obtained by the New York Times.

Groups like Crossroads are technically charity organizations and therefore don’t have to disclose their donors. But in order to qualify, their “primary purpose” must be social welfare and not politics. However, where that line actually gets drawn has never really been determined, thanks to an ineffectual FEC and opposition from Republican leaders.

Complete Complaint from Obama's Lawyer, Robert Bauer

Quote Via CNN
There has never been any doubt about its true purpose: to elect candidates of its choice to the Presidency and the Congress. Under the pretense of charitable activities, Crossroads has tried to shield its donors–wealthy individuals, and corporations who may be pursuing special interest agendas that are not in the national interest...
Crossroads seems to believe that it can run out the clock and spend massive sums of money in this election without accounting for a trace of its funding....

David Corn: "Victory Retreat sounds like an oxymoron to me." LOL




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Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Colbert and McCaskill Discuss Rove's "Spooky PACS"

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Stephen Colbert and Claire McCaskill of Missouri talk about secret "Spooky PAC" money coming from unknown big-money donors trying to Democrats out of office. Colbert is hilarious discussing Karl Rove's billionaire minions giving secret donations to his Crossroads Super PACs, which he calls "Spooky PACs."

My Partial Transcript from the Video:

The general election is underway and I'm as giddy as a schoolgirl who will soon be denied birth control.

So far, the big players in 2012 are the Super PACs, like Colbert Super PAC. You know our motto: "Making a better tomorrow, tomorrow."

...And folks, I'm not the only one throwing around my unlimited corporate cash....Secret billionaires are just trying to get "involved" in the political process, the same way the Secret Service just wanted to get "involved" with those prostitutes. So, to protect themselves from accountability, big donors need anonymity. Like Casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who almost single-handedly funded Newt Gingrich's Super PAC "Winning Our Future" - which has recently been renamed "Dodging Our Creditors." Well now, Adelson is going underground, where it's possible he also originated. He says that from now on if he injects big bucks into this election, it will be to a c4. Now folks, he's talking about super secret 501(c)4's. Or as they're now called "Spooky PACs," which can accept unlimited money without ever disclosing their donors because they're technically "social welfare organizations."

Their negative attack ads count as "charity" in the same way that yelling "Get a job you dirty bum" is a donation to the homeless. Of course, I have a Spooky PAC - Colbert Super PAC Shh. You know our motto: Making a Better Tomorrow at a Later Date That's None of Your G*d**n Business." And for you transparency fetishists I am happy to now make my fully legally required disclosure: I have written the names of Colbert Super PAC Shh Donors on my taint in butterscotch topping. I invite the FEC to audit it with their tongues.
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