WHAT THE REPUBLICAN PARTY STANDS FOR TODAY—————————–—

Mitt Romney said Monday he wasn’t concerned about Donald Trump’s commitment to the “birther” conspiracy, one day before the GOP presidential candidate hosts a fund-raiser alongside the celebrity business magnate. Asked on his charter plane whether Trump’s questioning of President Barack Obama’s birthplace gave him pause, Romney simply said he was grateful for all his supporters. “You know, I don’t agree with all the people who support me and my guess is they don’t all agree with everything I believe in,” Romney said. “But I need to get 50.1% or more and I’m appreciative to have the help of a lot of good people.” — CNN

• Another missed opportunity to lead — By Romney’s reasoning, decency is irrelevant — he should partner with anyone, no matter how vile, so long as it furthers his ambitions and gets him more votes. — Steve Benen 

• Peggy Noonan: Romney needs to cut ties with Trump ‘freak show’ — “My view is that the Romney campaign made a mistake. There was a certain freak show atmosphere to the Republican primaries in the past six months or so. Now that’s kind of over, the show is over. Mr. Romney wins the nomination tonight. Texas will put him over the top. This is a good time to differentiate himself with the stranger aspects of the Republican race. One way you don’t do it, I think, is do a fundraiser with Donald Trump. He was part of the freak show aspect.” – Raw Story

Political purity over representing your constituents: Top Conservatives Warn GOP Not To Waver On ‘Obamacare’ — “The Club for Growth supports complete repeal of Obamacare. And complete doesn’t mean partial. It means complete,” said Barney Keller, a spokesman for the group. “We urge the so-called ‘tea party’ Republicans to keep their promises to voters and continue to fight for complete repeal as well.” [...] Dean Clancy, who leads health care advocacy for FreedomWorks, said the group “would be very concerned about bills to resurrect parts of Obamacare.” He said Republicans should take no responsibility for the broken system that would result. “It would be the height of folly for Republicans to say, OK, this is our problem now,” he said. “It’s not the Republicans’ fault if 25-year-old slackers suddenly are dropped from mom and dad’s health insurance policy. It’s not the Republicans’ fault if various other provisions of Obamacare are no longer on the books. … The American people need to have a chance to reflect on the fact that the Democrats basically rammed an unconstitutional bill down their throat.” – TPMDC

• “Never before in history has a candidate run for President with the idea that too many people have insurance coverage.” – Jonathan Cohn | On Health Care, Romney Goes Retro | azspot

Mormonism 101: Is Mitt Romney the ‘White Horse’ in Mormon prophecy?  – That’s the one in the old Mormon prophecy attributed to Joseph Smith, which predicts that after the banks fail and when the Constitution is nearing collapse, Mormons flush with wealth — the White Horse, in the prophecy’s metaphor — will rise and lead America back to greatness. [...] “You will see the Constitution of the United States almost destroyed. It will hang like a thread as fine as a silk fiber,” the prophecy has Smith saying. But “it will be preserved and saved by the efforts of the White Horse,” who will “stand by the Constitution of the United States as it was given by the inspiration of God.” There will be a Black Horse — American blacks, as the text is commonly interpreted — that sides with England and France, but eventually they’ll all submit to the White Horse as the religion fulfills its world-conquering destiny in an Armageddon-style war with the Russians—while keeping an eye on the looming threat of China. – POLITICO

• Romney and the White Horse Prophecy – [It] is not the LDS cosmology that is relevant to Romney’s candidacy, but whether devout 21st century Mormons like Romney believe that the American presidency is also a theological position. Since his first campaign in 2008, Romney has attempted to keep debate about his religion out of the political discourse. The issue is not whether there is a religious test for political office; the Constitution prohibits it. Instead, the question is whether, past all of the flip-flops on virtually every policy, he has an underlying religious conception of the presidency and the American government. At [an earlier] GOP presidential debate in Florida, Romney professed that the Declaration of Independence is a theological document, not specific to the rebellious 13 colonies, but establishing a covenant “between God and man.” Which would suggest that Mitt Romney views the American presidency as a theological office. — Salon

• “Some of the faithful worry that their comparatively young religion is less prepared for what they will face than Catholics were when John F. Kennedy was running in 1960, or Jews were when Joe Lieberman was the vice presidential nominee in 2000… Polls suggest a deep wariness about Mormonism persists among the American electorate. – Boston Globe | Maybe if it wasn’t so secretive? 

How Florida Gov. Rick Scott could steal the election for Mitt Romney – On Wednesday, November 7, Mitt Romney could wake up as the President-elect thanks to one man: Florida Governor Rick Scott. With little fanfare, Scott is undertaking an audacious plan to kick thousands of Floridians off the ballot just before this year’s elections. It’s a sloppy, chaotic and possibly illegal plan. But it just might work. [...] Will history repeat itself in Florida this year? By one estimate, 7000 Florida voters were wrongfully removed from the voter rolls for the 2000 presidential election — 13 times George W. Bush’s margin of victory in that state after the U.S. Supreme Court halted the post-election recount. – Think Progress

WHAT THE PRESIDENT / DEMOCRATS STAND FOR ————————————

Two Republican Nominees: John McCain stood up to the voices of extremism in his party and the Obama campaign asks why Romney won’t do the same. (Hint: because Romney is not in possession of a backbone?):

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Obama should seize the High Ground – Think about this: Is there anyone in America today who doesn’t either have a pre-existing medical condition or know someone who does and can’t get health insurance as a result? Yet two years after Obama’s health care bill became law, how many Americans understand that once it is fully implemented no American with a pre-existing condition will ever again be denied coverage? “Obamacare is socialized medicine,” says the Republican Party. No, no — excuse me — socialized medicine is what we have now! People without insurance can go to an emergency ward or throw themselves on the mercy of a doctor, and the cost of all this uncompensated care is shared by all those who have insurance, raising your rates and mine. That is socialized medicine and that is what Obamacare ends. Yet Obama — the champion of private insurance for all — has allowed himself to be painted as a health care socialist. – Tom Friedman

• More than 1 million veterans would benefit from Obamacare – Under the Affordable Care Act, about 630,000 uninsured veterans would qualify for Medicaid, and an additional 520,000 would receive subsidized health insurance in the state exchanges, according to a study from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. “It is striking how many of the uninsured veterans would qualify for Medicaid under the ACA,” said the report’s co-author Genevieve Kenney. Nationwide, 1.3 million veterans are uninsured, and another 900,000 veterans use VA care but have no other insurance coverage. On top of that, about 900,000 adults and children in veterans’ families are uninsured. — Think Progress

• Top 10 Obamacare Benefits At Stake For Women

LOL – spoof of Mitt’s “Day One” ad (actual audio) – Text shown during audio describing Romney’s repeal of Obamacare and his plan to replace it with a ‘common sense’ health care reform: “If workers get sick, they die. That’s just common sense.” – DailyKos

“A parent should not have to pay a premium to supervise and protect their child on an airplane.” — From a statement Schumer sent the airline trade group, protesting additional fees for window and aisle seats.  – AP | Daily Intel

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The best way to honor war veterans: Stop needlessly creating new ones.—
  (@radleybalko) May 28, 2012

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True patriotism isn’t cheap. It’s about taking on a fair share of the burdens of keeping America going. Those who earn tens of millions of dollars a year but pay less than 14 percent of their incomes in taxes, and argue the rich should pay even less, are not true patriots. Those who defend indefensible tax loopholes, such as the “carried interest” loophole that allows private-equity managers to treat their incomes as capital gains even if they risk no income of their own, are not true patriots. Those who avoid taxes by putting huge amounts of their earnings into IRAs via foreign tax shelters are not true patriots.  Those who want to cut programs that benefit the poor — Food stamps, child nutrition, Pell grants, Medicaid — so that they can get a tax cut for themselves and their affluent friends— are not true patriots. — Robert Reich