“Moving forward, however, we will no longer spend resources campaigning
in primaries in states that have not yet voted,” Paul said in a
statement released by the campaign Monday afternoon. “Doing so with any
hope of success would take many tens of millions of dollars we simply do
not have.
The move comes two weeks before Paul’s home state of Texas — which awards 155 delegates — is scheduled to vote in its GOP primary. Paul had been airing television ads in the Lone Star state.
Other big states left on the calendar include California and New Jersey on June 8; the final presidential primary will be Utah’s on June 26.
It's Dueling Videos today and all about the Steelworkers. The Obama campaign released a video called "Steel" about Bain Capital's negative effect on a company named GST. As a counter-punch, the Romney folks released a vid called American Dream about a company called Steel Dynamics which was created with Bain start-up money.
There is a mind-blowing article by Jason Horowitz in the Washington Post about Mitt Rommney's early sixties school days at Cranbrook, a prep boarding school outside Detroit, Michigan. This is a must read! (And thanks to my friend exhpfan for the link)
Romney's schoolboy days sound like a combination American Graffiti, Harry Potter at Hogwarts, Dead Poets Society, and Lords of Discipline. Unfortunately for Romney, he doesn't come across as a young Ron Howard or Richard Dreyfuss - he's more like the character Doug Neidermeyer, the vicious ROTC bully in Animal House - the guy who spits into a freshman's face while asking "Is that a Pledge Pin!?" The lenthy article records a stupid "prank" that makes Young Mitt seem at the least intolerant and mean, and at the worst homophobic. And that's just page one. How interesting that this article came out the day after President Obama said he was in favor of gay marriage, and Romney said he definitely wasn't. From WaPo
John Lauber, a soft-spoken new student one year behind Romney, was perpetually teased for his nonconformity and presumed homosexuality. Now he was walking around the all-boys school with bleached-blond hair that draped over one eye, and Romney wasn’t having it.
“He can’t look like that. That’s wrong. Just look at him!” an incensed Romney told Matthew Friedemann, his close friend in the Stevens Hall dorm, according to Friedemann’s recollection. Mitt, the teenaged son of Michigan Gov. George Romney, kept complaining about Lauber’s look, Friedemann recalled.
A few days later, Friedemann entered Stevens Hall off the school’s collegiate quad to find Romney marching out of his own room ahead of a prep school posse shouting about their plan to cut Lauber’s hair. Friedemann followed them to a nearby room where they came upon Lauber, tackled him and pinned him to the ground. As Lauber, his eyes filling with tears, screamed for help, Romney repeatedly clipped his hair with a pair of scissors.
. . . “He was just easy pickins,” said Friedemann, then the student prefect, or student authority leader of Stevens Hall, expressing remorse about his failure to stop it. The incident transpired in a flash, and Friedemann said Romney then led his cheering schoolmates back to his bay-windowed room in Stevens Hall. Friedemann, guilt ridden, made a point of not talking about it with his friend and waited to see what form of discipline would befall Romney at the famously strict institution. Nothing happened.
John Lauber was later thrown out of Cranbrook for smoking cigarettes, which seems remarkable given that it was 1963-65. Of course, the young Mormon Romney would never smoke or drink or do anything like that. But yeah, he would attack another student with scissors and get away with it! I'm speechless.
This afternoon, Romney has issued an "apology" for the Cranbrook incident. From ABC News:
Romney admitted during a radio interview that he did some “dumb things” but that “homosexuality was the furthest thing from his mind” when it came to the jokes he played on classmates. He laughed off the 45 year-old anecdotes during the radio interview today.
“I’m not going to be too concerned about their piece they talk about the fact that I played a lot of pranks in high school and they describe some that well you just say to yourself, back in high school well I did some dumb things and if anybody was hurt by that or offended obviously I apologize but overall high school years were a long time ago,” said Romney in an interview on Kilmeade and Friends radio show about his years at the Cranbook School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.
Asked specifically as to whether he remembered an anecdote in the story that describes Romney cutting the hair of one of his classmates who was “presumed” to be gay because the candidate did not like his long hairstyle, Romney responded, “You know, I don’t.”
“I don’t remember that incident,” Romney said, laughing, before adding that whether someone was “homosexual, that was the furthest thing from my mind back in the 1960s, so that was not the case.”
Ah well . . . I bet there's more of this to come! I hope Washington Post does an article on Romney's life in Paris during Vietnam next!
The laughs were on the Republicans at the White House Correspondence Dinner Saturday Night. Obama introduced a new ad featuring his oppressed socialist dog Bo compared to Romney's free, um . . . wheeling . . . dog Seamus-the-Roof-Riding-Dog.
This is a nice antidote to those Obama-Zombie-Apocalypse ads that Santorum ran, too.
I guess it really goes without saying but Mitt Romney is NOT Cool Like That. Obama definitely is. Even most Republicans cannot and would not pretend to dispute this fact.
It's like going back in time via some sort of Mad Men-esque Time Warp with a smackdown between Ward Cleaver and Sidney Poitier, and we know who would win that fight hands down! The way Romney sounds so stiff and uptight, maybe it's more like Howard Sprague versus The Fonz. Too bad Ann can't knit him a magical charisma necktie.
LOL - this one is priceless!!! :) Obama with cheering students, Romney with snoring students. I love Romney's speech about office supplies - he's like every boring office manager you ever met - and his remarks about Obama sound like Greek-Column-Envy.
President Obama wants everybody in America to go to college. What a snob ... Oh, I understand why he wants you to go to college. He wants to remake you in his image. –Rick Santorum, speaking to a Tea Party group in Michigan (February 2012) Via
Yes, Rick Santorum really said that, and it's probably a good reason (among others) why he is out of the presidential race now. Of course, higher education was good enough for Rick Santorum, who has multiple degrees, only he wouldn't admit that. And if he really came from such lowly working class roots, he probably took out student loans to pay for it. And I bet he wants his own children to go to college, and with so many kids in his family at least one will surely need a boost from a bank. But that is too much reality to share with the Tea Party because their heads explode.
It's unbelievable that Republicans in general could be so out of touch with the way universities run their student loan programs. At an undergraduate level, students compete for scholarships, and if their families make more than is considered "need" then they are out of luck. Pell Grants sometimes cover tuition with just a little to spare for expenses, but the Republicans hate those so much the "mahvalous" Paul Ryan budget would cut them, of course.
A child of five would understand this. Please fetch me a child of five.
Many professions such as law and medicine require a huge investment of money beyond the needs of most universities to provide financial aid, so these schools are set up around student loans. Most post-baccalaureate students - the people who run the world after we're gone - graduate with debt in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. That is not their fault. Most of these students work several jobs over the course of the 8-12 years they spend in college. Most of them get help with ordinary things like car payments, rent, and insurance from their parents.Yet the Republicans seem to think students and parents alike are a bunch of freeloaders - or they pretend to believe that so idiots will vote for them.
Take Virginia Foxx . . . please. She's the bitch Congresswoman from North Carolina (R of course) who recently made this ridiculous statement:
I have very little tolerance for people who tell me that they graduate with $200,000 of debt or even $80,000 of debt because there's no reason for that," Foxx continued. "We live in an opportunity society and people are forgetting that. I remind folks all the time that the Declaration of Independence says 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' You don't sit on your butt and have it dumped in your lap."
Law, medicine, nursing, pharmacy, education . . . sitting on their butts? Really?
Republican intelligence - a contradiction in terms.
Then we have the intrepid Mitt Romney, with his easily paid-for Harvard Education that he dismisses when it suits him politically. Someone asked him at a rally back in February what he intends to do for people with crushing student loan debt, and he said this, with a condescending tone in his voice:
Via Politico:
I wish I could tell you that there’s a place to find really cheap money, or free money, and we could pay for everyone’s education. But that’s just not going to happen....I hope you shopped around to find a school with the lowest possible tuition.
Yeah, boy - no pat on the back for that woman getting into Law School. Just a lecture about how poor people should go to cheaper schools. But that's not how it works, Mitt. These schools - even "best deal" state universities - are highly competitive, and there are only so many positions open every year. Students fight tooth and nail to get in, and can't pick and choose the plum school of their dreams. Oh, but you didn't have to do that, did you, Mitt? No. So of course you don't understand.
I guess he will say later that the quote was misquoted.
Because now Romney is shifting to the center for the general election, and it's suddenly occurred to him that he needs the youth vote. Maybe he realizes they are the only group left gullible enough to accept him as presidential. Suddenly Romney agrees with President Obama that we need to cut interest on student loans. Call it what you will - flip-flop, etch-a-sketch moment, song & dance, or even a major break with his party - most people will think Romney's educational IQ has suddenly risen several points.
From Huffington Post:
"Particularly with the number of college graduates that can't find work and can only find work well beneath their skill level, I fully support the effort to extend the low interest rate on student loans," Romney said. "There was some concern that that would expire halfway through the year and I support extending the temporary relief on interest rates on students as a result of student loans obviously, in part because of the extraordinarily poor conditions in the job market."
It's like watching an elephant change pajamas.
President Obama had some choice words for Virginia Foxx as he spoke to students this week. Via Talking Points Memo
Speaking at the University of North Carolina about a bill to prevent some interest rates on some student loans from doubling, President Obama let loose with a lengthy dig at the state’s Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) for comments she made dismissing student’s complaints about their debt load.
“She said she had ‘very little tolerance for people who tell me they graduate with debt because there’s no reason for that.’ I’m just quoting here,” Obama said. “The students who rack up student loan debt are just ‘sitting on their butts having opportunity dumped in your lap.’ I’m reading it here. I didn’t make this up.”
He continued: “Now, can you imagine saying something like that? Those of you who’ve had to take out student loans, you didn’t do it because you’re lazy. You didn’t do it lightly. You don’t like debt. A lot of you, your parents are helping out, but it’s tough on them. They’re straining. And so you do it because the cost of college keeps going up and you know there’s an investment in your future.”
“I just want everybody to understand: I didn’t just read about this,” Obama said as the audience at the University of North Carolina crescendo from gradual applause to a full cheer. “I didn’t just get some talking points about this."
He continued, referring to himself and wife Michelle, “We didn’t come from wealthy families. We paid more in student loans than we paid on the mortgage when we finally did buy a condo.”
He noted the length it took for him to pay off his student loans, even though he now holds the nation’s highest office. “We finished paying our student loans. And check this out -- I’m the President of the United States -- we only finished paying off our student loans about eight years ago.”
I think any young people out there can see who is more sincere and isn't just pandering for votes. Obama has always been pro-financial aid. While Romney can afford to flip-flop and say whatever gets him elected, he is always dragging around the ignorant Tea Party naysayers like Virginia Foxx and ex-Rick Santorum fans who don't care if young people succeed or not.
Here's the latest cringe-worthy snafu: Cookiegate. This occurred when Mitt was out of his element, sitting an ordinary picnic table with regular Americans trying to have a conversation. It was too much for him, and he was so overwhelmed by normalcy and a lack of roast pheasant and caviar that he made fun of the cookies his guests had brought for him. It sounds as if he wanted to - dare we say it - fire someone. This is quite similar to the way Romney acted in Florida at a NASCAR race when he made fun of the cheap rain ponchos people were wearing. He just never misses a chance to make others feel inferior. It's just plain rude.
“I’m not sure about these cookies,” Mr. Romney said. “They don’t look like you made them,” he said turning to one of the women at the table. “Did you make those cookies? You didn’t, did you? No. No. They came from the local 7-Eleven bakery or wherever.”
The cookies, in fact, were donated from the popular Bethel Bakery around the corner from the community center, and once Mr. Romney’s comment was broadcast on local airwaves offended residents took to Facebook and Twitter to complain. The episode was inevitably called “CookieGate.” The bakery is offering a CookieGate special Wednesday and Thursday: free half dozen cookies with every dozen purchased.
“Initially, we were incensed that he would think that Bethel Bakery is comparable to the 7-Eleven,” said bakery owner John Walsh, a Republican. Mr. Walsh, whose parents opened the bakery in 1955, said he thinks the comment was made in jest and would like Gov. Romney to try the bakery’s offerings in the future. But some bitterness remained. “Let him eat cake next time,” Mr. Walsh said.
Ted Nugent, aging Michigan rocker and hunting afficiando, is now being investigated by the Secret Service for saying scary violent things about President Obama and other people in government. No one should just laugh and take this lightly.
In the 1970s, Arthur Bremer planned to assassinate Richard Nixon before eventually setting his sights on George Wallace, shooting and rendering him a paraplegic. He wrote in his diary that he wanted "To do SOMETHING BOLD AND DRAMATIC , FORCEFUL & DYNAMIC, A STATEMENT of my manhood for the world to see." That could be the sentiment of any famous killer from John Wilkes Booth to John Hinckley to the Columbine Killers.Let's recall that Jared Loughner, who tried to kill Congresswoman Gabby Giffords of Arizona, wrote on an envelope"I planned ahead" and that was considered enough for federal officials to toss him into jail and determine if he was mentally ill.
Sometimes thinking and talking about assassination leads to assassination.
I hope that helps someone out there understand why Ted Nugent is under investigation. Words matter. Anyone is free to criticize the President or urge people to vote against him, but telling a crowd of gun nuts that shooting the president is the only answer, then you begin to sound like John Wilkes Booth jumping into a crowd yelling "Sic Semper Tyrannis' (Thus be to tyrants)." Lincoln actually died - remember? John Kennedy died. Bobby Kennedy, Medgar Evers, and Martin Luther King were all assassinated by people who planned ahead. Ronald Reagan almost died. This isn't a joke.
Obama, he’s a piece of sh-t, and I told him to suck on my machine gun … Hey Hillary, you might want to ride one of these into the sunset, you worthless b—t … Any questions? Freeeeeeeeeeeedom!!!!!” ~ Ted Nugent on stage in 2007, quoted in EW's List of Ted Nugent's Most Outlandish Quotes
I'll tell you this right now: If Barack Obama becomes the president in November, again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year. We need to ride into that battlefield and chop their heads off in November. Any questions? ...(if you don't) get everybody in your lives to clean house in this vile, evil, America-hating administration, I don't even know what you're made out of....If the coyote's in your living room, pissing on your couch, it's not the coyote's fault. It's your fault for not shooting him. ~ Ted Nugent in April 2012, speaking to the NRA, quoted on Yahoo News
We are aware of the incident and we are conducting appropriate follow-up. ~ Secret Service Head, Brian Leary, also quoted by Yahoo News
The Romney campaign told NBC News that, contrary to Nugent’s claims, they ‘never solicited his endorsement,’ although clearly, they were pleased about it at the time. ~ MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell, quoting the Romney campaign Here
NBC News quotes Ann Romney saying she received a birthday present from an unlikely source.
"It was my early birthday present for someone to be critical of me as a mother, and that was really a defining moment, and I loved it," Mrs. Romney said.
What gift did she receive that was so warmly welcome? Well, last week a so-called Democratic "strategist" named Hilary Rosen blurted out her view of the Republican candidate's wife:
"She's never actually worked a day in her life," snarled Rosen.
Oy vey. She displays as much "strategy" as RNC chairman Reince Priebus did when he compared the War on Woman to a War on Caterpillars. They deserve each other, I swear!
As a stay-at-home mother for 26 years myself, I've had women say or imply the same snarky thing to me, so immediately I felt sorry for Ann Romney. My first thought was - omg, don't be stupid enough to attack a Mom of Five boys who also has health problems. And especially don't attack the spouse of a Republican candidate if you expect people to leave Michele Obama alone until November!
Many people dislike Rosen anyway because of her work as a corporate shill as CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Remember the now-defunct downloading website, Napster? This is the woman who filed all the copyright lawsuits against them to run out of business and helped get some really dangerous grandmothers into trouble. In 2003, Hilary sailed out of the RIAA with a cool 2.8 million salary, proving that a one-percenter like Rosen attacking a one-percenter mom like Romney is a case of Pot-Meet-Kettle.
Obama's team distanced themselves as a mini-war erupted on Twitter. Obama's Senior Advisor, David Axelrod, tweeted that Rosen's remarks were "inappropriate and offensive," while Michele Obama tweeted that "Every mother works hard, and every woman deserves to be respected."
Rosen has been apologizing everywhere, of course, but it's too little too late. We can only hope that she stays as quiet as possible between now and November. Does that sound uncharitable towards a fellow-woman? (And is that an oxymoron?) Well, all I can say is that it's really disheartening that when we had the Republicans on the ropes over their offensive views (Rush and Rick) and actions (red state legislatures) concerning women, someone who calls herself a Democrat goes rogue and attacks another woman for her family values.
There's no doubt that Ann Romney has had plenty of help in raising her children, but so do lots of other women - even Rosen, I bet, because she could also afford maids, nannies, babysitters, whatever. That is not the issue. The issue is that every woman has a choice with what to do with her life, and we should support those choices. I wish Ann Romney would detach herself from the Republicans and stand up for women more, but that's NOT going to happen. Meanwhile her life as a mother has nothing to do with politics.
No one should call Rosen a "strategist" anymore - hear that, CNN? Maybe she and Reince Priebus should go research caterpillars on some far distant island together.
SNL did a skit last night of Mitt Romney trying (and failing) to mingle with other Americans, and I think it's an instant classic that we will see hundreds of times between now and the election.
Ever since the "I had mah cheesy grits tis mornin'" debacle in Alabama, it's been obvious that Romney will say or do anything to try and fit in. Of course, all politicians pander - Obama tried (and failed) to go bowling once and got nothing but gutter balls. McCain re-branded himself as a far-right Tea Partier, then showed up at every Sausage and Beer joint in Pennsylvania and Ohio. It is always embarrassing to see that sort of thing - no one will ever forget Michael Dukakis riding in that tank in 2004 like G.I. Joe Wrong.
Pic by Jed Lewison on Daily Kos
But Mitt is in a class by himself, and it really hurts him when he comes to the South. I mean, the man came to Tennessee and in a stilting voice mouthed the words to "The Ballad of Davy Crockett" while even the sympathetic Republican crowd watched agape. Yes, Mr. Romney, we know that song, thanks. Is that really all you know about Tennessee - the Walt Disney version set in the early 1800s? I'm surprised he didn't show up in a raccoon cap and a buckskin shirt, but there's plenty of time for that in the general election. I shudder to think what is going to happen to him in Texas, if he even campaigns there. Let's hope no one gives him a rifle full of birdshot to wave around in the air, and I can only imagine what he will say about the whole Tex-Mex BBQ - beans-or-no-beans debate. For goodness sake, keep him away from the border! Well, I confess I'm really looking forward to all of it immensely and can't wait for his next gaffe, LOL. I imagine he will make jokes about the TV show, Dallas, since that is 20 years out of date, as Davy Crockett was 50, no make that 200 years out of date for Tennessee.
And of course Romney will pander to the very rich - his people, the 1% - by talking about Big Oil and how he knows the owners of every oil rig and yacht in the Gulf of Mexico. That's how he acted in Daytona, Florida, when he tried to fit in with the middle-class Nascar crowd, but ended up bragging that he knew all the wealthy team owners instead. Oh, and he taunted them for buying plastic ponchos to wear in the rain while he wore his Don Draperesque London Fog coat.
From Raw Story:
“I like those fancy raincoats you bought. Really sprung for the big bucks,” he reportedly said.
Fox News host Bill O’Reilly on Wednesday asked Romney if it was even worth making those kind of jokes because Democrats would attack him as a “snob.”
“You know, it’s hard to imagine all the things they are going to try and turn into attacks,” the former Massachusetts governor replied. “That’s the first time I’ve heard the one that you’ve mentioned.”
“Look, I’ve worn a garbage bag for rain gear myself,” he added. “We’re out there in the rain. The rain was getting us soaked. I didn’t have a raincoat myself. I would have liked one of those.”
It never occurred to him that taunting someone for cheap clothes would make him a snob. What do we expect from a man with a Car Corporation father, a wife who drives a "couple of cadillacs," and owns a special car elevator out in the fancy two-store gah-rahge. Good Lord.
I really wish that Jim Bacchus of Gilligan's Island was still alive to see this guy - what a laugh he would have! I don't know think Mitt realizes that most voters see him as a combination Thurston Howell III (complete with bags of money and Lovey by his side) and Guy Smiley from Sesame Street.
And I have to throw in the late and fabulous Ted Knight of Caddyshack fame as well, although no one would dare toss Romney through some double doors as Lou Grant once did to bumbling Ted Baxter on the Mary Tyler Moore show. The shout-out from the audience of "We don't believe you!" on SNL will have to suffice, and certainly rings true.
The Obama - Mad Men Mashup from the Chris Matthews show on MSNBC. Wow - so creative! And also indicative of the role played by propaganda, spin and branding in modern elections. We have the imagery of the campaign signs and the commodities, with gasoline and medicine used as talking points, not to mention the fact that Romney (if not Santorum) could walk right into an episode of Mad Men. But thank God this is 2012 and not 1964 ~ Obama wouldn't have been President back then.
And I think he will still be Chairman of the Board come next January!
