Tag Archives: olympics

Mitt Romney: the GOP’s very own geopolitical disaster

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Nicholas Kristof: “DIPLOMACY is a minefield, and Mitt Romney spent the last week blowing up his foreign policy credentials to be president. He raised doubts about his capacity to deal with global crises, and we were left hoping that if that 3 a.m. call ever went to him, he’d have set up call forwarding.

“The essential problem is that every time Romney touches foreign policy, he breaks things. He went on a friendly trip to Britain — the easiest possible test for a candidate, akin to rolling off a log — and endeared himself by questioning London’s readiness to host the Olympic Games. In the resulting firestorm, one newspaper, The Sun, denounced “Mitt the Twit.”

“[...] Then there was the Romney trip to Israel, where he insulted Palestinians and left some Jews uncomfortable with stereotyping by praising Jewish culture in the context of making money. Hmm.

“[...] Yet with the Middle East exploding in recent days because of a video insulting the Prophet Muhammad, Romney dived in with a statement that hit a trifecta: it was erroneous, inflammatory and offensive.”

And let’s not forget how Romney recently broke things with Vladimir Putin and Russia…

Don’t piss off the British: Pres. Obama vs. The Faux-Pas

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Political Wire: “Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein said that he had personally heard British Prime Minister David Cameron make disparaging remarks about Mitt Romney, the Daily Telegraph reports.

“Said Weinstein: “I witnessed Prime Minister saying to a group of people, myself included, that Mitt Romney had that unique distinction of uniting all of England against him with his various remarks. On behalf of my love of England, I have to support the President who is anything but making faux-pas.”"

President Obama DNC2012: More war and defense spending, or invest in America again?

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“In a world of new threats and new challenges, you can choose leadership that has been tested and proven.  Four years ago, I promised to end the war in Iraq.  We did.  I promised to refocus on the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11.  We have.  We’ve blunted the Taliban’s momentum in Afghanistan, and in 2014, our longest war will be over.  A new tower rises above the New York skyline, al Qaeda is on the path to defeat, and Osama bin Laden is dead.

“[...] So now we face a choice. My opponent and his running mate are new to foreign policy, but from all that we’ve seen and heard, they want to take us back to an era of blustering and blundering that cost America so dearly.

“After all, you don’t call Russia our number one enemy – and not al Qaeda – unless you’re still stuck in a Cold War time warp. You might not be ready for diplomacy with Beijing if you can’t visit the Olympics without insulting our closest ally. My opponent said it was “tragic” to end the war in Iraq, and he won’t tell us how he’ll end the war in Afghanistan. I have, and I will. And while my opponent would spend more money on military hardware that our Joint Chiefs don’t even want, I’ll use the money we’re no longer spending on war to pay down our debt and put more people back to work – rebuilding roads and bridges; schools and runways. After two wars that have cost us thousands of lives and over a trillion dollars, it’s time to do some nation-building right here at home.”

— President Obama, DNC2012

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On Medicare: Romney and Ryan are “very similar” and “very different”

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Steve Benen reports on the impressive clarity of Team Romney-Ryan on Medicare:

Mitt Romney, yesterday, asked about Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan: “[M]y plan for Medicare, it’s very similar to his plan for Medicare.”

Romney surrogate John Sununu, this morning, asked about the similarities in Romney’s Medicare plan to Paul Ryan’s policy: “But it’s very different.”

I’m glad we got this straightened out. Here I thought the Romney-Ryan campaign might have a muddled message on the issue they’ve put at the center of the 2012 presidential race.

To help clarify matters, Romney’s policy director, Lanhee Chen, told TPM, “Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have always been fully committed to repealing Obamacare, ending President Obama’s $716 billion raid on Medicare and tackling the serious fiscal challenges our country faces.”

Except, as even the most ignorant policy directors surely know, every penny of savings Obama found in Medicare has been included in Paul Ryan’s budget, which Romney endorsed. (And if they repeal Obamacare, they’ll take away benefits for seniors.)

Andrew Sullivan reviews Romney’s new Medicare ad:

…$716 billion is how much Obamacare cuts from Medicare spending – but the ad implies this is some kind of cut to Medicare recipient’s benefits; it’s not. Pema Levy explains: Cuts made in the Affordable Care Act are to future growth and come from reimbursement reductions to hospitals, Medicaid prescription drugs and private insurance plans under Medicare Advantage. Ryan’s cuts come from shifting Medicare from its current form to subsidies for seniors to buy care themselves.

The Ryan plan also makes the same cuts, only by instituting a voucher program, all of which Romney is trying to murky-up by saying he’ll put that $716 billion “back”. The bottom line is they’re spinning another whopper here, just like in the welfare ads.

If the Romney campaign didn’t spin whoppers daily, they’d have nothing to deflect attention away from his business “experience” with Bain Capital and the 2002 Olympics, or why he won’t release his tax returns like every other presidential candidate. And Romney would also have to actually talk about how different his vision for America is from President Obama’s.

Fox “News” is poisonous (or, what’s wrong with America today)

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THIS » Fox News Doesn’t Think Olympic Gold Medalist Gabby Douglas Is Patriotic Enough

RESPONSE » ”What’s especially crazy about all this is that after Gabby Douglas won the gold medal in the women’s gymnastics all-around, she stood waving up at the crowd clad in a red, white, and blue jacket with USA written on the back. Later during the medal ceremony she wore a gray jacket with an American flag patch on the shoulder, stood atop the podium, and listened to “The Star-Spangled Banner” as an American flag was hoisted up above her. Even if that weren’t all true David Webb’s commentary would be nonsense, but the fact that it is all true adds to the comic ambivalence about factual accuracy that characterizes so much of what people say on Fox News. What other enterprise would turn Olympic gold for America into an opportunity to make Americans anxious and upset about allegedly waning patriotism? It’s a poisonous approach to news.” – Conor Friedersdorf – The Atlantic

ANOTHER » “Really? Gabby Douglas, the 16-year old African-American gold-medalist who beat out competitors from other countries isn’t a flagrant example of American exceptionalism because she and her team wore hot pink instead of draping themselves in a flag? What about the fact that she hadn’t seen her father in two years because he was serving his country in Afghanistan? He showed up to cheer her on literally waving an American flag. Is that patriotic enough for FOX News and the Tea Party?” — stfusexists

***

(Below: annaetc – Gabrielle Douglas captures gold in the women’s gymnastics all-around competition. She becomes the first African-American woman to win this title and the first American woman to capture gold in both individual and team events in the same Olympics.)

 

Will there be another $77,000 tax deduction this year?

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Or is it even more of a “business loss” when the horse doesn’t make it to the individual medal competition?

It’s hard work!

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image: reagan-was-a-horrible-president

News on the $77,000 tax deduction the Romney’s Olympic dancing horse from Wonkette:

“Americans have no history of making jokes about the playthings of the rich, in this case a German-bred mare. As Mitt Romney says, if we all work hard, we’ll all get rich and own dancing horses, and will we want the cretins to rib us then? Right. So here is an objective report of the first Olympics performance from the 15-year-old German-bred mare that dances and is owned by Ann and Mitt Romney.”

  • Mitt Romney, you’ll recall, has said the dancing horse was “Ann’s thing” and he didn’t know when the dancing horse would begin competition and he had no plans to show up anyway.
  • Ann Romney, whose husband Mitt Romney has previously said that he doesn’t care about his wife’s dancing horse performing in the Olympics and won’t watch it, “was in the VIP section of the equestrian stadium at Greenwich Park for Rafalca’s competition” today, to cheer for Rafalca. Read more…

King Romney III

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Related:

The awesomeness of Gabby Douglas in GIFs

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Gabby Douglas’s Awesome Night: A GIF Guide: You know in your heart that Gabby Douglas is the most amazing high-flying hero Olympic gymnastics champion, maybe ever. But you need to understand it with your head, too, with a rational and objective analysis of her talent through GIFs. (see link for more GIFs)

Amazing!

image

 

 

President Obama called the members of the U.S. women’s gymnastics team

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barackobama: President Obama called the members of the U.S. women’s gymnastics team today to congratulate them on their wins last night. Judging from their Twitter feeds, they were pretty psyched.

Mitt Romney’s European Vacation

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“I don’t know how he’ll handle the head of state job. He’s made a mess of being a tourist.” — Rahm Emanuel (via)


image: gop-circus

Hopefully never coming to the White House near you!

No apologies to Palestine, Romney blames media for negative #KissMyAss World Tour

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Mitt Romney in Downing Street
Mitt Romney – seen here talking to the media – complains that US media coverage of his overseas trip has focused on his gaffes. Photograph: Jason Reed/Reuters

THE RETROACTIVE WORLD TOUR BEGINS: For some reason, Mitt seems to want to quickly change the subject from his Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad World Tour and suddenly focus on the economy? Romney thinks it’s a shame the lamestream media won’t report what’s best for his campaign, like Fox “News” does:

Mitt Romney Blames Press For Overseas Controversies: “Romney told Fox News today that the controversies were the result of the press “trying to find anything else” to write about. “I realize that there will be some in the fourth estate or whatever estate who are far more interested in finding something to write about that is unrelated to the economy, to geopolitics, to the threat of war, to the reality of conflict in Afghanistan today, to a nuclearization of Iran,” Romney said. “They are instead trying to find anything else to divert from the fact that these last four years have been tough years for our country,” he said.”

Romney denies criticizing Palestinian culture: “Mitt Romney insisted Tuesday he was not specifically talking about Palestinian culture at a fundraiser in Israel on Monday when he was quoted suggesting culture was the reason for the economic disparity between Israel and Palestine. “That’s an interesting topic that deserves scholarly analysis, but I actually didn’t address that,” Romney told Fox News’s Carl Cameron, adding he didn’t “intend” to talk about the subject in his campaign. “Instead, I will point out… that the choices a society makes have a profound impact on the economy and vitality of that society.”“

Actual words in Jerusalem: “As I come here and I look out over this city and consider the accomplishments of the people of this nation, I recognize the power of at least culture and a few other things.”

Cultural remarks aside, he also thinks that “the choices a society makes have a profound impact on the economy and vitality of that society.” And clearly, he said yesterday, Israel is winning economically. So Palestine isn’t making the right choices — but no offense?  Here’s something else he said yesterday, when he totally WASN’T discussing whose culture was better:

 ”I am overwhelmingly impressed with the hand of providence, whenever it chooses to apply itself, and also the greatness of the human spirit, and how individuals who reach for greatness and have purpose above themselves are able to build and accomplish things that could only be done by a species created in the image of God.”

Mitt forgot to talk about “the hand of providence” today and who God loves better. It’s funny how he was all over that yesterday in Jerusalem, when there was money involved.