Mirror On America: 2012

Sunday, December 30, 2012

Why Willard Romney Lost

Mitt Romney was hesitant to reveal himself

A Globe review finds many reasons for the presidential candidate’s failure, none greater than how slow he was to tell his own story

By Michael Kranish | Globe Staff December 23, 2012

excerpt:

To this day, Romney’s aides wonder how it all went so wrong.

They console each other with claims that the election was much closer than realized, saying that Romney would be president if roughly 370,000 people in swing states had voted differently. Romney himself blamed demographic shifts and Obama’s “gifts”: federal largesse targeted to Democratic constituencies.

But a reconstruction by the Globe of how the campaign unfolded shows that Romney’s problems went deeper than is widely understood. His campaign made a series of costly financial, strategic, and political mistakes that, in retrospect, all but assured the candidate’s defeat, given the revolutionary turnout tactics and tactical smarts of President Obama’s operation.

To which I reply:

I’m tired of these whiners. Let’s break it down .

The GOP Primaries were a joke. A JOKE. They ran against amateurs and grifters, and even then, never presented an actual CASE as to why Willard should be President. They buried the GOP Clown Car with negative ads because they had more money. If just one of those grifters had actual solid financial footing, Willard never would have won.

So, after running in that Primary, against that pathetic bunch, they actually thought that they were going to run that bullshyt on the Obama Team.

You know the team that took down the Clintons in 2008 and got a BLACK MAN ELECTED PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

Yes, that team.

They thought, with their Citizens United Cabal, that they would just run all sorts of ads, and that would work with this President. But, you see, as usual, they couldn’t see the forest for the trees. They pretended that this President, and his entire family, hadn’t been the most disrespected President in history. They pretended that the rest of this country didn’t notice the race-based insults that had proliferated from the right from the moment Barack Obama came close to getting the Democratic Nomination in 2008. You know the saying that every cloud has silver lining – well, the lining in this case was that, there wasn’t shyt negative that Willard and the Citizens United Clown Car couldn’t unleash against the President that we hadn’t already heard in one way or another from the right wing since 2008. The only people those ads were going towards were the people who were never going to vote for the President in the first place.

They mocked President Obama as a ‘ community organizer’. As folks pointed out the number of field offices that the President’s team was opening, and the volunteers, it was mocked by the GOP, and ignored by the MSM. They thought they wouldn’t need GOTV, because their Voter Suppression was supposed to work. They actually thought that they were going to take away the RIGHT TO VOTE FROM FIVE MILLION AMERICANS, and nobody was gonna fight that shyt. Rev. Al had a saying about this election:

This isn’t Obama – it’s about your Mama.

He was right in so many ways. It became less about President Obama, and even those that were on the fence about this President, weren’t on the fence about Big Mama, Daddy, Uncle Leroy, the Elders in the Church that they’ve known their entire lives. It couldn’t get more personal to have these assholes stand before cameras, saying that, of course, these laws were to stop people from voting. WE are the ones who were beaten, hozed, who had to tell the ‘ number of bubbles in a bar of soap’, and guess how many jelly beans in a jar. The reaction to James Crow, Esquire was VICERAL, and people were not playing with the GOP, or the MSM which didn’t report this story, save for a handful of people.

They never ran a campaign – they lied about every damn thing. Steve Benen wrote FORTY-ONE fucking columns detailing Willard’s lies.

FORTY-ONE!!!

Willard Romney ran for President officially for 6 years, and to this day, nobody could tell me WHAT was his purpose for running. They could never tell me WHY he should be President – other than he was a rich White Man. THAT is all he offered, with his race-baiting campaign. They were gonna racebait the White folks out to vote, but never thought about the flip of that – that all the non-White people in this country that held their tongue as they silently watched and seethed at the insults towards this President. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. I still say that the numbers that shocked the hell out of them were the votes for Latinos and Asians….they were oh so ready to tell Black folks that they ‘ imagined’ the insults towards The First Family, and that we should stop being so ‘sensitive’. When pretty much ALL the non-White folks saw the same damn thing, that shut them the fuck up. Willard was their Great White Hope, cause he surely had nothing else to offer, and watching all of them on election night have to choke on it, as the President won re-election handily just made them hurt all over. To see the man triumph after they had done everything they possibly could to put the fix in…they were beside themselves.

Willard Romney and his entire clan, were nothing but a bunch of overprivileged, entitled group of assholes who thought that they were ENTITLED to be First Family. Not understanding that, even with our republic as broken as it’s been, one is ELECTED President by THE PEOPLE. So, him, ‘ our turn’ Miss Ann, that punk azz Tagg, who thought he could open his mouth about threatening our President, can go somewhere and sit down in one of their houses.

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Merry Christmas, Everyone :)

From all the bloggers here at MOA...

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO EVERYONE!!

I hope you're spending a wonderful day with family and friends.

A few of my favorite Christmas videos.

Linus explains the true meaning of Christmas

Tim Scott: A Senator for Conservatives and Nothing Else

The news that South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley will name Tim Scott as Jim DeMint’s replacement in the Senate should not come as a surprise. The GOP, while disdainful of the so-called identity politics played by the Democrats, is actually masterful at the art of identity politics. For example, recall George H.W. Bush’s nomination of Clarence Thomas to replace Thurgood Marshall on the Supreme Court, or the carefully choreographed stage production of Republican National Conventions featuring Condi Rice and Colin Powell. Read the rest here.

Time Magazine Names President Obama Man of the Year

From Time Magazine:

2012 Person of the Year: Barack Obama, the President

By Michael Scherer

Dec. 19, 2012

Twenty-seven years after driving from New York City to Chicago in a $2,000 Honda Civic for a job that probably wouldn’t amount to much, Barack Obama, in better shape but with grayer hair, stood in the presidential suite on the top floor of the Fairmont Millennium Park hotel as flat screens announced his re-election as President of the United States. The networks called Ohio earlier than predicted, so his aides had to hightail it down the hall to join his family and friends. They encountered a room of high fives and fist pumps, hugs and relief.

The final days of any campaign can alter the psyches of even the most experienced political pros. At some point, there is nothing to do but wait. Members of Obama’s team responded in the only rational way available to them — by acting irrationally. They turned neckties into magic charms and facial hair into a talisman and compulsively repeated past behaviors so as not to jinx what seemed to be working. In Boca Raton, Fla., before the last debate, they dispatched advance staff to find a greasy-spoon diner because they had eaten at a similar joint before the second debate, on New York’s Long Island. They sent senior strategist David Axelrod a photograph of the tie he had to find to wear on election night: the same one he wore in 2008. Several staffers on Air Force One stopped shaving, like big-league hitters in the playoffs. Even the President succumbed, playing basketball on Election Day at the same court he played on before winning in 2008.

But now it was done, and reason had returned. Ever since the campaign computers started raising the odds of victory from near even to something like surefire, Obama had been thinking a lot about what it meant to win without the lightning-in-a-bottle quality of that first national campaign. The Obama effect was not ephemeral anymore, no longer reducible to what had once been mocked as “that hopey-changey stuff.” It could be measured — in wars stopped and started; industries saved, restructured or reregulated; tax cuts extended; debt levels inflated; terrorists killed; the health-insurance system reimagined; and gay service members who could walk in uniform with their partners. It could be seen in the new faces who waited hours to vote and in the new ways campaigns are run. America debated and decided this year: history would not record Obama’s presidency as a fluke.

So after his staff arrived, he left his family in the main room of the suite and stepped out to talk with his three top advisers, Axelrod, political strategist David Plouffe and Jim Messina, his campaign manager. He wanted to tell them what this victory meant, because it was very different the second time. “This one’s more satisfying than ’08,” he said. “It wasn’t just about what I was going to do as President. It’s what I’ve done.” In the end, the outcome would not even be very close, and this realization was sinking in, unleashing something, dropping a shield he had been carrying for a long time. Over three days in November, the man known for his preternatural cool won re-election and cried twice in public. And then, trying to find meaning in a tragedy in Connecticut, he did it again, all but breaking down in the White House Briefing Room.

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Is a $10,000 College Degree Possible?

Unnecessary political intervention is one sure way to diminish a university’s educational mission. Many governors are not aware of this though. While Texas Governor Rick Perry failed in his run for the presidency, he is succeeding in spreading his ideas of higher education reform across the country.

Perry’s $10,000 college degree plan is now taking root in Florida where fellow Republican Rick Scott parrots the Perry plan...read the rest here.

Friday, December 07, 2012

Christmas at the White House - Lighting the WH Xmas Tree

hat tips-The Obama Diary, Daily Mail:

See how the First Daughters have grown.

WH Xmas Tree 2009

WH Xmas Tree 2010

WH Xmas Tree 2011

Christmas Tree Lighting 2012

Christmas at the White House - The First Lady Reviews the 2012 Holiday Season

hat tip-The Obama Diary:

This is one of the things I wanted to see when Barack Obama became President. I love Christmas Holiday Season at the White House. That Michelle Obama is First Lady just makes it all the sweeter.

Christmas at the White House- The official WH Xmas Tree

hat tips-3CHICS, The Obama Diary:

This is one of my goosebumps moments, and it never gets old for me.

Redefining Welfare

A favorite whipping boy of Republicans and conservative ideologues is welfare. Among all discretionary spending programs, TANF, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, formerly known as AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children) before the welfare reform “miracle” of 1996, is the program that Romney means when he talks about the 47% of moochers that would never vote for him. Read the rest here.

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Poverty, Thanksgiving and Black Friday

On Black Friday, I finished reading Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity. It is a classic example of narrative nonfiction. It is so good that it won the 2012 National Book Award. While reading this book, you will find yourself asking, “Is this real?” Real, it is. Read the rest here.

Poverty, Thanksgiving and Black Friday

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

What You Need to Know About Obamacare

From Smartypants:

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Everything you need to know about Obamacare

Apparently one of the biggest challenges we're going to face next year is the lack of accurate information about Obamacare. As you probably know, many of the most important provisions kick in on January 1, 2014. But most people have only heard about the individual mandate portion of the reforms.

Enroll America held focus groups in Philadelphia in mid-November, working exclusively with those who probably would qualify for benefits. Looking to understand how much public education will be needed, the researchers came back with a simple answer: a lot.

Participants’ hands shot up when researchers asked whether they had heard about a requirement to buy health insurance. But when asked about whether they had heard about any provisions that might make insurance more affordable, none of the 31 participants in the four groups answered yes.

Who knew that having the American public lied to for almost two years would leave them uninformed and confused? (< snark off >)

The truth is that there is tons of information out there to help people understand these reforms. And so I decided to compile some of where you can find it in order to help us spread the word. I'll be putting this post in a tab at the top of the page (titled simply: Obamacare) so that you can come back and find it when/if you need to.

First of all, bookmark the page for Enroll America. They are the non-profit group that is going to be working over the next year to get the word out.

One of the group's that has consistently put out quality information on the Affordable Care Act is the Kaiser Family Foundation. To get started on how much you do/don't know about the reforms,take their short quiz. They also have a pretty helpful video that gives a summary.

And they have a calculator to help people determine if they’ll qualify for a subsidy.

Of course one of the best places to go for information is HHS’s own Healthcare.gov. Two of the things I found most helpful there are the map that provides implementation progress by state and the tool to help people find their insurance options.

Healthcare and You also has lots of helpful information – including some details broken down by state.

Young Invincibles is specifically working on getting good information about health care reform out to young adults. And yes…there’s an App for that!

The Washington Post can help you find out exactly how Obamacare will affect you.

That does it for now. But it should be enough to get you started. We have NO excuse for not knowing/sharing all the good stuff that is about to happen with the implementation of Obamacare. My plan is to link one of these resources per day on Facebook and Twitter. What’s yours?

Thursday, November 22, 2012

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

We here at MOA wish you a Happy Thanksgiving. Enjoy family, friends, food and sports today.

From MSNBC.com:

hat tip-The Obama Diary:

Thanksgiving with the Obama family

MSNBC staff

8:16 pm on 11/21/2012

President Obama pardoned one turkey on Wednesday morning, but other birds weren’t so lucky. Later that day, the president and his wife Michelle, daughters Malia and Sasha, and mother-in-law Marian Robinson helped serve an early Thanksgiving dinner at the Capitol Area Food Bank in Washington, D.C. Members of the Oregon State men’s basketball team joined the Obamas at the food bank. Michelle’s brother, Craig Robinson, is the team’s coach.

“I’d like to ask every American to do what they can to help families who are in need of a real Thanksgiving this year,” the president said.

The Obamas will be celebrating with their siblings (and their spouses and children), friends from Chicago and Hawaii, and White House staff and their families. On the menu: brine-soaked, thyme-roasted turkey with gravy, cornbread stuffing, oyster stuffing, macaroni and cheese, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole and kale salad. For dessert, says the White House: six different kinds of pie including apple, huckleberry, cherry, banana cream, pumpkin, and sweet potato with honey-meringue topping.

Ryan, Cantor, Boehner and the Failure of the 2012 Election

Why is political compromise so difficult? In an election year where Congress’s approval ratings are historically low, Americans still returned more than 90% of the incumbents who stood for reelection. This happens because of the age-old adage that Americans hate Congress but love their congressperson.

Through the magic of districting congressional boundaries, we have a system where it is the politicians themselves (mostly state legislators) that are responsible for jerry rigging, ahem…make that gerrymandering their districts to be as favorable as possible for their own reelection.

So now Paul Ryan, who Americans summarily rejected at the polls two weeks ago, is now...read the rest here.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Still Alive

Want to thank Dr. King, Rikyrah & other contributors, readers and those who have commented.

Wish I could write everyday or even every other day. But life has gotten in the way over the past couple of years... (especially over the last year). I have grad courses that require about 12+ hours of reading a week.... not to mention a job that takes up plenty of my time. And I have one personal crisis after another... Have been dealing with a lot of crap. I can't even get good sleep... that's a luxury. Any time awake that I have to myself is spent completely stressed out/attempting stress management. Have been pretty much unable to write/contribute much of anything here.

Every now and then I can focus long enough to sneak something in. I do enjoy reading the posts as well as the comments. Try to comment when I can.
I'm a little more relieved post-election. I wrote in Jill Stein for President...and voted Democrat the rest of the way. Jill Stein supports ideas a little more in line with what I believe... and I knew Obama wasn't competitive in my red State... so I wanted to vote my heart. (But if it had been close... he would have had my vote again). If I ever find the time i'll throw my two cents in on where we're heading.

I still believe the Country is in bad shape (structurally it's not built to deal with the current problems effectively). I still think the U.S. is screwed if it doesn't do more to transform the economy, change how it deals with energy, stay out of senseless wars/stop sticking its nose in the business of other nations, extricate itself from so many foreign entanglements, fix the deficit/debt problem, do something about income inequality, make sure the healthcare works better and do something about labor rights....

I don't see any of that changing right away with Obama's re-election. But I would much rather go forward with Obama than deal with more Republican madness. At least with Obama... there's a better chance that the Country will be able to deal with all of its various problems. But it's only a slightly better chance. Too many of his policies look like Republican policies to me. For Example, if he chooses Susan Rice for Secretary of State, my head is going to explode. She is a Pro-war Democrat... what Int'l Affairs scholars call (when talking about leaders on the left) an interventionist. Basically...what that means is that she is a milder version (slightly milder version) of the Neo-Cons who we have seen on the right. I may attempt to explain this better in another blog post. But basically, while someone like a John Bolton hates international institutions and wanted to pull out of or weaken those institutions which he thought got in the way of American war & hegemony...someone like a Susan Rice loves those same institutions and seeks to use them as tools to expand U.S. involvement overseas. She uses those institutions (whether it's the UN, the EU, the senseless expansion of NATO) as a way of getting into war, or to set the stage to trigger war down the road, finding excuses to send Western troops into all sorts of situations around the world, whether it's under the guise of humanitarianism to hand out food or to train foreign troops as a way to sell the brand and to project power whenever possible... the point is she sees the use of military power..or hard power, as the answer for solving international disputes. She would be a terrible Secretary of State. (Obama's Foreign Policy is just one of a few reasons why I decided to symbolically support Jill Stein..the Green Party candidate).

My confidence in voters only improved slightly. As I thought...the election followed a 2000-2004 pattern. But he received more EV's than I thought. But with the kind of things that Romney/Ryan were running on it should not have been as close as it was.... either in the national polling leading up to the election or in the final popular vote tally. Voters came perilously close to falling for Romney's sales pitch...that included so many lies it became hard for us to keep them all straight. Hell, even Romney couldn't keep them all straight by the end. I think even he may have gotten tired of lying so much. Point is... voters gave Romney more credibility as a serious candidate and more attention than what he deserved, under the circumstances. Americans are gullible. But luckily we dodged a bullet on Nov. 6th.

... Thanks to those folks who send messages and e-mails about the blog... or about a particular commentary of mine. I read them all.... even though I don't always have the time to reply.

I want to revamp this blog... but unfortunately I don't have the time or the resources.... if my situation gets better by New Years... I may be able to get a web developer and put in a better template.

I will still use Twitter several times a week.... you can find me pretty easily there. Enjoy the Holidays (worst time of the year for me. I hate it). Call me scrooge if you want.... I don't care.

Take care...

- Brian

Legalizing Marijuana: Will Colorado End the Drug War?

The recent legalization of marijuana in Colorado and Washington State is an important development for both political and policy reasons.

In Washington, Initiative 502 passed with 55% of the vote. The measure “legalizes the production, possession, delivery and distribution of marijuana.” In Colorado, a similar measure that allows adults over 21 to possess up to an ounce of marijuana also passed with nearly 55% of the vote.

The biggest obstacle though is...read the rest here.

Monday, November 12, 2012

Best Recap of what we won by Romney losing

From the opening segment of Rachel Maddow's Wednesday Show. I've watched this segment at least 10 times.

Opening part of this segment:

MADDOW: And thanks to you for staying with us this hour.

That happened! 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 themselves health insurance. We are not going to do that.

We are not going to give a 20 percent 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`re 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 your 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 chance to do that if we wanted to do that, as a country. And we said no, last night, loudly.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Wednesday, November 07, 2012

President Obama Re-Elected

President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama embrace Vice President Joe Biden and Dr. Jill Biden moments after the television networks called the election in their favor, while watching election returns at the Fairmont Chicago Millennium Park in Chicago, Ill., Nov. 6, 2012.

---Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

The Next Four Years

I predict that Barack Obama wins 290 Electoral College Votes. Obama could lose a state like Ohio or Virginia and still win, but he cannot lose both. While the latest polling indicates that many toss-up states might break for Obama, I hedge my bets and predict that Romney and Obama split the swing states. However, Obama’s base is deeper than Romney’s, thus carrying the incumbent to victory.

Once November 7^th is here and Obama knows what Congress looks like, again I predict no significant change with Democrats retaining the Senate and Republicans retaining the House, Obama will have to decide which of the following issues should be his biggest priorities. Strong arguments can be made for any and all of these, but political reality means some of the following will get short shrift over the next four years.

Read the rest here.

ELECTION DAY 2012

Well, this is it.

Today is election day 2012.

GET OUT AND VOTE.

GET OUT AND PROTECT THE VOTE.

GET OUT AND DON'T ALLOW ANYONE TO SUPPRESS THE VOTE AT THE POLLS.

PLEASE NOTE THIS ABOUT PROVISIONAL BALLOTS:

1. Make sure you're in the precinct you're supposed to be.

2. Make sure you fill out all the information that you need to: Name, date of birth, address, whatever ID information you have to give.

3. MAKE SURE YOU SIGN THE PROVISIONAL.

5. MAKE SURE THE JUDGE AT THE POLLING PLACE SIGNS YOUR PROVISIONAL.

6. IF, there is a Provisional ID - MAKE SURE IT APPEARS ON YOUR SIGNED PROVISIONAL.

Don't let them disqualify your vote because of these routine mistakes.

A Winner’s Mandate?

Many commentators ask if in an electorate as closely divided as America’s, is it possible that the winner will have a mandate? Pundits will say the winner is not receiving a clear and unmistakable message of what course Americans want the next president to take.

Pundits are asking the wrong questions and drawing the wrong conclusions. Read the rest here.

Was Martin Luther King a Republican?

This seems to happen every election season. In an effort to attract the black vote,conservatives try to convince African American voters that Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Republican.

Here’s the truth. Read the rest here.

Sunday, November 04, 2012

A Picture Worth a Thousand Words

If this doesn't make you smile, nothing will.

Halloween costume: The Obamas

Keeping Track of Willard's Lies

Unless Willard wins the Presidency, this will be the last of these. I doubt Benen thought he'd do FORTY-ONE of these.

It's time for Willard's Lies of the week.

Once again, I will point out the site on the blog roll: Romney The Liar: because there are Liars, Damn Liars, and then there's Mitt Romney.

Steve Benen, now at The Maddow Blog:. Here's last week's entry of Chronicling Mitt's mendacity:

The opening:

Chronicling Mitt's Mendacity, Vol. XLI

By Steve Benen

Fri Nov 2, 2012 2:45 PM EDT

In a way, I blame my friend Greg Sargent. In the first week in January, he noted, almost in passing, that Mitt Romney seemed to be making a lot of false claims, and someone "really should document them all." That struck me as a good idea, so I decided to tackle this on my own.

After all, I thought at the time, how hard could this be? Once a week, I'd let readers know about Romney's whoppers, which I assumed would total about a half-dozen a week, and maybe after the election, I'd do a top 20 list of my favorites. The project would be a nice little Friday-afternoon feature.

Little did I know at the time that Romney would become an ambitious prevaricator, whose rhetoric would come to define post-truth politics. Nearly 11 months after Greg Sargent's harmless suggestion, I've published 40 installments in this series, which, before today, featured 884 falsehoods. (If you include today's edition, the new total is 917 falsehoods for the year.)

I wish that were a typo. It's not.

The outcome of next week's election remains in doubt, but regardless of who wins, I suspect this will be the final edition in the series. If President Obama wins, the project will have run its course. If Romney wins, I rather doubt I'll be able to keep this going every week for four years. So, with that in mind, enjoy the 41st and probably final installment of my weekly series, chronicling Mitt's mendacity.

1. At a campaign event yesterday in Roanoke, Virginia, Romney again suggested the president is to blame for the fact that "gasoline prices" have "gone up."

This is wildly misleading. It's true that when Obama took office, gas cost about $1.81 a gallon, and it's more than double now. And how did gas prices get so low in late 2008 and early 2009? Because there was a global economic catastrophe -- gas was cheap because the economy had fallen off a cliff, and demand crawled to a stop. As the economy improved, demand went up, and the price of gas started climbing. It's Economics 101.

2. In the same speech, Romney said he should be elected in order to prevent "four more years of trillion dollar deficits in Washington."

According to the budget plan Romney endorsed, we'll have four more years of trillion dollar deficits in Washington anyway.

3. Romney added he has a "five-point plan ... that'll get this economy going."

The five-point plan -- oil drilling, trade, privatizing K-12 education, vague assertions about debt reduction, and ambiguous promises about doing nice things for small businesses -- is a rehash of Bush/Cheney promises. No credible analysis of the vague agenda has found it capable of boosting the economy.

4. At a campaign event in Doswell, Virginia, Romney said "Obamacare" is "crushing small businesses across America."

There is literally no evidence to support this claim in any way. Indeed, a a significant portion of the ongoing cost of the Affordable Care Act is to give small businesses a tax break.

5. In the same speech, Romney also argued, "The president wants to raise taxes on small business."

In reality, Obama has repeatedly cut taxes on small businesses -- by some counts, 18 times -- and if given a second term, his tax plan would have no effect on 97% of small businesses.

Friday, October 26, 2012

Don’t Get Caught Up in Debates and Polls

The third “foreign policy” debate had plenty of memorable lines, but in the end I do not believe this debate, or any of the others will prove decisive.

That is because there are really just two types of viewers watching debates.

First, and the most numerous, are partisans who already know which candidate they will support. These people watch the debates to confirm their own biases. Dems watched last night as much to hear Obama tout his accomplishments as they watched to see if Obama could land a few memorable zingers.

And, Republicans watched to see if Romney could successfully label the president as weak on foreign policy.

The second type of viewer is...Read the rest here.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

On Education: Barack Obama v. Mitt Romney

President Obama has instituted Race to the Top. This series of reforms allows states to submit to the Department of Education a series of reforms and apply for funds from a $4.35 billion pool dedicated to education reform. The Romney campaign mischaracterizes these reforms as aiding teachers’ unions but the evidence does not support that claim. Read the rest here.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

The Last Presidential Debate for the 2012 Election

hat tip debate videos-3CHICS:

The best quote of last night's debate:

PBO: "But Governor, when it comes to our foreign policy, you seem to want to import the foreign policies of the 1980s, just like the social policies of the 1950s and the economic policies of the 1920s."

Friday, October 19, 2012

Keeping Track of Willard's Lies

It's time for Willard's Lies of the week.

Once again, I will point out the site on the blog roll: Romney The Liar: because there are Liars, Damn Liars, and then there's Mitt Romney.

Steve Benen, now at The Maddow Blog:. Here's last week's entry of Chronicling Mitt's mendacity:

Chronicling Mitt's Mendacity, Vol. XXXIX

By Steve Benen

Fri Oct 19, 2012 2:50 PM EDT

President Obama and his campaign team have been increasingly assertive of late in accusing Mitt Romney of dishonesty, but the president is still cautious in how he makes the charge.

In this week's debate, for example, Obama was willing to go so far as to say, "Not true, governor," when the president heard something obviously false. The problem, of course, is that the Republican challenger strayed from the truth with unfortunate frequency -- leading Obama to repeat the words "not true" a half-dozen times.

I suspect the president was probably annoyed, both with Romney's dishonesty and with the challenge of coming up with alternative ways to let the audience know the Republican was repeating falsehoods. I know the feeling -- this is, after all, the 39th installment of my weekly series, chronicling Mitt's mendacity.

1. At a speech in Chesapeake, Virginia, Romney boasted, "If I become president ... we finally get America on track to a balanced budget."

No we don't. Romney's plan slashes tax rates (which makes the deficit worse, not better), increases defense and entitlement spending (which makes the deficit worse, not better), and every independent analysis reaches the same conclusion: Romney's numbers don't add up.

2. In the same speech, Romney said Obama only filed "one" action "against China."

That's not even close to being true.

3. In this week's town-hall debate, Romney claimed, "I want to make sure we keep our Pell Grant program growing. We're also going to have our loan program so that people are able to afford school."

We know this isn't true, because he vowed to do the exact opposite in March. What's more, Romney also endorsed Paul Ryan's budget plan, which cuts Pell Grants.

4. Romney also argued, "We have fewer people working today than we had when the president took office."

No matter when we start the clock, there's a net jobs increase under Obama, both overall and in the private sector.

5. Romney added, "If the unemployment rate was 7.8 percent when he took office. It's 7.8 percent now. But if you calculated that unemployment rate taking back the people who dropped out of the workforce, it would be 10.7 percent."

That's ridiculously untrue.

Are Pundits the Problem?

In a lecture last week, I explained to 200 college freshman about opinion leaders and the two-step flow of information. This is the process by which well-informed opinion leaders shape the political views of less informed Americans. These opinion leaders can be found all over the place. In fact, the Internet has made it that much easier for wannabe political elites to bullhorn their views to the public. Read the rest here.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

The Town Hall with President Obama and Willard Romney

Friday, October 12, 2012

The Vice Presidential Debate

The Entire Vice-Presidential Debate:

Keeping Track of Willard's Lies

Chronicling Mitt's Mendacity, Vol. XXXVIII

By Steve Benen

Fri Oct 12, 2012 2:20 PM EDT

The broader concerns about Mitt Romney's comfort with dishonesty reached a milestone this week -- it got The Onion treatment. (Remember, this is satire. The quotes in this excerpt are not actual quotes.)

For weeks many Beltway insiders had written off the Romney campaign as dead, saying the candidate had dug himself into too deep a hole with too little time to recover. However, with a month to go before ballots are cast, Romney has pulled even with President Obama, and the former Massachusetts governor credits his rejuvenated campaign to one, singular tactic: lying a lot.

"I'm lying a lot more, and my lies are far more egregious than they've ever been," a smiling Romney told reporters while sitting in the back of his campaign bus, adding that when faced with a choice to either lie or tell the truth, he will more than likely lie. "It's a strategy that works because when I lie, I'm essentially telling people what they want to hear, and people really like hearing things they want to hear. Even if they sort of know that nothing I'm saying is true."

"It's a freeing strategy, really, because I don't have to worry about facts or being accurate or having any concrete positions of any kind," Romney added.

The satirical report added that Romney has vowed to continue to "just openly lie [his] ass off" until Election Day. It also "quoted" the Republican's campaign manager saying, "It's late in the game, but this campaign has finally found its groove. And that groove is lying. Bald-faced, make-no-apologies, dirty, filthy lying."

Behind all great satire, of course, is a degree of truth -- or in this case, more than a degree. Consider, for example, the 38th installment of my weekly series, chronicling Mitt's mendacity. (This is the second longest list of the year -- and the quotes below are entirely real, not satire.)

1. At a town-hall forum in Mount Vernon, Ohio, Romney said of President Obama, "He said he was going to cut the deficit in half; he's doubled it."

Romney is still having trouble with the definition of "double." The deficit on Obama's first day was $1.3 trillion. Last year, it was also $1.3 trillion. This year, it's projected to be $1.1 trillion. When he says the president "doubled" the deficit, as he has many times, Romney's lying.

2. At the same event, condemning the Affordable Care Act, Romney said, "We'll let people choose the plans they want, as opposed to the plan that the president thinks he and the bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., are going to impose on the American people."

As Romney surely knows -- his state-based policy works the same way -- the whole point of the Affordable Care Act is to provide consumers with choices of private plans, made available through regulated exchanges. Giving people choices in place and "imposing" a plan are opposites.

3. Romney added, "[W]hen I went to the Olympics and helped guide the Olympics, I learned as well you got to balance the budget here or we'll be in real trouble."

In context, Romney made it sound as if he balanced the Olympics' books through skill. In reality, he balanced his budget at the Olympics thanks to a taxpayer bailout.

4. In an interview with the editorial board of the Des Moines Register, Romney argued, "I know the Obama people are excited about trying to find a way to say, 'Oh, you're going to raise taxes on middle-income people,' and I keep pointing out, 'No, no.'"

Yes, yes.

Tuesday, October 09, 2012

Debating Obama: Why the Media Hyperventilates Over Every Misstep

Ever since last week’s poor debate performance, Democratic partisans have been in “agony,” nervous angry and despondent over Barack Obama’s chances. They believe that one bad night in Denver will ruin his chance at reelection. Obama’s listless performance, they said, was a sign that he was incapable of finishing off the Romney campaign once and for all. Obama just doesn’t have the killer instinct and now he’s let Romney back into the race.

Yet, just a few weeks ago, many Republicans felt the same way. After Romney’s infamous“47%” comment, it became clear, his partisans believed, that Romney is just another overmatched candidate running an ineffectual campaign just as John McCain did four year earlier.

Read the rest here.

Isn't it interesting that the Unemployment Numbers Suddenly Don't Matter?

FOR well over a year, we had Willard, with the assistance of the MSM, lying about that the President said that he promised the unemployment rate would be below 8% during his first term.

1. He never said it. It was in some policy paper put out by an economist.

2. The MSM never checked Willard for the lie. Steven Benen did, in his weekly column about Willard's lies , but the MSM never did.

A funny thing happened on Friday.

The unemployment rate went to 7.8%.

Whaddya Know.

Under 8%.

It would seem to me that that would be a story to celebrate. Americans finding employment in these still sorta bad times. Not what they were, unlike the MSM, my memory is longer than a gnat's and I remember the time when this country was shedding 750,000 jobs A MONTH.

So, wouldn't you think that this wonderful bit of information would be spread high and low by the media. That they would be praising the new lowered unemployment rate.

But, that's not what has happened. Sure, there were the initial reports of it, and then, they allowed those crazy ass conspiracy theorists to run amok on tv - to allow them to sully the good news that the American people had received and cast 'doubt' on it.

Of course, the MSM didn't question Willard about the lowering of the unemployment rate and how a meme he's had - based upon a lie - has been just blown out of the water.

It's been basically crickets from the MSM on the unemployment rate. Watch the Sunday Shows, and it's like the Unemployment Rate lowering never happened.

Interesting, isn't it?

If it weren't so obvious and pathetic.

Sunday, October 07, 2012

Keeping Track of Willard's Lies

Monday, October 01, 2012

Debates: What to Watch For

At this stage in the presidential campaign, expect Mitt Romney to come out swinging against Obama. Despite the stalled economic recovery, Americans, at the moment, seem willing to provide Obama one more term to enact his agenda. Obama’s messaging that the economy has achieved 30-straight months of positive private sector job growth resonates with voters.

This is why Mitt Romney will come out on the offensive at the first debate, to be held Wednesday, October 3 at the University of Denver.

Read the rest at The Village Celebration.

Sunday, September 30, 2012

A video that is self-explanatory

Friday, September 28, 2012

Keeping Track of Willard's Lies

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Obama vs. Romney in VA, OH, FL… and Swing-State Economies

The old adage that politics is local remains true in 2012. While most polls spout out national projections, as I wrote earlier, it is best to pay attention to state-level polling. In several states, Virginia, Ohio, Wisconsin, Colorado, Florida and Nevada, the economies have much in common, but also important differences with national trends. These differences are important to follow.

The national unemployment rate is 8.1%, while the August unemployment rates in these six swing states is as follows:

Virginia, 5.9%

Read the rest here.

The Black Vote Not Taken For Granted By Either Party

In an earlier piece here at The Village, I reviewed African American voting history. Given the overwhelming nature of black Democratic partisanship, we should expect the vast majority of black voters to support Barack Obama on November 6.

Interestingly, every election year, there appears a raft of articles all asking the same question, “Is the Democratic nominee for president taking the black vote for granted?” This year is no different. These articles bring no new evidence to the table and only represent the lazy journalism of reporters and pundits looking for an easy story. These stories do not take into account the deep roots blacks have with the Democratic Party nor do they examine the antipathy the GOP treats blacks with (Mia Love being an obvious exception).

Just because a policy is not explicitly racial in nature does not mean that African Americans benefit greatly.

Read the rest at The Village Celebration.

Monday, September 24, 2012

The 50th Anniversary of the Integration of the University of Mississippi

The University of Mississippi commemorates the 50^thanniversary of its integration this fall. Attorney General Eric Holder will provide the keynote address at the University’s Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College Fall Convocation.

James H. Meredith, on October 1^st, 1962, finally registered and attended his first classes after a 20-month struggle to enter the University of Mississippi. Just the night before, an on-campus riot claimed the lives of two and with scores injured, including many U.S. Marshall’s sent by President Kennedy to protect Meredith.

Read the rest here.

Friday, September 21, 2012

Why the GOP Always Peddles Tax Cuts and Why It Doesn’t Work

On a surface level, tax cuts appeal to everyone. After all, who wouldn’t appreciate having a little extra money from their paycheck? In a world without fiscal consequences, it should be easy to win election after election with the simple act of promising voters more money.

The GOP has run on this line ever since Reagan took the White House in 1980. Republicans, holding the Gipper as their political lodestar, see tax cuts as both the cure to all of society’s problems and as the tonic to their electoral fortunes.

Read the rest here.

Keeping Track of Willard's Lies

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

I'm Dreaming................. of a White President

BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAA

I’M DREAMING

George Washington was a white man
Adams and Jefferson too
Abe Lincoln was a white man, probably
And William McKinley the whitest of them all
Was shot down by an immigrant in Buffalo
And a star fell out of heaven

I’m dreaming of a white President
Just like the ones we’ve always had
A real live white man
Who knows the score
How to handle money or start a war
Wouldn’t even have to tell me what we were fighting for
He’d be the right man
If he were a white man

I’m dreaming of a white President
Someone whom we can understand
Someone who knows where we’re coming from
And that the law of the jungle is not the law of this land

In deepest darkest Africa nineteen three
A little boy says, “Daddy, I just discovered relativity.
A big eclipse is coming
And I’ll prove it. Wait and see!”

“You better eclipse yourself outta here, son
And find yourself a tree
There’s a lion in the front yard
And he knows he won’t catch me.”

How many little Albert Einsteins
Cut down in their prime?
How many little Ronald Reagans
Gobbled up before their time?

I don’t believe in evolution
But it does occur to me,
What if little William Howard Taft had to face a lion
Or God forbid, climb a tree?
Where would this country be?

I’m dreaming of a white President
Buh buh buh buh
‘Cause things have never been this bad
So he won’t run the hundred in ten seconds flat
So he won’t have a pretty jump shot
Or be an Olympic acrobat
So he won’t know much about global warming
Is that really where you’re at?
He won’t be the brightest, perhaps
But he’ll be the whitest
And I’ll vote for that

Whiter than this?
Yes
Whiter than this?
Yes
Whiter than this?
Yes
Whiter than this?
Oh yeah

Monday, September 17, 2012

THIS is who Willard Romney Is

These videos were sent to David Corn at Mother Jones.

No shock to me in the least about these videos.

No shock at all.

Response from the Obama Campaign:

CHICAGO – “It’s shocking that a candidate for President of the United States would go behind closed doors and declare to a group of wealthy donors that half the American people view themselves as ‘victims,’ entitled to handouts, and are unwilling to take ‘personal responsibility’ for their lives. It’s hard to serve as president for all Americans when you’ve disdainfully written off half the nation.” – Jim Messina, Obama for America Campaign Manager

Friday, September 14, 2012

Keeping Track of Willard's Lies

It's time for Willard's Lies of the week.

Once again, I will point out the site on the blog roll: Romney The Liar: because there are Liars, Damn Liars, and then there's Mitt Romney.

Steve Benen, now at The Maddow Blog:. Here's this week's entry of Chronicling Mitt's mendacity:

THE OPENING:

Chronicling Mitt's Mendacity, Vol. XXXIV

By Steve Benen

Fri Sep 14, 2012 2:26 PM EDT

In an interview aired this morning with George Stephanopoulos, the host told Mitt Romney that, despite his claims to the contrary, the Obama administration never showed sympathy for attackers in Egypt and Libya. How did the candidate explain the discrepancy? He didn't -- Romney dodged the question and let the lie stand.

Towards the end of the interview, however, Romney looked ahead to the upcoming debates and said he'll have a challenge to deal with: "[T]he president tends to, how shall I say it, to say things that aren't true."

There's no sense of shame and no sense of irony.

A Washington Post/ABC News poll out today shows a plurality of Americans believes the Obama campaign is saying things "it believes to be true" rather than "intentionally misleading people." On the other hand, a plurality of Americans believes the opposite about the Romney campaign.

If anyone's wondering why the public has this impression, consider the 34th installment of my weekly series, chronicling Mitt's mendacity.

1. At a campaign event in Virginia yesterday, Romney said he "couldn't believe" the president said "if you have a business you didn't build it, someone else did that."

Of course he couldn't believe it -- that's not even close to being true.

2. On Wednesday morning, Romney accused Obama administration officials of issuing an "apology for American values."

That never happened.

3. Romney also said, in response to violence in Libya and Egypt, that "the Obama administration's first response" to the violence was to "sympathize with those who waged the attacks."

Not in this reality.

4. As part of the same statement, Romney also said that the Cairo Embassy "put out a statement after their grounds had been breached. Protesters were inside the grounds. They reiterated that statement after the breach."

Nope, that's not true, either.

5. Pressed by reporters, Romney added, "I'm not going to take hypotheticals about what would have been known what and so forth. I, we responded last night to the events that happened in Egypt."

That's an understandable attempt to cover up the truth, but Romney's statement referred to "attacks on our diplomatic missions," not just Egypt.

Saturday, September 08, 2012

Keeping Track of Willard's Lies

It's time for Willard's Lies of the week.

Once again, I will point out the site on the blog roll: Romney The Liar: because there are Liars, Damn Liars, and then there's Mitt Romney.

Steve Benen, now at The Maddow Blog:. Here's last week's entry of Chronicling Mitt's mendacity:

The Opening:

Chronicling Mitt's Mendacity, Vol. XXXIII

By Steve Benen

Fri Sep 7, 2012 2:31 PM EDT.

The total of Romney falsehoods keeps going up.

First Lady Michelle Obama delivered a beautiful speech at the Democratic National Convention this week, which was very well received. There were a few phrases in particular, though, that seemed to strike a chord.

Referencing her and President Obama's families, she said, almost in passing, "We learned about honesty and integrity -- that the truth matters, that you don't take shortcuts or play by your own set of rules, and success doesn't count unless you earn it fair and square."

Those three words -- "the truth matters" -- drew a hearty response. In context, the First Lady wasn't going after anyone in particular, and she didn't accuse anyone, even indirectly, of dishonesty. But I suspect people applauded not just because it's worthwhile maxim, but because this year, it seems clear there are some who believe the truth doesn't matter.

Consider, for example, the 33rd installment of my weekly series, chronicling Mitt's mendacity. This week's list is considerably shorter than usual because Mitt Romney spent several days out of the public eye, preparing for next month's debates. It does not include the media availability he did this morning (I haven't seen the transcript yet).

1. Mitt Romney told Fox News this week, "You know, no one in the [Democratic] convention so far has had the temerity to say that people are better off in America, because they realize it's not the case."

Actually, it is the case, and nearly every speaker at the Democratic convention has said so.

2. In the same interview, Romney said he rejects "the decision of the president to slash our military by a trillion dollars over this decade."

That's demonstrably false.

3. Romney went on to say "there's no question" President Obama took "work out of welfare" and "waived the work requirement in welfare."

I continue to believe this is as blatant a lie as any modern presidential candidate has told. It simply has no connection to our plane of reality, but Romney keeps repeating it.

4. Asked about the president's rescue of the American auto industry, Romney told Fox, "Well, my view from the beginning was that the auto companies needed to go through a managed bankruptcy. And ultimately, that's what the president did."

Romney can take credit for Obama's policy, or he can condemn Obama's policy, but to do both is obviously dishonest (and more than a little ridiculous).