“I have given my voice in the service of my president”.” — Bill Clinton, tonight in Virginia.
Here’s hoping someone gave Pres. Clinton a throat lozenge and some tea…
obama2016: President Barack Obama and former President Bill Clinton rally in blustery Bristow, Virginia, late Saturday night
Christopher D. Cook was in Virginia and decided to duck inside a Romney campaign office ”for a quick dose of Romneyland.” He was met by a “silver-haired stocky gentleman” with a firm handshake, one of only three seniors manning the entire place. Here’s a small part of the conversation they had:
“No. No more help, enough is enough. People have to pick themselves up, take some responsibility. Why should we be paying for people’s mistakes and bad choices? All these illegitimate families just adding to the population, making all these bad decisions, then asking us to pay for it? It’s time to cut them off.”
I ask for some clarification: what do you mean, just starve them out? What if people can’t find work? Let them starve?
“Look, there’s always something you can do. You telling me people can’t make a choice for a better life? We have to help all of them? No. I’ll tell you what really need to do with these illegitimate families on welfare—give all the kids up for adoption and execute the parents.”
I stare at him and blink in a glaze of shock.
Just to be sure I heard him right, I ask him to repeat it, twice. Read more…
[h/t: seriouslyamerica]
Remember: these people voted in 2010 and they’ll be the first in line in November.
That is, if the Voter ID laws in other states don’t turn things around for Romney…
While Obama has a clear advantage given his incumbency, Romney does have a path to victory — though it’s a steep climb. He must win most of the seven most competitive states — Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Ohio, Nevada, New Hampshire and Virginia — in order to reach the magic number. For instance, he can lose Ohio’s 18 electoral votes and still become president if he wins the other six and hangs onto those already in his grasp. It’s difficult to see a scenario where Romney wins without a victory in Florida, which offers 29 electoral votes. — Obama-Romney race is focused on 7 states – SFGat
THE GOO-GOO SYNDROME: Paul Weyrich, father of the right-wing movement and co-founder of the Heritage Foundation, Moral Majority and various other groups tells his flock that he doesn’t want people to vote. Here’s the problem with fundies in politics:
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Which of the 7 states above have Voter ID laws?
via: NCSL
Mike Turzai: “Voter ID, which is gonna allow Gov. Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, DONE.” Watch:
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Here is how the Justice Department explains Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965: “…a nationwide prohibition against voting practices and procedures, including redistricting plans and at-large election systems, poll worker hiring, and voter registration procedures, that discriminate on the basis of race, color or membership in a language minority group. It prohibits not only election-related practices and procedures that are intended to be racially discriminatory, but also those that are shown to have a racially discriminatory impact.”
RNC Platform Formally Backs Voter ID Laws — The GOP platform committee adopted language on Tuesday supporting states that have passed voter ID and proof of citizenship laws. The citizenship amendment, proposed by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R), would support laws that make voters prove their citizenship before they are allowed on the voter rolls.
Voter ID laws: Why do minorities lack ID to show at the polls? – Slate Magazine — Because a lot of minorities don’t have much use for them. The most common voter ID is a driver’s license, and minorities are less likely to drive… Minorities are less likely to have driver’s licenses because they are more likely to be poor and to live in urban areas. If you can’t afford a car, or if you don’t need one because you take the bus or subway, you are less likely to have a driver’s license. Students are less likely to have driver’s licenses for the same reasons (plus the fact that they can sometimes rely on student IDs, and may just have not gotten around to getting a driver’s license yet). [...] Of course, minority voters aren’t the only group likely to be disenfranchised. Seniors, for example, are also less likely to drive. Academic studies suggest that voter ID laws do probably reduce turnout, both among Democrats and Republicans, but not by more than about 2 percent.
“… What makes the voter ID law special is that they propose to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. We have empirical data proving that essentially no one is showing up to the polls and impersonating a legally registered voter. Runaway slave laws were racist and wrong, but at least there occasionally was a runaway slave!” — Bill Maher, from his Friday night monologue, via: Daily Kos
The Real Cost of Voter Id Laws — In 2011, Republicans have advanced photo ID legislation in at least 35 states. The report concluded that if these 35 states enact a photo ID law, they collectively will spend at least $276 million, and possibly as much as $828 million, in the first four years alone. At a time when states are experiencing huge budget shortfalls, it would be an enormous waste to spend hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to disenfranchise voters.
“Cockblock the vote”/ “Paid for by people who want Romney to win”
‘There’s a conspiracy among those who want to steal the election,’ says Jennifer Granholm — In Texas, a gun permit is a valid voter ID, but a university ID is not. Wait, what? Jennifer Granholm says the system of catch-22s and unconstitutional fees being enacted by Republicans who claim to be fighting voter fraud is having a very real effect on real people whose votes are being suppressed. “By using this pretense of voter fraud and the weapon of voter ID laws, the Republicans are systematically snatching away people’s rights,” Granholm says.
The Startling Urban Dynamic in Pennsylvania’s Voter ID Law
Something big is happening in Philadelphia ahead of this fall’s presidential election – the first in the state since a stringent new Voter ID law was passed earlier this year – although people there concerned about it are having a maddeningly hard time putting their finger on the precise size of the problem. The city has just over 1 million registered voters. About 800,000 of them are considered “active.” […]
The Pennsylvania Department of State recently released two lists of the Pennsylvania residents whose state IDs have expired since last November (and thus can’t be used to verify their identity at the polls this fall), as well as a list of the active voters whose names don’t match up with the PennDOT database as currently having an ID. This second list is terribly sloppy (one database spells names like McCormack as “Mc Cormack,” and there’s all kinds of chaos with hyphens and apostrophes). But nonetheless, the best official data available suggests that as many as 280,000 voters in Philadelphia may need to get an ID between now and November to have their votes counted.
“Nearly 500,000 eligible voters in 10 states with restrictive voter ID laws live in households without vehicles and reside at least 10 miles from an ID-issuing office open more than two days a week, a new Brennan Center for Justice study found. Because many of these voters may not have driver’s licenses — and nearly all live in rural areas with dwindling public transportation options — it could be significantly harder for them to get an ID and cast a ballot. The Brennan Center’s study undercuts the claim by many politicians in restrictive ID states that eligible voters can easily obtain a free ID to vote. A federal court considered this issue last week during a trial over Texas’s voter ID law, and Pennsylvania’s ID law will go before a state judge next Wednesday…. The Center’s research shows 1 in 10 eligible voters lack the necessary government-issued photo ID required by new restrictive voter ID laws, including 25 percent of African-Americans and 18 percent of Americans over 65.” — Study: 500,000 Americans Could Face Significant Challenges to Obtain Photo ID to Vote | Brennan Center for Justice
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WHAT ROMNEY / REPUBLICANS STAND FOR———————————————
“Forgive me for noting that conservatives seem to believe that the rich will work harder if we give them more, and the poor will work harder if we give them less.” – E. J. Dionne
Making the superrich richer does not create jobs.
Romney’s tax plan would save him $5 million next year — To see where the presidential candidates stand on taxing the rich, just look at how they’d tax themselves. Under his own proposal, Mitt Romney would pay half what he would under President Barack Obama’s tax plan. For a man of Romney’s means, that could save almost $5 million a year. For Obama, not so loaded as Romney but still well-off, losing re-election could provide a tax windfall. He’d save as much as $90,000 a year if Romney’s plan were enacted rather than his own tax-the-rich vision. Two nonprofit research groups, the liberal-leaning Citizens for Tax Justice and conservative-leaning Tax Foundation, did the calculations, based on the most recent completed tax returns released by the candidates. Compared with what they owed in April, both men would be dinged in 2013 under Obama’s proposal, along with other wealthy taxpayers. They could expect savings under Romney, depending on which tax breaks the former Massachusetts governor decides to oppose. — NBC Politics / Raw Story
Massachusetts was 37th in job creation when Romney took office and 47th when he left — Senior Romney adviser Ed Gillespie had a similar exchange with “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace. “When [Romney] took office it was No. 50 in job creation. Actually 51 if you count the District of Columbia,” Gillespie said. To his credit, Fox News’ Chris Wallace didn’t let Ed Gillespie get away with that claim either and corrected him that Massachusetts was 47th during the entire Romney governorship. Massachusetts ranked 37th when Mitt Romney took office. It ranked 47th when he left office. He actually made things worse. Not better. Massachusetts was never “30th in the nation.” Not when he took office or left office. – JM Ashby
Romney’s Solyndra slam at Obama backfires – A Lowell-based solar technology company that received $1.5 million in state loans when Mitt Romney was governor has filed for bankruptcy, opening the presumptive Republican presidential nominee to charges of hypocrisy. Konarka Technologies disclosed Friday that it had filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection and would fire its 80-member staff and liquidate its assets. Romney has chided President Obama for investing $535 million in a different solar company that failed, and has insisted governments should not pick winners and losers in the private sector. – The Boston Globe
Romney Takes Conservative Fire For Top Aide Michael Leavitt’s Support Of Obamacare Exchanges – The Wall Street Journal reported last year that Leavitt “strenuously backed the core piece of President Barack Obama’s health-care law and urged the states to move forward together in adopting health insurance exchanges.” And his stance hasn’t changed: “We believe that the exchanges are the solution to small business insurance market and that’s gotten us sideways with some conservatives,” Leavitt’s top aide Rich McKeown told Politico. “We’re troubled by it,” Dean Clancy, who runs health care advocacy for the Dick Armey-led conservative group FreedomWorks, told TPM Monday via email. “We’re very concerned. The tea party grassroots have always feared that Gov. Romney would be a weak standard bearer because of RomneyCare. This choice only reinforces those doubts. Tapping a high-profile ObamaCare profiteer is disturbing, there’s no way around it. … The tea party has been fighting exchanges in state after state.” – TPM
The emerging “face” of California’s GOP — litigious “birther” Orly Taitz, a Russian Israeli emigre who has appeared on national television with her claims that Obama faked his birth certificate. – Political Wire
The trifecta of wingnuttery! Racist, petty, and thin-skinned: A judge has tossed out a lawsuit World Net Daily brought against Esquire for a story making fun of the publication’s birtherism.
WHAT THE PRESIDENT / DEMOCRATS STAND FOR ————————————
KRUGMAN: THE IRONY OF REAGAN AND OBAMA: Obama may be defeated because he’s been constrained to be less Keynesian than Reagan or Bush – “If you actually look at the actual track record of government spending, government employment, Reagan is the Keynesian and Obama — mostly because of political constraints, although a little bit of lack of conviction on the part of his own people — has been the anti-Keynesian,” Krugman said. “He’s been the one who’s been doing what Republicans say is the right answer.” Just over three years into Reagan’s first term, government jobs grew by 3.1 percent; at the same time during Obama’s tenure, they’ve been cut by 2.7 percent. Hundreds of thousands of public sector jobs have been shed in recent years. Government jobs also grew under President George W. Bush, which helped keep unemployment down during most of his two terms. “After there was a recession under Ronald Reagan, government employment went way up. It went up after the recessions under the first George Bush and the second George Bush,” Obama said last month on the campaign trail. “So each time there was a recession with a Republican president, compensated — we compensated by making sure that government didn’t see a drastic reduction in employment. The only time government employment has gone down during a recession has been under me.” [...] “We’re actually practicing government austerity on a scale that we haven’t seen in 60 years. It’s not the president’s policy,” he said Sunday. “In effect, we’ve already got the policies that Republicans say they will impose if they take the election, and yet, of course, it may lead to the defeat of this president.” – TPM
(Photo: Bill Luster, The Courier-Journal)
Bob McDonnell makes the case for Obama — Whether he knew it or not, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell (R) made the case for the Obama Administration during an interview with CNN’s Candy Crowley. At 5.6 percent, Virginia’s unemployment rate is among the lowest in the country, well below the national average of 8.2 percent. And the state’s governor concedes that President Obama has helped. “The only thing I can say is he had nearly a trillion dollars in stimulus, and that was one-time spending,” Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell told CNN’s Candy Crowley in response to a question about whether he believes Obama can take any credit for the strong economy in Virginia. “Did it help us in the short run with health care and education spending to balance the budget? Sure. Does it help us in the long term to really cut the unemployment rate? I’d say no.” – JM Ashby
Bill Clinton: a Romney presidency would be “calamitous” – Days after praising Mitt Romney’s “sterling” business career, ABC News reports Bill Clinton warned that a Romney presidency would be “calamitous for our country and the world.” Clinton, speaking at a fundraiser for President Obama in New York City, added that the incumbent has “the right economic policy and the right political approach,” while “the politics is wrong on the Republican side, the economics are crazy.” – ABC News
Eliot Spitzer: U.S. needs ‘big, old-fashioned Keynesian stimulus’ – Former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer said Monday that the United States needed to invest in the public sector, because the country’s current policies clearly were not revving up the economy. “One thing that could help is a big, old-fashioned Keynesian stimulus,” he said on his Current TV show Viewpoint. “First, realize we’ve tried the Republican approach,” Spitzer explained. “As Paul Krugman and others point out, taxes have been cut and government spending has fallen, once you adjust for population and inflation. In fact, it has not fallen this quickly since the demobilization after the Korean war. So it’s no surprise that public sector employment is way down.” He noted that now was a good time for the U.S. government to borrow more money, because of the extremely low interest rates. — Raw Story
Paycheck Fairness Act expected to fail today, but the GOP’s War on Women is still imaginary – Democrats will bring to the Senate floor on Tuesday the Paycheck Fairness Act, a bill that is supposed to help close the wage gap between men and women. […] The paycheck bill would bar companies from retaliating against workers who inquire about pay disparities and permit employees to sue for punitive damages if they find evidence of broad differences in compensation between male and female workers. Democrats say the measure would bolster reforms enacted with the 2009 Lilly Ledbetter pay law that expanded the statute of limitations for filing equal-pay lawsuits. […] Several business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and associations representing bankers, construction firms and retailers, issued a statement opposing the legislation, saying it would result in “unprecedented government control over how employees are paid at even the nation’s smallest employers.” — The Washington Post
It's Election Day in Wisconsin tomorrow, and I'm standing by Tom Barrett. He'd make an outstanding governor. -bo—
Barack Obama (@BarackObama) June 04, 2012
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1) Being in Congress loses its thrill for some lawmakers - For members of Congress, the thrill is gone. They don’t make national policy anymore. They can’t earmark money for communities back home. The public hates them. And perks little and big, from private jet travel to a little free nosh now and then, have been locked down by ethics rules. As they head for the exits this year, many leaving Congress say the prestigious job of being a congressman sucks now, and that’s why lawmakers young and old are trading in their member pins for a new life in the private sector.
2) What is Congress “doing” this week? - Afghanistan: Lawmakers expressed condolences and concern on the Sunday morning political talk shows in response to the news that a U.S. soldier allegedly opened fire on Afghan civilians inside homes before turning himself in. There are several Senate Armed Services and Appropriations committee hearings scheduled for this week that could serve as venues for senators to raise further concerns or skepticism about the war. [...] Fixing Congress: The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee plans to hold a hearing Wednesday to review several pieces of legislation that would change how Congress handles the budgetmaking process, including a proposal known as “No Budget, No Pay.” (GET THIS: from this same article, the Republicans say to expect three major endorsements for Romney. They consider that “doing something.” That’s “work” to them.)
3) Sen. James Inhofe, pretty much came right out and admitted that the reason why he denigrates and attacks climate science is because the Bible told him not to worry - ”Well actually the Genesis 8:22 that I use in there is that ‘as long as the earth remains there will be seed time and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night,’ my point is, God’s still up there. The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous.”
Even mild global warming could completely melt Greenland’s ice cap - The Greenland icesheet is more sensitive to global warming than thought, for just a relatively small — but very long term — temperature rise would melt it completely, according to a study published on Sunday. [...] Greenland is second to Antarctica as the biggest source of locked-up water on land. If it melted completely, this would drive up sea levels by 7.2 metres (23.6 feet), swamping deltas and low-lying islands. [image: NASA]
Fourth Warmest Winter On Record For The U.S. - February is gone, and the non-winter of 2011 – 2012 is the history books as the fourth warmest in U.S. history, said NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center yesterday. The winter average temperature of 36.8°F was just 0.4°F cooler than the warmest winter on record, the winter of 1999 – 2000. If you lived in the Northern Plains, Midwest, Southeast and Northeast, it seemed like winter never really arrived this year–27 states in this region had top-ten warmest winters.…
4) LOL Rick Santorum: ‘I’d like everybody to get out’ of race - Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum has a foolproof plan to win the GOP nomination: He wants everybody else to just quit. On Sunday, NBC host David Gregory asked the candidate if he would like to see former House Speaker Newt Gingrich drop out if he loses upcoming primaries in Alabama and Mississippi. “I’d like everybody to get out,” Santorum admitted. “That’d be great if they could just clear the field.” “Congressman Gingrich can stay in, the Speaker can stay in as long as he wants, but I think the better opportunity to make sure we nominate a conservative is to give us an opportunity to go head to head with Gov. [Mitt] Romney at some point. Hopefully that will occur sooner rather than later.” [image: thatslayerchick]
5) Chris Matthews: The GOP is ‘treating women like they’re not really voters’ - Chris Matthews displayed Sunday morning his bemusement for the Republican Party’s comments and behavior towards women so far during the 2012 presidential campaign. “One of the time warps these days is watching Republicans ignore the simple fact that women vote and are the majority voters,” he said on his weekly show. “I do think it’s odd the way we’re talking about contraception — by the way, as if that’s only a women’s issue, it’s a male female issue, obviously — and treating women like they’re not really voters.”
Centrist Women Tell of Disenchantment With Republicans - Deborah R. Stevens, a self-described “dyed in the wool” Republican, said she felt hopeless. “I’m looking for a candidate that will be honest, that will come out and say, ‘Yes, I support women, I want you advanced and not trampled upon,’ ” said Ms. Stevens, 63, who lives near Myrtle Beach, S.C. “I want answers desperately. I want candidates to tell me, ‘I’m not overturning Roe v. Wade.’ It’s there. Leave it there.” Ms. Russell, who changed her political views at the baby shower, said she was impressed with how Mr. Obama handled his administration’s compromise over the much-debated birth control policy, saying, “I think he’s more of a women’s candidate.” Mr. Romney’s reaction to Mr. Limbaugh’s statements about the Georgetown student cemented a negative view of him. “I expected him to have the guts to stand up and say what Rush did was wrong,” she said. “Wrong, wrong, wrong in every sense of the word wrong.” A rally for women’s rights in San Diego on Thursday drew Jessica Lopez, 27, a registered independent who said she voted for President George W. Bush in 2004. Ms. Lopez said her choice this year became clear amid the Republican debate on contraception and abortion. “This has really energized me, that I need to get more involved with the Obama campaign,” she said. Ms. Lopez added: “The G.O.P. has never been so clear about their agenda for women. I’m afraid if we get a Republican president, my health will be up to their personal discretion.”
Hysterical Womenfolk All On The Rag Despite Gallantries of The GOP - You would think the women of America — particularly “right-leaning” women who voted for George W. Bush and John McCain — would understand when the great big strong menfolk tell them not to worry their pretty little heads about things like “their bodies” and “not being filthy whores.” But in a shocking twist that nobody could have predicted, it seems “women,” if there even is such a thing, are catching themselves a little case of the sulks! Ladies are now stealthily congregating at baby showers and beauty parlors and, we don’t know, shoe stores? and morphing into Obama-voting communists, just because the Republican party patiently explained to them that a man’s place is at the head of the household, and a woman’s place is in A Handmaid’s Tale. [...] In happier news for the GOP, recent polling suggests that fully one-third of women still want the Republicans to control Congress. They will get a special treat tonight. Maybe a new vacuum.
6) GOOSE / GANDER / FAIRPLAY TURNABOUT AND WHAT NOT: Before getting a prescription for Viagra or other erectile dysfunction drugs, men would have to see a sex therapist, receive a cardiac stress test and get a notarized affidavit signed by a sexual partner affirming impotency, if state Sen. Nina Turner has her way. The Cleveland Democrat introduced Senate Bill 307 this week. A critic of efforts to restrict abortion and contraception for women, Turner says she is concerned about men’s reproductive health… Turner said if state policymakers want to legislate women’s health choices through measures such as House Bill 125, known as the ‘Heartbeat bill,’ they should also be able to legislate men’s reproductive health.
Oklahama Democrat Adds ‘Every Sperm Is Sacred’ Amendment to Personhood Bill - Oklahoma state senator Constance Johnson has a great sense of humor. To poke fun at the sheer absurdity of the Personhood Amendment which would give zygotes the same rights as extra-utero-American citizens, Senator Johnson added the following language as an amendment to the bill: However, any action in which a man ejaculates or otherwise deposits semen anywhere but in a woman’s vagina shall be interpreted and construed as an action against an unborn child.
The Rectal Probe amendment - To protest a bill that would require women to undergo an ultrasound before having an abortion, Virginia State Sen. Janet Howell (D-Reston) on Monday attached an amendment that would require men to have a rectal exam and a cardiac stress test before obtaining a prescription for erectile dysfunction medication.
A bill that would ban Georgia males from seeking vasectomies - From the press release: “Thousands of children are deprived of birth in this state every year because of the lack of state regulation over vasectomies,” said Rep. Yasmin Neal, author of the bill. “It is patently unfair that men can avoid unwanted fatherhood by presuming that their judgment over such matters is more valid than the judgment of the General Assembly, while women’s ability to decide is constantly up for debate throughout the United States.”
1) “I am requesting that the General Assembly amend this bill to explicitly state that no woman in Virginia will have to undergo a transvaginal ultrasound involuntarily. I am asking the General Assembly to state in this legislation that only a transabdominal, or external, ultrasound will be required to satisfy the requirements to determine gestational age. Should a doctor determine that another form of ultrasound may be necessary to provide the necessary images and information that will be an issue for the doctor and the patient. The government will have no role in that medical decision.” – Virginia Governor Backtracks, Offers Amendment To Ultrasound Bill
2) GOP debate audience (pictured left) boos contraception question - During a CNN-sponsored Republican presidential debate in Arizona, the crowd booed wildly at the mention of birth control. [...] Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney called the Obama administration’s decision to have all health plans cover contraception for women an “attack on religious conscience.” “I don’t think we’ve seen in the history of this country the kind of attack on religious conscience, religious freedom, religious tolerance that we’ve seen under Barack Obama,” the candidate explained. For his part, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum defended his earlier remarks about “the dangers of contraception”…
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3) Five super-rich men are deciding the GOP nomination - A quarter of the money that has fueled a bitter nomination battle among Republican White House hopefuls, from which no settled favorite has yet emerged, has come from just five super-rich Americans. The sway that wealthy donors have been able to exert has come about due to them pouring money into so-called super PACs, political action committees with no formal affiliation to a candidate but, more crucially, no funding cap. [...] Around $126 million has so far been donated to super PACS, with nearly 25 percent of that money coming from Simmons, Adelson, Friess, Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal, and Houston construction magnate Bob Perry.
4) Romney Admits He’d Give Huge Tax Break To Top 1 Percent - Romney admitted that his tax plan contained a massive tax cut for the wealthiest Americans: SANTORUM: Governor Romney even today suggested today raising taxes on the top 1 percent, adopting the Occupy Wall Street rhetoric. I’m not going to adopt that rhetoric. I’m going to represent 100 percent of Americans. We’re not raising taxes on anyone. ROMNEY: Number one, I said that we’re going to cut taxes on everyone across the country by 20 percent, including the top 1 percent. So that’s number one. [...] Romney’s plan to give a 20-percent tax cut, lowering rates for the wealthiest Americans from 35 percent to 28 percent, and repeal the alternative minimum tax would, as Romney admitted tonight, provide a huge tax break to the richest Americans, at a cost four times higher than the Bush tax cuts.
5) Minimum Wages Could Be Lowered In Arizona, Florida - Republican lawmakers in Arizona are pushing legislation that would lower the legal minimum wage for younger part-time workers and tipped workers such as restaurant servers, just as Florida lawmakers are considering dropping their state’s tipped rate as well. In both cases, proponents of the measures are arguing that the wage floor for such employees is too onerous on businesses.
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6) Did you know: Stocks Return More With Dem in White House - While Republicans promote themselves as the friendliest party for Wall Street, stock investors do better when Democrats occupy the White House. From a dollars- and-cents standpoint, it’s not even close. The BGOV Barometer shows that, over the five decades since John F. Kennedy was inaugurated, $1,000 invested in a hypothetical fund that tracks the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (SPX) only when Democrats are in the White House would have been worth $10,920 at the close of trading yesterday. That’s more than nine times the dollar return an investor would have realized from following a similar strategy during Republican administrations.
7) Rick Santorum’s not really “from the coal fields” (nor was he born in a manger) - Santorum’s claim to have come “from the coal fields” is a stretch – by two generations. He has never worked in a coal mine. His parents’ professions were psychologist and nurse, and Santorum is a lawyer who has spent all of his adult life in politics. But he frequently invokes his grandfather, who worked in the auto factories of Detroit and then the coal mines of Western Pennsylvania after he immigrated to the United States from Italy.
8) Sarah Palin ‘believed Queen was in charge of British forces in Iraq’ - [A]ccording to research done for a new film chronicling her brief political rise. [...] Her confusion emerged during a coaching session with Steve Schmidt, a top McCain adviser, who asked Mrs Palin what she would do if Britain began to waver in its commitment to the Iraq war. In one of the many rambling responses that steadily eroded her credibility during the campaign, Mrs Palin reportedly replied that she would “continue to have an open dialogue” with the Queen.
9) Zombie chicken: it’s what’s for dinner - As long as their brain stem is intact, the homeostatic functions of the chicken will continue to operate. By removing the cerebral cortex of the chicken, its sensory perceptions are removed. It can be produced in a denser condition while remaining alive, and oblivious. … Food, water and air are delivered via an arterial network and excreta is removed in the same manner. Around 1000 chickens will be packed into each ‘leaf’, which forms part of a moving, productive system. || Note: Or there’s always savory lab-grown meat.
1) How The GOP Went Back To The 1950s In Just One Day - So there you have it: modern women being told by Republicans that they’re not qualified to talk about their own sexual health, are dressed like “whores” and probably need birth control because they’re so slutty. And this is just in one day…
2) Foster Friess, the billionaire backer of Rick Santorum’s campaign, became an instant celebrity when he went on Andrea Mitchell’s MSNBC show and said, “Back in my day, they used Bayer aspirin for contraceptives. The gals put it between their knees and it wasn’t that costly.” - Back To The 1950s [Watch Andrea Mitchell's reaction]:
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Quote of the Day - For her part, Mitchell seemed rather stunned, which is the only appropriate reaction. This is, after all, the 21st century. Friess’ comments aren’t just offensive — did he really have to say “gals” while arguing against birth control? – they’re hopelessly ridiculous. That he seemed pleased with himself for saying this on national television only added insult to injury. Friess is not an official in the Santorum campaign, but given his role as the super PAC financier, it seems likely the former senator will be pressed for a reaction to the aspirin-as-contraception comments, as he should. Given Santorum’s anti-contraception agenda, his response should prove interesting.
Rick Santorum distances himself from supporter’s ‘aspirin’ comment on contraception - Santorum, a devout Catholic, has said he opposes contraception. But he’s calling Friess’ comment a “stupid joke.” And he says he’s not responsible for everything his supporters say. Speaking to reporters after a speech in Michigan, Santorum says the comment by Friess was “in bad taste.” Santorum later told Fox News that he considers Friess “a good man” and “a great philanthropist.”
3) Nancy Pelosi offers to ‘explain biology’ as Republicans deny birth control is a women’s health issue - “What else do you need to know about the subject? If you need to know more, tune in. I may, I may at some point be moved to explain biology to my colleagues.” Watch Nancy P talk about the lack of women on Darrell Issa’s ‘Man Panel on Women’s Health’ — “Five men are testifying on women’s health. Where are the women? Imagine having a panel on women’s health and they don’t have any women on the panel. Duh?”
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4) McDonnell having second thoughts on ultrasound bill? “Virginia Governor McDonnell signaled his intent to sign one of the most despicable bills in the country that would force women to undergo a trans-vaginal ultrasound against her will in order to obtain an abortion. Or in other words, a bill authorizing state-sanctioned rape. But after speaking with Jeff Caldwell, McDonnell’s press secretary, it seems the Governor is not so eager to go on the record with his previously-held position.”
~ via: WWJD5) The Nation’s Most Radical Abortion Bill? Iowa GOP Proposal Would Ban All Abortions, Sentence Doctors To Life In Prison - In the escalating war on women’s rights in statehouse across the country, Iowa state Rep. Kim Pearson (R) may have just dropped the biggest bomb yet. Pearson, a freshman Tea Party lawmaker so extreme that she’s already drawn scorn from fellow Republicans and decided not to run for re-election, introduced a bill yesterday morning that would completely outlaw all abortions. Among other things, the bill make it so a doctor that performs and abortion commits “feticide” — a Class A felony, which is punishable by life imprisonment without the chance for parole.
~ via: think4yourself6) Given all the hopelessly unbelievable bullshit above, this should come as no surprise: New Poll Finds Republicans in ‘State of Collapse’ - A new survey from Democracy Corps finds Republicans in deep trouble at almost all levels, and new voter enthusiasm among Democrats — especially among unmarried women, oddly enough. A new Democracy Corps (D) survey finds the Republican brand “is in a state of collapse — over 50 percent of voters give the Republican Party a cool, negative rating. The presidential race and the congressional battles are interacting with each other to drive down their lead candidate, the party, and perceptions of the congressional Republicans.” … Most interesting: Voters who gave Democrats their victories in 2006 and 2008 “have returned in a big way” led by “a resurgence and re-engagement of unmarried women.”
7) Bill Maher On Rick Santorum: ‘He Believes Life Begins at Erection’ – Watch:
…
8) Republican hate just keeps spreading - Despite the harm caused by a harsh immigration law in the neighboring state of Alabama, Mississippi State Rep. Becky Currie (R) filed a bill, HB 488, that would implement an Alabama-style law in Mississippi. Unlike anti-immigrant laws in states like Georgia and Arizona, Currie’s bill includes Alabama’s unconstitutional provisions driving the children of immigrants out of schools and potentially making it a felony for undocumented immigrants to take a shower.
9) Mormon Church Apologizes for Performing ‘Baptism For The Dead’ Ritual On Jews - An incredible story just hit the wires involving Mormons and their ‘baptism for the dead’ rituals via the LA Times The Mormon Church apologized Tuesday for a “serious breach of protocol” after it was discovered that the parents of the late Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal were posthumously baptized as Mormons. The church also acknowledged that one of its members tried to baptize posthumously three relatives of Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel. The efforts, at least in Wiesenthal’s case, violated the terms of an agreement that the church signed in 1995, in which it agreed to stop baptizing Jewish victims of the Holocaust. [...] You may remember that the LDS Church posthumously baptized the late mother of President Obama into the Mormon faith.
1) Vice President Joe Biden – “But the best way to sum up the job the president has done — if you need a real shorthand — Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive.” | Note: US auto manufacturing is alive, no thanks to Mitt Romney, who would have let GM, Ford, and Chrysler go bankrupt … he would have gladly “Bain Capital-ed” all of them.
2) Virginia Democrat Sen. Janet Howell Proposes ‘Gender Equity’ To Anti-Abortion Bill – “If pregnant women should have to get an ultrasound before having an abortion, men should have to undergo additional medical procedures before getting a prescription for erectile dysfunction,” she noted, and introduced an amendment to Vogel’s bill requiring that men “undergo a digital rectal exam” for pills like Viagra… “We should just have a little gender equity here.”
3) GOP Declares Obama Plan That Taxes Banks To Help Homeowners ‘Dead On Arrival’ – But any such scheme that relies on a bank tax “would be dead on arrival,” said Rep. Scott Garrett (R., N.J.), chairman of the subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government-Sponsored Enterprises, in an interview last week. “No one is going to suggest that the way to help the mortgage market is to propose a tax indirectly on the system,” he said.
4) Seven States Are Considering Eliminating Their Income Tax – Buoyed by the Tea Party, Republicans took over state houses across the country in 2010 and quickly pushed legislation to advance the conservative agenda on voting rights, abortion, and immigration. But now, the AP reports, there’s a new target: the state income tax, with Republican lawmakers are pushing to repeal in Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma and South Carolina. Income tax revenue funds “bedrock government services, including roads and bridges and schools and prison systems” ….
5) Republicans in Arizona plan to nearly wipe out public unions – Republicans in the Arizona Senate introduced legislation on Tuesday that could eliminate public employee unions, according to Talking Points Memo. The bills go even further than those proposed in Wisconsin last year, which lead to massive pro-union protests at the state Capitol. “At first glance, it looks like an all out assault on the right of workers to organize,” Senate Minority Leader David Schapira (D) told TPM. “And to me, that’s a serious problem.”
6) How Deficit Cuts Are About To Hurt The Economy – The U.S. economy will suffer over the next few years as a result of fiscal austerity measures including the recent spate of spending cuts, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s latest forecast issued Tuesday. Economic growth and the employment rate will be reduced for many years to come as a result of the August debt limit law’s steep $2.4 trillion in spending cuts and expiration of expiring tax provisions including the Bush-era tax cuts, the budget office report concluded.
7) Florida GOP Turnout Actually Fell From 2008 – In the 2008 Republican primary in Florida, in which John McCain beat Romney by a margin of 36%-31%, a total of nearly 1.95 million votes were cast. But in tonight’s primary, turnout was actually much lower. At time of writing, with 98% of precincts reporting, the total turnout is only about 1.65 million — a drop-off of 15% in terms of the raw number of voters.
8) Romney on health reform, then and now, II – “… In my view, the other direction is to move in favor of free market reforms and insisting on people buying their own insurance and having a stake in the insurance equation and having a stake in how much a particular procedure costs. That’s the direction I’m going.” Watch video from a speech Romney gave in April 2006 to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce:
Greg Sargent posted a 2007 interview in which Romney suggested that after the states experimented with solutions for the uninsured, they’d end up choosing the individual mandate.
9) If you base your entire candidacy on your ability to beat Barack Obama in a debate, you damned well better be able to beat Mitt Romney – When liberals hear Gingrich sell himself on the basis of his intellect, they hear a blowhard who wants to be president to vindicate his narcissism; when conservatives hear the same thing, they hear someone willing, at long last, to step up for them and be their champion. Conservatives do not think that the mixed-race man who is president can be as smart as he is supposed to be; they don’t think that he can be smarter than them; they think that he is “a false-smarty pants” whose transcripts were altered to clear his way into Harvard, whose books were written by someone else, and whose eloquence leaves him as soon as he leaves the teleprompter. Obama’s intelligence is an affront to them, and so they’ve been depending on Gingrich not just to defeat but also to expose him — to finally get it over with, and, in a single debate, tear down not only the whole edifice of liberal thought but the also the myth of liberal intellectual superiority.
10) Secret Service to protect Romney – The Secret Service is set to begin providing protection to Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney. The Romney campaign made the request as its events have grown larger and security has become tougher to handle. (Feb. 1, The Associated Press) | Note: the quarter billion dollar man couldn’t “afford” his own protection?
These Teaparty shitheads are beyond the pale. From Think Progress:
[Tea Party Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT)] wants to gift multinational corporations with a permanent tax break worth tens of billions of dollars.
A slew of multinational corporations — even though they already pay exceedingly low taxes — have been pushing for the enactment of a tax repatriation holiday, which would allow them to bring money they have stashed overseas back to the U.S. at a tax rate dramatically lower than the statutory 35 percent. The corporations want a short window in which this low tax rate would apply. But Lee has decided that he would just go ahead and make the holiday permanent:
Today, Senator Mike Lee submitted legislation that would create millions of new jobs and inject $1 trillion into the American economy by significantly reducing the excessive tax on repatriated assets. Sen. Lee’s proposal would permanently lower the tax rate for businesses from 35% to 5% on money earned overseas and brought back to this country…Unlike recent repatriation “holidays,” which last a short period of time, Senator Lee’s bill would make the repatriation rate permanent.
It would create ‘millions of new jobs’? Really Mike Lee? Like all the jobs that were created in the past 10 years with Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy or after that last tax holiday granted to the multinationals?
On top of Lee’s flagrantly ridiculous proposal to enrich highly profitable multinational corporations even more (at the expense of our nation’s treasury), is THE REFUSAL by Teaparty House Leader, Little Lord Cantor (R-VA) to even allow the House TO VOTE on Obama’s Jobs Bill:
Says Obama: “Yesterday, the Republican Majority Leader in Congress, Eric Cantor, said that right now, he won’t even let the jobs bill have a vote in the House of Representatives. He won’t even give it a vote. Well I’d like Mr. Cantor to come down here to Dallas and explain what in this jobs bill he doesn’t believe in. Does he not believe in rebuilding America’s roads and bridges? Does he not believe in tax breaks for small businesses, or efforts to help veterans?” (via: liberalsarecool)
So, yea. #OccupyWallStreet because the Republican party has lost it’s goddamned mind. Tax cuts for the wealthy + spending cuts for the rest of us isn’t going to cut it anymore.
image: thedailywhat
image: divineirony
Source: retrogecko
source: youcaughtmeinacoma
motherjones: Today’s single-serving Tumblr idea: Regrettable Tweets From John McCain.
And just when the East Coast needs government the most — the earthquake in Virginia yesterday combined with the approach of Hurricane Irene. From Think Progress:
Last week, Jane Lubchenco, the administrator of the the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), warned that federal budget cuts will force the agency to go without building a satellite that helps detect extreme weather events five years from now:
Without money to build a new satellite, the federal government will no longer be able to forecast severe weather events far enough in advance for communities to take life-saving action five years from now. That was the message that Jane Lubchenco, the administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, delivered on Wednesday at a town-hall-style meeting in Denver. [...] “Whether the gap is longer than that depends on whether we get the money”— $1 billion — “in the next budget,” warned Dr. Lubchenco, an environmental scientist. “I would argue that these satellites are critically important to saving lives and property and to enabling homeland security.”
Unfortunately, some of the nation’s budget cuts are already hurting the ability of local communities to respond to the incoming Irene. In Palm Beach County, Florida, budget cuts have forced a cutback in the emergency management budget by 16 percent. In South Carolina, another state likely to be battered by Irene, budget cuts have led to a third of the emergency management divisions’ staff being lost. “We’re going to do what we can with less and we think we can be effective in that regard,” said Joe Farmer of the division.
As the far-right continues to demonize government and demand even more austerity, it is important to remember that government spending on things like disaster preparedness not only keeps important employees working but is crucial to saving lives.
But according to Teaparty Republicans, feds who don’t carry guns are just the unnecessary, nonessential, paper-pushers who basically suck at the federal teat anyway. It’s also more important to get those tax cuts for the wealthy extended by cutting some waste, like the government responding to extreme weather emergencies. Heaven forbid we take in more revenue so we can cut less to balance the deficit.
Related:
Spending cuts! Increasing tax revenue is bad! From Raw Story:
A nuclear power plant that was shut down after an earthquake struck central Virginia Tuesday had seismographs removed in 1990s due to budget cuts.
U.S. nuclear officials said that the North Anna Power Station, which has two nuclear reactors, had lost offsite power and was using diesel generators to maintain cooling operations after an [5.8] earthquake hit the region.
The North Anna plant, which was near the epicenter of Tuesday’s quake, is reportedly located on a fault line.
The North Anna plant was built to withstand 5.9 – 6.1 quake and today’s quake was 5.8. Close one! They’re in the process of adding a third reactor to this location too.
map: USGS (VA earthquake downgraded to 5.8)
description: shortformblog
