Yeah, Well, There's That..

Mitchell: But, if you were president, it's not that hard to make a commitment that if you're elected President of the United States, that you would release the tax returns, every president does.

Romney: You know, if I become president, then I'll consider that. It's a little premature for me to be talking about that at this stage.

Mitchell: Is there some secret? People know you're wealthy.

Romney: Yeah, I understand.

Mitchell: There's nothing to hide?

Romney: No, I agree. (Pause) There's nothing to hide.

We'll except for the fact you got filthy rich by bankrupting American companies, screwing American workers out of their pensions and destroying American jobs.

America's Predicament

Nelson's predicament mirrors that of many students navigating the world of higher education in recent years. Community college degree programs, which have long provided affordable pathways to careers, have been overloaded by soaring demand, just as state governments grappling with budget crises have slashed support for such programs. Lack of public funding is among the more potent forces behind the surge in enrollment at for-profit colleges, which has turned their corporate parents into Wall Street darlings.

This dynamic has played out powerfully in California, where cuts to public education have been particularly deep, and where for-profit colleges have been notably aggressive, tacking up marketing notices on bulletin boards at community colleges where students are increasingly unable to enroll in classes.

Classic GOP: give huge tax cuts to the 1% and transnational corporations, destroy public education because "we can't afford it," force people to go to expensive for-profit colleges, rake in massive campaign contributions from said "colleges," and end up with wage slaves anyway because the for-profit scam artists don't teach very well. As with most things GOP, great for the party, bad for the country.

Shooters

Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, questioned whether some people classified as poor or low-income actually suffer material hardship. He said that while safety-net programs have helped many Americans, they have gone too far, citing poor people who live in decent-size homes, drive cars and own wide-screen TVs.

"There's no doubt the recession has thrown a lot of people out of work and incomes have fallen," Rector said. "As we come out of recession, it will be important that these programs promote self-sufficiency rather than dependence and encourage people to look for work."

These people... still on Reagan's dishonest narrative that there are huge amounts of fat black women sitting around having babies and eating bon bon's because they're too lazy to work. The reality of course, is that team 1% cut tax rates for the trans-national CEO's and their country club buddies, then made the rules that promoted outsourcing and offshoring, and now that the jobs are gone they slam people for not being able to find work. That's like shooting somebody in the back and then blaming them for bleeding on the floor.

Don't Like Democrats, Hate Democracy

Think Progress: A 93-year-old Tennessee woman who cleaned the state Capitol for 30 years, including the governor’s office, says she won’t be able to vote for the first time in decades after being told this week that her old state ID failed to meet new voter ID regulations.

Voter fraud, individual or otherwise is simply not something that goes on in this country. Millions of (taxpayer) dollars worth of Republican investigations have proven this beyond any doubt. Therefore the only other possible reason for their behavior is to steal elections.

These institutional Republican efforts to steal elections by systematically disenfranchising core, Demcoratic constituencies should be met with criminal prosecutions, lawsuits (what's the right to vote worth? Some disenfranchised Americans should sue the GOP and find out), recalls, and most importantly, complete rejection of the GOP by the electorate. This war on voters is an attack on all Americans, regardless of political affiliation. Anybody who values democracy would do well to remember that come election day (assuming you're still eligible to vote).

Some Of Your Lies Are Not The Point

Mitt Romney:

“I know that the Democrats will try and make this a campaign about Bain Capital; … 25 million people are out of work because of Barack Obama. And so I’ll compare my experience in the private sector where, net-net, we created over 100,000 jobs.”

“I’ll compare that record with his record, where he has not created any new jobs.”

Romney refuses to offer any support for his claim he created over 100,000 jobs. This is because there isn't any. The truth is Romney got filthy rich by ripping apart American companies, screwing American workers out of their pensions and destroying American jobs. But this particular lie is not the point. Romney is running for President of the United States so what we need to evaluate is his public policy. And the public policy he supports is killing this country.

This Romney lie is the point: 25 million people are not out of work because Obama. When Obama took over from Romney's "Team 1%" we were losing nearly 800,000 jobs a month. That's how bad Romney's public policy is. And despite constant GOP efforts to destroy public sector jobs and sabotage the economy, Obama turned that around and now we've gained jobs for 22 straight months.

Before Reagan, before the policies Romney supports and used to make his millions, we had a massive middle class and production capacity that was the apple of the worlds eye. The tax policy, (de)regulatory policy and fiscal policy which Romney supports has devastated the great American middle class, destroyed the tax base, and hollowed out our economy. Romney should not be allowed to lie his way around his record or the historical results of his horrific public policy.

Party Like It's 1959

Raw Story: In a move with significant implications for the 2012 elections, the Obama administration on Friday blocked a South Carolina voter ID law from taking effect because of concerns that it would have a disproportionate effect on minority voters.

The party of The Southern Strategy will never stop trying to defeat democracy through their corruption and racism. And if the constant Republican efforts to rob all manner of poor, elderly, and minority Americans of the right to vote don't convince you this is an institutional aim, check out the quote from Paul Weyrich we've posted on the front page of this blog. The whole lot is a clear and present danger to the republic. Vote for them at your peril (assuming they still let you vote).

Not Appeasing Blackwater Either

Think Progress: Thursday, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak praised Obama’s commitment to Israel’s security. Barak, who last month characterized Obama as an “extremely strong supporter of Israel,” told Israel Radio:

We are asked, sometimes, whether Obama is really a soft appeaser. To that, I say: ‘Go ask Osama bin Laden.’

Not only that, but he didn't lie us into any unnecessary and hugely counter productive wars, thereby diverting massive national security resources from real threats and into the pockets of his crony, war profiteering trans-national corporate friends. All you need to do is listen to Romney's full throated defense of the Iraq debacle to know he too is capable of playing that dangerous game.

Target Market

Right-wing media critic last night on Fox News: Obama is like a 'skinny, ghetto crackhead'

No sense in getting upset at the messengers. Fact of the matter is this kind of stuff plays well in the party of The Southern Strategy. Fox News is only giving their flock what it wants to hear. If you're not a racist and you're thinking of voting GOP next year you may want to first consider the company you keep.

Unbelievable

Raw Story: Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney insisted on Wednesday that President George W. Bush would never have invaded Iraq if he had known that were no weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the country.

Romney needs to learn to lie better. You could probably count the people that actually believe that one on one hand. And that's twice in one week Romney has said things about Iraq that are obviously not true. It's pretty clear this guy can't be trusted to be straight with the American people, even when it comes to something as important this. The last thing we need is another administration willing to lie us into unnecessary and hugely counter-productive wars.

The Anti-Americans

Think Progress: House members decided to go on holiday break yesterday, leaving behind an impasse on the payroll tax holiday that is set to expire on Jan. 1. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) called on President Obama to call back the Senate in order to negotiate, but refused to hold an up-or-down vote on the bipartisan Senate compromise because he lacked support from his own caucus for his favored outcome.

First the Republicans said they didn't want to extend this middle class tax cut. Then they said they would only back a temporary extension. Then they said they would only back a temporary extension if Dems dropped demands it was paid for by millionaires. Then they said they also needed quick decision from Obama on the oil pipeline. And now they're saying the the temporary extension they wanted before is no good and they want a year long extension. The takeaways from this are 1) they are against tax cuts unless they're for the mega-rich, 2) they're completely dishonest, and 3) when it comes down to it, they're against anything that's good for the country because it might help Obama get re-elected.

Iraqed

Chris WALLACE: [L]ooking back, and hindsight is always 20/20, should we have invaded? [...]

MITT ROMNEY: At that time, we didn’t have the knowledge that we have now. At that time, Saddam Hussein was hiding. He was not letting the inspectors from the United Nations into the various places that they wanted to go. The IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] was blocked from going into the palaces and so forth. And the intelligence in our nation and other nations was that this tyrant had weapons of mass destruction.

This is a pack of lies. At that time Sadam was not hiding. The UN had unfettered access to all facilities, including Sadam's palaces, for three months before Bush, Cheney, and the GOP took this nation to war. Further, the available evidence shows they knew they were lying about Niger yellow cake, Sadam's relationship with Bin Ladin, aluminum tubes, Curveball., and WMD. They knew Sadam was not a threat because logic, past behavior, and and the CIA told them so. And yet they invaded anyway. This makes them war criminals. And it makes anybody who is defending them now a very dangerous person to have around.

Why Can't We All Just Get Along?

Romney: Obama is the great divider

He's right. It's class warfare on our part. Those of us who are not millionaires should really just be showing our appreciation and love for people like Mitt who made millions by destroying the middle class, wrecking the economy, and polluting the environment. Our most sincere apologies. We don't know what came over us. Can we shine your shoes?

Conservatives

London - A Tory MP who attended a stag party where guests dressed as Nazis and toasted the Third Reich has lost his post as an aide.

The Guardian (UK): Cameron calls for return to Christian values

CSM: Deeply conservative, Saudi Arabia is among the most restrictive countries in regard to Internet access in the world, with most traffic going through a central hub at KACST in Riyadh.

Iran: British embassy attack sign of growing conservative power

Conservatives are rotten no matter what country they're in.

The War On Democracy

Raw Story: According to Dustin Baker of the blog Georgia Politico, a suit has been filed with the office of Georgia’s Secretary of State Brian Kemp challenging Barack Obama’s legitimacy to appear as a presidential candidate on the ballot in the November 2012 elections.

Georgia State Representative J. Mark Hatfield (R-Waycross) will plead the case before the Office of State Administrative Hearings on behalf of Mr. Kevin R. Powell of Duluth, Georgia, who filed the suit on the grounds that “Obama does not satisfy the ‘natural born Citizen’ requirement of Article II, Section I, Clause 5 of the United States Constitution. Obama’s father, Barack Obama, Sr., was a native of Kenya and a British subject who never became a United States citizen.”

Since we already have proof such claims are false, this can be nothing more than another Republican attack on our democracy. And if the constant Republican efforts to rob all manner of poor, elderly, and minority Americans of the right to vote don't convince you this is an institutional aim, check out the quote from Paul Weyrich we've posted on the front page of this blog. The whole lot is a clear and present danger to the republic. Vote for them at your peril (assuming they still let you vote).

Party Over Country

Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, Republican and former chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell: The only way I can explain it, Rachel, is their hatred of President Obama. And I say that with some circumspection. They want to defeat this man. They want to bring this man out of the White House. They want to embarrass this man. They want to put this man through every kind of turmoil they can possibly put him through politically. So, they will take almost any stand even -- and this is what really grates on me as a Republican -- even if it is not in the interest of this country, they will take a stand and have repeatedly taken stands that oppose the president simply because they oppose the president. It's not America. It`s not the United States. It's not our best interests. It's certainly not our national security interests. It's getting rid of this president.

Ronald Reagan sold munitions of war to the terrorist state of Iran and used the proceeds to run an illegal war in Nicaragua where his proxies raped and murdered nuns and massacred women and children in churches. If the Democrats wanted to, they could have had Reagan in prison before the end of his term. But for the good of the country they let it go. Republicans on the other hand tried to overturn the will of the people by setting up Bill Clinton in a perjury trap and impeaching him over an ambiguous answer to a question about an affair. Then and now, they pick party over the constitution, our democracy, and the country. They are dangerously bad Americans.

History Is a Hunter

Headline: Romney Accuses Obama Of Deliberately Harming America For Political Reasons.

Of course there's no evidence of that. We do however have evidence that Republicans harm America for political reasons. Their public policy is proven by history to bring disastrous results for the country and still they push it.

Republican, Gay, Dishonest, and Stupid

Raw Story: A Republican mayor in Mississippi admitted this week that he was gay after an audit revealed that he spent taxpayer money at a gay adult store in Canada. Greg Davis was elected as the mayor of Southaven in 1997 on a platform of conservative “family values,” but he says he recently realized that he was gay.

Wow. Ok, where to begin... First the bad. Yet another Republican making a living being anti-gay while being gay themselves. But on top of that, this one is dumb as brick. What did he do, charge the gay porn on his state issued credit card? And last, you don't just wake up one morning and realize sweaty balls turn you on. He's full of crap.

It's not all bad though. At least he didn't get busted molesting kids or buying meth and soliciting male hookers as is usually the case in situations like this.

Projection

The Washington Post quoting Republican congressman Allen West: "If Joseph Goebbels was around, he'd be very proud of the Democrat Party, because they have an incredible propaganda machine."

That's a strange thing to hear from a member of the political party that has Fox News, right-wing talk radio, billionaires funding multiple think tanks, the corporate media and big business on their side. Additionally, the Nazis were right-wingers and to this day the GOP and white supremacist organizations make common cause. Finally, the GOP is the party of The Southern Strategy and Allen West is black. We suggest Mr West talk to a therapist. He obviously has some issues.

Keep America...

Headline: Romney Adopts KKK Slogan: "Keep America American"

We're not sure Romney is dog whistling to the GOP base here, but when you're up against it in the party of The Southern Strategy it would be the logical thing to do.

Poisen Pills

Washington (CNN) -- Following House passage of a Republican plan that would extend the payroll tax cut and speed the process for government approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, attention shifted Wednesday to the Senate, where the measure was deemed unlikely to pass because of strong Democratic opposition.

They payroll tax cut is a tax cut for the poor and the middle class. Republicans are only for tax cuts for the rich. They are also bought and paid for by big oil. This makes all that very clear.

War Party

Raw Story: Former Vice President Dick Cheney said on Monday that President Barack Obama should have ordered an “air strike” on Iran after they recently captured a U.S. drone.

So one of our spy planes comes down in Iran and Mr. GOP, Dick Cheney, says that the US response should have been an overt act of war. And you can bet that many, if not most Republicans, just as they were in Iraq, would be on board. Seems getting 40,000 American troops killed and maimed in that meat grinder and wasting a trillion dollars wasn't enough. They want yet another war and they will lie, cheat, and use any excuse they can to get it.

Psudo-Facts And Pretend Information

Raw Story: Conservative columnist David Frum, who was speechwriter for former President George W. Bush, blasted Fox News on Sunday for creating an “alternative knowledge system.”

In an article published by New York Magazine in late November, Frum had argued that conservative media like Fox News and talk radio “immerse their audience in a total environment of pseudo-facts and pretend information.”

Republican Party public policy is a national disaster. Only through deception can they shift blame for their horrific historical results. Not even David Frum can escape that conclusion.

Proof That Rats Have More Empathy Than Republicans

Raw Story: A new study has demonstrated the existence of empathy-driven behavior in laboratory rats.

In an experiment carried out by University of Chicago neuroscientists, pairs of rats that normally shared a cage were placed in a special area, where one was confined to a closed tube with a door that could be opened from the outside while the other remained able to roam around freely. The researchers observed that “the free rat acted more agitated when its cagemate was restrained, compared to its activity when the rat was placed in a cage with an empty restrainer...”

And not only that, but when the rats were offered two tubes — one of which contained their companion and the other a pile of chocolate chips — they were as likely to free the other rat first as they were to start by gobbling all the chocolate. There were also cases in which the rat retrieved the chocolate chips first but didn’t eat them until after freeing the other and sharing the chocolate with them.

Had these been Republican rats the free one would have taken all the chocolate chips, fouled the cage, and then tried to sell the other one back to the lab.

The Earth Is Only 5000 Years Old

Des Moines Register:

Discussing controversial classroom subjects such as evolution and global warming, Santorum said he has suggested that “science should get out of politics” and he is opposed to teaching that provides a “politically correct perspective.”

Ricky wants religion in politics but not science. So he's obviously nuts, and more than a little dangerous. We don't need to point that out. What is worth saying however, is his this view is held by a large part of the Republican base. If that's not you, and you're thinking of voting GOP, best first consider the company you keep.

Iraq

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A series of e-mail exchanges between officials at the Department of Health and Human Services shows growing alarm at the amount of projected profit from a government contract for a drug company whose controlling shareholder is a longtime Democratic Party activist.

Please. Republicans lied and cheated this country into a hugely counter-productive war that cost us trillions and killed or maimed 40,000 American troops so they could give no bid contracts to GOP crony war profiteers like Blackwater, Halliburton, KBR, Bechtel, et al. There were no investigations, much less prosecutions that should have landed dozens of Republicans in prison for life. This is nothing compared to that. Nothing.

So Much For That Theory

BLACKSBURG, Va., Dec. 8, 2011 – Shortly after noon today, a Virginia Tech police officer stopped a vehicle on campus during a routine traffic stop in the Coliseum parking lot near McComas Hall

During the traffic stop. the officer was shot and killed. There were witnesses to this shooting.

Witnesses reported to police the shooter fled on foot heading toward the Cage, a parking lot near Duck Pond Drive. At that parking lot, a second person was found. That person is also deceased.

Several law enforcement agencies have responded to assist. Virginia State Police has been requested to take lead in the investigation

The status of the shooter is unknown. The campus community should continue to shelter in place and visitors should not come to campus.

Whenever (white people) are shot and killed (because right-wingers make sure that every nut case and criminal can get a gun), they tell us the solution is to make sure there are more guns on campus, in churches, in bars, and everywhere else. That's what they said after the Virginia Tech shootings in 2007. This guy was well trained and had a gun on his belt. He's still dead. So should be any credibility afforded to right-wingers when they spew their nonsensical, dangerous, destructive public policy ideas.

Romney Owes Newt

Think Progress: During an appearance on CNBC last night — the network of choice for those who favor tax cuts for the wealthy, bonuses for bailed out bankers and who think tax dodging is a way to fight “tyranny” — new GOP 2012 presidential frontrunner Newt Gingrich said that it’s because of him that his chief rival, Mitt Romney, was able to amass a fortune of up to $250 million. “You could make an argument that I helped Mitt Romney get to be rich, because I helped pass the legislation” that former President Ronald Reagan wanted in the 1980s, Gingrich claimed. “He should be thanking me”:

I was part of [Sen. Jack] Kemp’s little cabal of supply siders who, I think largely by helping convince Reagan and then working with Reagan, profoundly changed the entire trajectory of the American economy in the 1980s. You could make an argument that I helped Mitt Romney get to be rich, because I helped pass the legislation…He should be thanking me! He should be thanking me because I did the macroeconomic things necessary to make his career possible.

Romney made his money, for the most part by ripping apart companies, not paying tax, and destroying and offshoring American jobs. And Newt did play a part in making it all possible, though it's not something either of them should be bringing up. But since he did, you want to vote for the guy that got rich by gutting our economy or the guy that pushed the laws that made it possible?

Grand (Old Party) Theft

The Latest GOP Meme: "Social Security is welfare"

No it isn't. The GOP is full of crooks though. By the time we're 65 most of us have paid into Social Security our entire working lives. Those benefits are ours. They belong to us. We bought them. Republicans need to stop trying to heist that money from us and hand it to their uber-rich cronies in the form of tax breaks. That's stealing. They arrest people for that.

Propaganda

Struggling to justify a recent television spot that reached new heights of deception, a top operative in Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign put it plainly, while insisting on anonymity:

“First of all, ads are propaganda by definition. We are in the persuasion business, the propaganda business…. Ads are agitprop…. Ads are about hyperbole, they are about editing. It’s ludicrous for them to say that an ad is taking something out of context…. All ads do that. They are manipulative pieces of persuasive art.”

This is the conservative view of such things because it has to be. Their public policy sucks. Only through deception can they shift the blame for their disastrous results. Progressives have no such burden to bear. For us the truth will do just fine. History has our back.

If Lies Were Jobs...

AL HUNT (Bloomberg): Why under those pre-Bush tax cut tax rates did the economy do so well in the ‘90s? And why under the Bush tax rates, less for the wealthy, to do so poorly in this decade?

FRED UPTON (R-MI): Well, a couple things. One, spending went up, Al, the wars. I mean, that’s trillions of dollars. And also there was no change in the entitlements. And we also know -

HUNT: But that shouldn’t hurt the economy. That shouldn’t hurt economic growth.

UPTON: Yeah, but that impacts the debt and the deficit.

HUNT: But I’m asking, why did the economy grow a lot? Why were more jobs created in the previous decade under higher taxes than in this decade under lower taxes?

UPTON: I don't know specifically the answer to that question. I can – I can maybe merit a guess. But, I mean, in large part is because our job – we lost jobs. I mean, look at the jobs report that came out this last week, three-hundred- some-thousand people actually stopped looking for jobs.

Tax cuts for the rich and the transnational corporation don't create jobs (unless you mean in China and in India). In fact, by creating a disincentive to reinvest operating profits, they cost us jobs. That's not an opinion, that's the historical record. Confront Republicans with the historical record and all they can do is stutter and spew nonsensical jibberish. They've been lying to us on this point for 30 years, using it to enrich their cronies, and killing the country as a result.

The Trifecta

BALTIMORE (Reuters) – A former Republican governor’s aide accused of election fraud in Maryland defended himself in court on Friday against claims an automated phone message he authorized was intended to suppress black Democrat voters.

Paul Schurick, 55, campaign manager for former Maryland governor Robert Ehrlich, testified that the phone calls made to more than 100,000 Democratic, mostly-black voters on election night last year were intended to inspire them to vote.

So this guy commits crimes against democracy, disenfranchises black people, and then tells an obviously lie about why he did it. That's what passes for character in GOP world.

Family Values

A Republican former sheriff in Colorado was arrested on Tuesday for allegedly trying to trade meth for sex with a man, as his former colleagues from the Sheriff's department were "visually monitoring" the deal.

See, if you're not part of the conservative movement you can actually admit you're gay, have relationships with other adults, keep your job, and lead a normal life. You don't have to go underground. If you are part of the conservative movement however, not so much. Which is why we hear stories like this on a regular basis. It's pretty clear conservative philosophy not only leads to ruined economies, ruined environments, ineffective government, and bullshit wars, but also fits of criminal perversion.