Mitt Romney: 10 Years, No Taxes

WASHINGTON -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has what he says is an informed explanation for why Mitt Romney refuses to release additional tax returns. According a Bain investor, Reid charged, Romney didn't pay any taxes for 10 years.

That's just disgusting.  Meanwhile he was making millions bankrupting American companies, destroying American jobs and screwing American workers out of their pensions.  Rmoney's a scumbag.  And so is anybody who votes for him.

War Criminals

Speaking to reporters in Jerusalem, a top foreign policy advier to Mitt Romney said the GOP presidential nominee would support an Israeli decision to attack Iran’s nuclear program.

Republicans lied and cheated us into one devastating war and occupation in Iraq.  40,000 dead and maimed Americans and a couple trillion dollars later it appears they're trying to do it again. We need a president that will serve the needs of the American people, not get them killed so his crony war profiteers can get rich.

Gunners

Think Progress:  A billboard in Idaho is comparing President Obama to James Holmes, the 24-year-old accused of killing 12 people in an Aurora, Colorado movie theater. The electronic sign, sponsored by the libertarian-leaning Ralph Smeed Foundation, says: “Kills 12 in a movie theater with assault rifle, everyone freaks out. Kills thousands with foreign policy, wins Nobel Peace Prize.” “We’re all outraged over that killing in Aurora, Colorado, but we’re not outraged over the boys killed in Afghanistan,” a member of the group explained, adding, “We’re not saying that Obama is a lunatic.”

It would make far more sense to put any Republican politician in the country up there next to the Aurora shooter.  After all it is the GOP that caters to the NRA and makes sure every psychopath has access to munitions of war.

Foreign Money

TPM: It wasn’t all bad news for Mitt Romney in London this week: The projected Republican nominee will bring home $2 million from fundraisers with the British banking community, according to several reports Thursday night.

So Rmoney went to a foreign country, one that happens to be the epicenter of the giant LIBOR rip off, to collect bribe money for his presidential run.  Not sure why he went through the trouble though.  The Republican judges on the US Supreme Court pretty much made it possible for foreign interests to bribe US politicians when they handed down "Citizens United."   And since Rmoney supports the exact same deregulation that allowed the looting of our economy and the financial meltdown at the end of the last round of Republican rule, you can bet that if elected Rmoney will provide these UK banksters a good return on their "investment."  Giant crooks, the lot of them. 

Go To Hell

WASHINGTON — A Republican group backed by the casino magnate Sheldon Adelson is starting a new effort in battleground states to win over Jewish voters who could be persuaded to turn away from President Obama and support Mitt Romney. 

Why any Jew would vote Republican is beyond us.  Not only do conservatives constantly show love for the Nazis, not only has the Republican party been a haven for racists and bigots for the last 50 years, but according to Mitt Romney's Mormonism, Jews deserve and will receive hell. Jews vote Republican at their peril.

Nazi Lovers

Raw Story:  David Cameron will face pressure to remove the Tory whip from the Conservative MP Aidan Burley after he tweeted that the Olympics opening ceremony was “multi-cultural crap”. Burley was sacked as a ministerial aide last year after he took part in a Nazi-themed stag party.

In this country conservatives make common cause with Nazis, have candidates that like to dress up and behave like Nazis, pose for pictures with Nazis, deny the Holocaust was carried out by Nazis, and accept endorsements from Nazis, have Nazis working for them overseas,  former officials that were Nazis, current officials that are Nazis, senators who are supported financially by Nazis, commentators that praise Nazis, supporters that are fascists, and administrations that employ "Jew Hunters."  And oh yeah, whose preeminent political family got rich underwriting the Nazi war machine.  Conservatives love Nazis in the UK just like conservatives here at home. In fact all throughout modern history, and all around the world  conservatives have tried to "conserve" if you will a racist a social order.  It is, beyond all others, the defining characteristic of conservatives.

As for this particular assclown, he has a right to call it multi-cultural crap.  And the rest of the world has a right to call him a white supremacist.  That's the way it works.  

The Smoking Gun

Think Progress:  In a 630-page deposition, released to the press yesterday, former Republican Party Chairman Jim Greer described a systemic effort by Republicans to suppress the black vote. Referring to a 2009 meeting with party officials, Greer said “I was upset because the political consultants and staff were talking about voter suppression and keeping blacks from voting.” 

The Republican political party deserves the political death penalty for their crimes against democracy, the people driving this effort should be in prison, and anybody denied their legal right to vote should sue for damages.  What's the right to vote worth?  If there were any justice in this country we would find out in a court of law.

Note to Eric Holder:  "private scheme" violation of Federal Statute "Conspiracy Against Rights. 18 U.S.C. § 241"  http://www.justice.gov/crimina...

Bigoted For Boston, Comforting For Romney

Think Progress:  Chick-Fil-A’s plans to expand into one of the nation’s largest cities has hit a snag, after Boston Mayor Thomas Menino sent a scathing letter to company president Dan Cathy informing him that so long as the company remained intolerant of the LGBT community, Boston would remain intolerant of Chick-Fil-A. 

So Chick-Fil-A's owner is such a bigot major US cities are now banning his business.  They're making up some of the difference however with some extra special support from the Rmoney campaign.  In fact Willard loves him some bigot sandwiches.  From the text of this speech: "In some ways, it is fitting that I share this distinction with Truett Cathy. The Romney campaign comes to a sudden stop when we spot a Chick-fil-A. Your chicken sandwiches were our comfort food through the primary season, and there were days that we needed a lot of comforting. So, Truett, thank you and congratulations on your well-deserved honor today."

Outsourcer In Chief

Think Progress:  Miitt Romney couldn’t substantially distinguish his economic policies from former President George W. Bush’s during an interview with NBC’s Brian Williams on Wednesday

That's because it's the the exact same public policy, the same people, and if allowed into the whitehouse, he'll dump on us the same horrific results.  It's Einstein's definition of insanity to expect otherwise.

In fact, it's also the same public policy that failed under Reagan/Bush1 and got Bill Clinton elected with the slogan "it's the economy stupid."   Republican economic and fiscal policy only works for transnational billionaires and Chinese factory owners.  History has proven that time and time again.

Rmoney should run for President of China.  He's done a good job for them.

Mitt Romney, Convict

TPM:  As Mitt Romney and the GOP forge onward with their “you didn’t build that” attack on President Obama, they’re also acknowledging pushback from Democrats outraged that the line has been taken out of context.

If you follow the TPM link you will see the Rmoney campaign saying Obama should be happy they took him grossly out of context.  So we thought it only fair we return the favor.  If you go to the text of this speech you will find that Rmoney said these words: I’m embarrassed because I have many convictions.  Of course we picked out individual words to make that sentence but he said all those words so what the hell.  What's good for the goose...

Reverse Robin Hoods

NYT.  Senate Republicans will press this week to extend tax cuts for affluent families scheduled to expire Jan. 1, but the same Republican tax plan would allow a series of tax cuts for the working poor and the middle class to end next year.

If you want more tax breaks for billionaires and trans-national corporations, and tax increases for the poor and middle class, vote Republican. It's that simple.  

Going After The KKK Vote

Raw Story:  An adviser for Mitt Romney on Tuesday said the Republican presidential candidate would have better relations with England because of his Anglo-Saxon ancestors.

And by the same logic, worse relations with just about everybody else, including non-whites here at home.  Of course this is no surprise.  He's a member of a political party that deliberately built its base with racists and to this day has its political and philosophical power base in the confederate south, and he's active member and huge financial supporter of a "religion" that didn't that didn't let black people participate until 1978.

Case Closed

TPM: As the Justice Department investigates Pennsylvania’s voter ID law on the federal level, a coalition of civil rights groups is gearing up for a state trial starting Wednesday examining whether the law is allowable under Pennsylvania’s constitution.

In that case, Pennsylvania might have handed those groups and their clients (including 93-year-old Viviette Applewhite) a bit of an advantage: They’ve formally acknowledged that there’s been no reported in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania and there isn’t likely to be in November.

The state signed a stipulation agreement with lawyers for the plaintiffs which acknowledges there “have been no investigations or prosecutions of in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania; and the parties do not have direct personal knowledge of any such investigations or prosecutions in other states.” 

Great, we all agree the GOP is not doing this to prevent voter fraud (since it doesn't exist).  Therefore they must be dong it to prevent legal votes.  That makes them criminals, enemies of democracy, and very dangerous to have in a government by the people.

Etch-a-Wretch

Daily Kos: Okay, let's say you're a presidential candidate coming off a brutal few weeks of campaigning and you decide to do an interview with CNBC's Larry Kudlow and this is the first question you get:

KUDLOW: Before we dig into some of the economic and money issues, let me just ask you after this horrendous tragic Aurora movie shooting, has the campaign now restarted in your judgment? Are we starting the campaign again?

Yeah, I know it's a dumb question, but your answer is short and simple, and whatever you do, you don't talk about the political implications of the shooting. Perhaps you say something like: "Larry, the shooting was a tragedy. Pundits can debate the politics, but I think this is a time for America to come together and support the people of Aurora. When it comes to tragedy like this, there's no Democratic Party, there's no Republican Party, we're all Americans, and my heart goes out to the victims of this senseless violence." But you're not Mitt Romney. His answer?

Gov. ROMNEY: Yes. I think we are, but we're starting also with a level of thoughtfulness and seriousness that I think is appropriate in the aftermath of a tragedy of this nature. Obviously, the campaigns are under way. We're talking about our respective views and at the same time, our hearts are heavy as we think about the funerals that'll be held this week and the families that have been so tragically altered by virtue of the loss of life.

How does massive violence enabled by the NRA and their Republican whores in congress change the fact Rmoney's a tax cheat that made hundreds of millions of dollars bankrupting American companies, destroying American jobs and screwing American workers out of their pensions?  Of course it doesn't.  But Williard's a scumbag to try to make it so.  

Live By The Gun, Die By The Gun

Raw Story:  A 35-year-old Colorado man avoided a jail sentence on Wednesday even after pleading guilty to conspiring to sell more than 30 machine guns with optical sights, five pounds of C4 explosives, grenades and 14 semi-automatic pistols smuggled into the country from Iraq.

You can thank the right-wing and the NRA for outrages like this.  You can thank them for "fast and furious".  You can thank them for delivering munitions of war to every psychopath that comes to desire them.  And you can blame them for the carnage that results.

Rapists

Raw Story: A high-profile Republican fundraiser who co-chaired at least one event for presumptive Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has been accused of kidnapping and raping several women that he met online and at church.

Figures.  His party has been raping the country for 30 years.

Economic Traitors

Washington (CNN) -- Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked the No.1 item on the president's congressional "to-do-list," refusing to allow a vote on a bill that would give tax breaks for companies that "insource" jobs to the U.S. from overseas while eliminating tax deductions for companies that move jobs abroad.

These Republican whores would rather service their billionaire transnational masters instead of doing right by the American people.  The only way to restore our middle class, our tax base, and our economy is to get Republicans out of our government.

Interesting

Think Progress: Though the Boy Scouts of America has not yet explained what conclusions led it to reaffirm that discriminating against gay scouts and leaders was “absolutely the best policy” for its organization, plenty of conservatives have made clear which fallacious anti-gay myth they believe motivated the decision. On his radio show yesterday, Mike Huckabee spelled out in no uncertain terms that he believes the policy is “right” because it protects boys from abuse. He welcomed a call from a listener who had been abused by his scout leader, and Huckabee agreed that part of the definition of “homosexual” is molesting children.

It's most likely he feels that way due to the seemingly very high incidence of child molestation in conservative circles. Normal people would not come to that conclusion.  We figure it's the repressive nature of the fake morality in the movement.  It makes people hide and suppress their normal adult urges until they explode in fits of criminal perversion. 

Let Them Eat Cake

Anne Romney, the wife of GOP hopeful Mitt Romney, on Thursday insisted that she and her husband would not be giving voters any more information about their tax returns because they had “given all you people need to know.”

They really do think they're royalty.  But in this country peasants vote.  Queen Ann would do well to remember that.  

Obscene

WASHINGTON -- Mitt Romney has been determined to resist releasing his tax returns at least since his bid for Massachusetts governor in 2002 and has been confident that he will never be forced to do so, several current and former Bain executives tell The Huffington Post. Had he thought otherwise, say the sources based on their longtime understanding of Romney, he never would have gone forward with his run for president.

This guy is dirtier than a donkey show in Tijuana, and he knows it (obviously).

Commie A-rab

Top Romney campaign surrogate John Sununu on Monday: “The men and women all over America who have worked hard to build their businesses from the ground up is how our economy became the envy of the world,” Sununu said. “It is the American way, and I wish this president would wish how to learn how to be an American.” 

Putting aside this McCarthyite vomit from the Rmoney campaign for a moment, only in GOP world can a Arab born in Cuba get away with saying something like that.

Too Poor To Run Elections

Raw Story:  President Obama’s re-election campaign, along with the Democratic National Committee and the Ohio Democratic Party, have sued Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted seeking to restore voting on the weekend before the presidential election, The Columbus Dispatch reports.

The suit, filed in federal court, seeks to reverse state Senate Bill 295, which only allows military personnel and their dependents to vote on the Saturday, Sunday and Monday before Election Day.
“Rather than protecting the right to vote, we’ve seen brazen attempts to undermine it,” DNC political director Patrick Gaspard told Politico. “It’s a cynical ploy.”

As The Cleveland Plain-Dealer reported last week, Husted’s vote broke a tie between members of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections on whether to open board offices on the last two Saturdays and Sundays in October for voting. 

The Plain-Dealer also noted that Husted made his vote without the usual step of waiting for board members to submit written arguments.

“I cannot create unequal access from one county board to another, but I must also keep in mind the resources available to each county,” Husted wrote in a letter to elections board director Jane Platten. “The reality is that local boards are operating under tight budget constraints on a day-to-day basis under their normal business hours. There is sufficient time already available during the Cuyahoga County board’s regular business hours for the casting of absent voters’ ballots in person.” 

Unreal.  So Republicans spend 30 years deliberately destroying the tax base and now they're saying we have to restrict voting because we can't afford it.  These people are a cancer to our democracy.  They have no business in government.  

The Corruptionists

Thinik Progess:  Two years after filibustering the DISCLOSE Act of 2010 to death and blocking any disclosure for who is funding the the independent expenditures enabled by the Supreme Court’s 5-4 Citizens United ruling, Republicans have again blocked transparency. While the 2010 version included other campaign finance reforms, the DISCLOSE Act of 2012 was pared down to only require disclosure of the funders of $10,000-and-larger independent political expenditures. But Republicans, led by former disclosure advocate Sen. Mitch McConnell (KY) still blocked the measure, incredibly calling it “nothing less than an effort by the government itself to expose its critics to harassment and intimidation.” The Senate vote failed 51-44, falling 9 votes short of the needed 60. 

The Republican majority on the Supreme Court sold out our democracy with Citizens United and yet again Republicans in congress vote to keep who their selling it to a secret.  Disgusting.

Foreign Cash Funds the GOP

Headline: Inside The Investigation of Leading Republican Money Man Sheldon Adelson

Adelson has pledged to spend "unlimited" cash to get Rmoney in the whitehouse.  So one of the biggest GOP "contributors" is corrupt.  No news there. And neither is this news (though it most certainly should be);  from the article: "Adelson, described by Forbes Magazine as the largest foreign investor in China..."  Figures.  Foreign money is buying US elections on behalf of the GOP.  If you're out for the best interest of the USA the Republican party is clearly not your team.

Dirty

Think Progress:  Staffers for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign say the candidate wants to end the wind production tax credit.

Meanwhile the massive tax credits for big oil roll on.  Republican party public policy is dirty in more ways than one.  Not all GOP public policy will give you cancer, but as you can see, some does.

John Kerry's Wife

Headline:  Romney: John Kerry's wife didn't release her tax returns either.

Let's put aside for a moment how lame and pathetic that is and pretend it has enough merit to deserve a response beyond just laughter.  It would not have been important for her because she was 1) not running for president and 2)  not accused of selling out our country.  Rmoney on the other hand used his daddy's money to start a company that made millions by bankrupting American companies, destroying American jobs and screwing American workers out of their pensions.  And then of course he screwed American again by parking all his cash in tax havens outside of the country. At this point even Republicans are implying he's hiding something (hell, he even implies it himself).  He's going to have to release his tax returns.

Things To Hide

Think Progress:   In a series of interviews yesterday, Mitt Romney mainatined he would only release tax returns dating back two years. Romney told CNN, “that’s all that’s necessary for people to understand something about my finances.”

Robert Bently, the Republican Governor of Alabama, isn’t satisfied. The AP has the story:

Pressure was building on Romney from within his own party to be more forthcoming with his finances, a day after he declared he would not release past income tax returns beyond his 2010 tax records and, before the November election, his 2011 taxes.

On the sidelines of the National Governors Association meeting in Williamsburg, Alabama’s Republican governor, Robert Bentley, called on Romney to release all the documents requested of him.

“If you have things to hide, then maybe you’re doing things wrong,” Bentley said. “I think you ought to be willing to release everything to the American people.“

Rmoney's going to get hammered until he releases his tax returns and then when he does we're all going to see he basically paid no taxes for a decade.  Such is life when you're an outsourcing, America swindling, transnational tax cheat.

The War Profiteers

Raw Story:  Former Vice President Dick Cheney gave GOP hopeful Mitt Romney his seal of approval on Thursday, saying the presumptive nominee was the “only” candidate to trust on tough foreign policy decisions.

Coming from Cheney that means he's the only candidate that will lie and cheat to invade the wrong county while he fails to get the correct people.  Obama made the tough call and got the correct people.   Republicans only start wars that make their crony war profiteering friends very rich while they make America very much less safe.

Investing In China's Success

Mother Jones: Last month, Mitt Romney's campaign got into a dustup with the Washington Post after the newspaper reported that Bain Capital, the private equity firm the GOP presidential candidate founded, invested in several US companies that outsourced jobs to China and India. The campaign indignantly demanded a retraction, claiming that these businesses did not send jobs overseas while Romney was running Bain, and the Post stood by its investigation. Yet there is another aspect to the Romney-as-outsourcer controversy. According to government documents reviewed by Mother Jones, Romney, when he was in charge of Bain, invested heavily in a Chinese manufacturing company that depended on US outsourcing for its profits—and that explicitly stated that such outsourcing was crucial to its success.

Mother Jones is being too kind.  The Washington Post reported Romney's company didn't just invest in outsourcing, they helped pioneer it.  This guy is a cancer to the country.  It wouldn't be a good idea to put a cancer to the country in the Whitehouse. We need a president who tries to do right by America, not China.  We need a president, not an outsourcer in chief.

Boo Dat

Raw Story:  Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh on Wednesday suggested that that the 103rd convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) had booed GOP hopeful Mitt Romney just because he was a white man. 

Or maybe they booed him because he's and active member and huge financial supporter of a "religion" that didn't let black people participate until 1978.  Or perhaps it's because he's member of a political party that deliberately built its base with racists and to this day has its political and philosophical power base in the confederate south. Or maybe it's because he supports the GOP's institutional efforts to institute poll taxes and rob African Americans of the right to vote.  Or maybe they boo him because he's a gay bashing asshole.  Or maybe it's because he used his daddy's money to start a company that made millions by bankrupting American companies, destroying American jobs and screwing American workers out of their pensions. Or maybe it's because he's the etch-a-sketch candidate.  We could go on all day, but they didn't boo him because he's white.  Bill Clinton was white and they didn't boo him.

Teh Crazy

Headline: Some Republicans still insist that Obamacare is unconstitutional

Not a surprise.  Nearly one in four Republicans think Obama might be the anti-Christ, and majority think he was born in Kenya .  These people are crazy.  Think twice before you vote with crazy people.

Bankrupt

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. -- The City Council in San Bernardino voted Tuesday night to seek Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection, making it the third California city in less than two weeks to make the rare move.

This follows Stockton doing the same week before last.  These are both very Republican areas.  Just as with Republican states, Republican cities are a fiscal disaster.  Such is life when you deliberately destroy the tax base and legislate only on behalf of the corporation.  This is in fact the goal of the Republican party.  So it should be no surprise.  Don't like it?  Vote Democrat.

Going After The Rapist Vote

Think Progress:  Late last week, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) vetoed nearly half a million dollars that was slated to go toward domestic violence and sexual assault prevention. Haley defended the veto, according to the Charleston City Paper, saying that rape and sexual assault prevention programs “distract from” the Department of Health’s mission, and that sexual assault victims are “only a small portion” of South Carolinians who need help.

Since a only a small number of people get raped it's ok to let it happen without a measly half million dollars to help prevent it?  Did this GOP scumbag really just say that?  She's obviously never been raped. 

The bottom line is this, Republicans don't like government by the people (and they will be more than happy to tell you that themselves), so they should not be allowed to participate in it. They run for office saying government doesn't work only to get elected and prove it.  This is because they only want to be in government to enrich themselves and their cronies, sell off the commons, the national parks and such, and in general shift us from democracy to corporatocracy.

If you value democracy, if you want government by the people to help make your life safer, richer, better, don't vote GOP.  If you want corporate rule, a dirty, unsafe cesspool of a society where nothing is done to prevent rape or tuberculosis the Republican party is for you.

No Lunch For The Poor Kids

Think Progress:  Members of the House Agriculture Committee this week will be marking up a “compromise” version of this year’s farm bill, which includes cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — i.e. food stamps — that would result in two to three million people losing their food assistance. 45 percent of the proposed cuts to federal spending in the bill come from reductions in the food stamp program.

The bulk of the cuts would be a result of eliminating what is known as “categorical eligibility,” which gave states the flexibility to enroll families in SNAP even if their assets (such as a car or modest savings) or income push them barely above the line to qualify for assistance. According to the Congressional Budget Office, such a move would not only boot 1.8 million people off of food stamps, but would knock 280,000 children off of the free school lunch program.

You have to be a special kind of mean to vote for a political party that would take food out of the mouths of poor children in order to pay for tax breaks for billionaires.   Jesus said: "again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."  You can bet your last dollar it wont help to vote the filthy rich that much richer at the expense of the poor. 

Corporate Media to the Truth: You're Fired

Raw Story:  Former Politico White House correspondent Joe Williams on Sunday said it was not biased to claim Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney was more comfortable around “white folks.”

So they fired him for saying something so obviously true that pretty much everybody knows it.  But if you're one of the six people in the US that does not agree, let us break it down for you:  Rmoney is an active member of a religion that didn't let black people participate until 1978, he's a mega-rich, country club guy, and he's member of a political party that deliberately built its base with racists and to this day has its political and philosophical power base in the confederate south.  Of course he's more comfortable around white people.  Just another reason he shouldn't be president - at least not of this country.

Common People

Think Progress:  Today, Mitt Romney is holding a series of fundraisers in the Hamptons, culminating with a huge event at the home of billionaire David Koch. The LA Time in on the scene and reporter Maeve Reston caught up with a donor on her way into one of the events.

The woman, who wouldn’t reveal her name, said the following:

I don’t think the common person is getting it…my college kid, the baby sitters, the nails ladies — everybody who’s got the right to vote — they don’t understand what’s going on. I just think if you’re lower income — one, you’re not as educated, two, they don’t understand how it works, they don’t understand how the systems work, they don’t understand the impact.

The recommended contribution for the event she was attending was $25,000.

Earlier in the campaign Romney recieved criticism for saying, “I’m not concerned with the very poor.” He later said he misspoke.

Romney’s tax plan would give the richest 0.1% of Americans an average tax cut of $264,000.

Attention all common people:  this is not your team.

You may or may not understand that the system works to get people like Rmoney and his billionaire buddies to a 13.9% tax rate while you pay 35%  You many or may not understand that GOP tax policy incentivizes outsourcing and destroys American jobs.  You may or may not understand that if you vote GOP they will cut everything, including public health, to buy billionaires more tax breaks.  But if you don't know how the system works and you're thinking of voting GOP it would be best to prove this woman wrong and take some time to figure it out. You will pay a heavy price if you don't.

Look, Rmoney is not going one of the Koch Brothers mansions to talk about how to uplift the poor or expand the middle class.  You can bet your last dollar on that.

Bad For America, Good For Tuberculosis

Raw Story The state of Florida has been struggling for months with what the Centers for Disease Control describe as the worst tuberculosis outbreak in the United States in twenty years... According to the Post, the coverup began as early as last February, “when Duval County Health Department officials felt so overwhelmed by the sudden spike in tuberculosis that they asked the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to become involved. Believing the outbreak affected only their underclass, the health officials made a conscious decision not to not tell the public, repeating a decision they had made in 2008, when the same strain had appeared in an assisted living home for people with schizophrenia.”

That decision now appears to have gone terribly awry, partly because the disease appears to have already spread into the general population but also because just nine days before the CDC warning was issued, Florida Governor Rick Scott had signed a bill downsizing the state’s Department of Health and closing the A.G. Holley State Hospital that had treated the most difficult tuberculosis cases for over 60 years. 

That's just great.  Cut public health, give a bunch of people TB, cover it up.  But hey, at least the billionaires get all their tax breaks.  That's Republican rule for you.

Jab, Right Cross

Raw Story:  Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) struggled on Sunday to explain presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s investments outside the United States, including Swiss bank accounts and a corporation in Bermuda.

This is pretty good.  If you have five minutes click the link and watch the video.  It's worth the time.  The only thing we would suggest, and we would suggest this for all Democrats, carry around this chart.  And when any forked tongue Republican starts whining about the deficit, pull it out and say most if not all of the deficit growth the last three years is due to the Republican tax cuts during the Bush years, the Bush wars, and the great Republican recession.

And while we're a big fan of going negative hard, fast, and right off the bat, we don't want to concede the economy either.  It's worlds better than it was when Obama took over from the Republicans.  800,000 jobs lost a month to positive job creation for 26 months in a row, Dow from 6,500 to 13,000, banking system on verge of collapse to stability.  Hit em with that real quick. In this kind of format there's more than enough time.  After you do what Omally did and hit him over the head with the 'Outsourcer in Chief,' tax cheat sledgehammer of course.

Takes One to Know One

Huffington Post:  Maine governor Paul LePage blasted the Supreme Court's health care ruling on Saturday, saying the "decision has made America less free." 

"We the people have been told there is no choice," LePage said in his weekly radio address. "You must buy health insurance or pay the new Gestapo -- the I.R.S.."

Yes, because having what will be about 1% of people who refuse, even with government subsidies, to take a minimum of responsibility for their own healthcare pay a small penalty to cover society's cost of taking care of them is just like rounding up six million Jews and sending them to the gas chamber.

It's just like Republicans to minimize the horrors of the Gestapo.  Of course one would expect nothing less from a political party that that makes common cause with Nazis, has candidates that like to dress up and behave like Nazis, pose for pictures with Nazis, deny the Holocaust was carried out by Nazis, and accept endorsements from Nazis, has Nazis working for them overseas,  former officials that were Nazis, current officials that are Nazis, senators who are supported financially by Nazis, commentators that praise Nazis, supporters that are fascists, and administrations that employ "Jew Hunters."  And oh yeah, whose preeminent political family got rich underwriting the Nazi war machine.

Democracy vs Dictatorship

Daily Kos: In today's Philadelphia Inquirer it's reported more than 758,000 registered voters do not have photo id cards from Penndot or other approved forms. That's 9.2 % of Pa. voters and (surprise, surprise) concentrated in Philadelphia.

One of the problems here is a lack of public outrage.  One of the reasons for that is the Democrats are not framing the institutional effort on the behalf of the Republican party to deny Democrats the right to vote correctly.  It's not enough to complain about "voter suppression."  Dems need to use terms like election fraud, criminal conspiracy, betrayal of democracy, dictatorship, threat to our way our life, and they need to make clear that your right to vote may or may not be threatened today, but it will be if we let this continue.

Money Talks

Raw Story:  A paid contributor for Fox News and Fox Business on Friday advised that the stock market would not start to improve until that it was obvious that GOP hopeful Mitt Romney was going to be the next president of the United States. 

What kind of fantasy world do Fox News viewers live in that they would buy this bullshit, mountains of evidence, history in fact, to the contrary?   The last time we got done with the exact same Republican party policy Romney will implement the Dow had crashed all the way down to 6500.  After three years under Obama, it's almost double that now.  They lived all of that, just like the rest of us.

So it's clear what party's public policy is better for the stock market and it damn sure ain't the GOP.  If you have a 401k and are thinking of voting Republican, you would do well to remember the saying - a fool and his money are soon parted.

There's Never a Gen. Sherman Around When You Need One

Media Matters:  In today's column for the Washington Times, National Rifle Association board member and prominent Mitt Romney endorser Ted Nugent wrote, "I'm beginning to wonder if it would have been best had the South won the Civil War."Nugent's remark came in response to what he called "turncoat" Chief Justice John Roberts' "traitor vote" to uphold President Obama's health reform law, including the individual mandate. According to Nugent, Roberts "squandered the opportunity to restore judicial, financial and legislative sanity to a government that by any sane person's standards is insane and addicted to centralized federal control of our lives." Nugent then stated:

Because our legislative, judicial and executive branches of government hold the 10th Amendment in contempt, I'm beginning to wonder if it would have been best had the South won the Civil War. Our Founding Fathers' concept of limited government is dead.

Nugent is infamous for wearing shirts emblazoned with the Confederate battle standard during his concerts.

Most of the Republican base prefers the Confederate flag to the American flag.  Of course they would have preferred the south had won the civil war - that's why they fly the confederate flag.  These racists glorify treason and taking up arms against the United States in order to preserve slavery.  Unless you think they're trying to promote an agriculture based economy there's really no other way to spin that.

But they're not just hostile to the American ideal of equality, they're also clearly hostile to democracy and equal opportunity and they're prone to .  Not only do they not belong in government, they really should get the hell out of the country. They're dangerous to have around. 

As for Rmoney, we're quite sure he still loves him some Ted Nugent.  After all Rmoney is an active member and huge financial supporter of a religion that until 1978 didn't even let black people participate.  Mormons used to call black people the burnt devil spawn of Satan and to this day Mormonism is pretty much an all white religion.

A Million Times Better

CNN Headline: Hiring lukewarm in June

The economy added 80,000 jobs in June.  It would have been better if Republicans in red states had not been axing public sector jobs as fast as they can.

In the last months of the Bush administration, the last months of what had been 8 years of Republican party public policy, 8 years of the exact same public policy Rmoney will bring back, we were losing between 700,000 and 800,000 jobs per month.  So here is what we say about the 80,000 jobs gained in June:  it's not great, but it would have been much better if the GOP had not been deliberately sabotaging the job market, and it's nearly one million jobs better than we were doing since the last time Romney's Republican party public policy was in effect.

Taxing Logic

Presumptive Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Wednesday reversed his campaign’s position that mandates to buy health care are a “penalty” and not a “tax,” telling CBS News that “the majority of the [Supreme Court] has said it is a tax, and therefore it is a tax.” 

Holy crap, on Tuesday he says it's not a tax and on Wednesday he says it is.  This guy flip flops faster than a dying fish on one of his yachts.  If we put a tax on flip flops this guy could pay down the national debt.    Either way, tax, penalty, tax penalty, free rider fee, deadbeat citizens fee, whatever, it was Romney's idea and so he's a total scumbag for criticizing Obama for it.  Don't vote for a total scumbag.

Projecting Death

Think Progress:  During an appearance on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show on Tuesday, Sen. John Thune (R-SD) pledged that Republicans would kickstart the process of repealing the Affordable Care Act shortly after the November elections and predicted that the party would be able to undo the law through the budget process “by sometime in the spring.”
 
Unimpressed by the timeline, Hewitt pressed Republicans to move faster. He compared the urgency of repeal to Congressional action in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and argued that people are already “dying” from the law. Thune seemed to agree with the sentiment:

HEWITT: Yeah, the reason I balk a little bit is only because I know people are out there dying under the burdens of this thing.
THUNE: Yeah.
HEWITT: And they expect, you know, the light speed for Congress is like molasses for the rest of the real world.
THUNE: Yeah.
HEWITT: And so it just seems to me that after 9/11, you guys moved fast, and I would hope it would happen again.

This is the projection of public policy that causes massive death.  If the GOP repeals Obamacare 30 million more Americans would be without health insurance.  Since 45,000 Americans die every year due to lack of health insurance, over a 10 year period, repealing Obamacare will doom nearly a half million Americans to death.  That's a lot of dead people on Republican hands.  That's not our opinion, it's simple math.  Democrats had best start saying so.

Not The Same

Raw Story: At a town hall event on Sunday, tea party favorite Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) said that his political opponents wanted everyone to be exactly the same.

Ah yes, the worlds most famous deadbeat dad opens his yap yet again.  This time he's kind of right though.  We want to give everybody a good shot at being healthy.  By their constant efforts to kill legislation that would cover more people, it's clear they don't.  We want everybody to have the same opportunity for an education.  They only want to include people that can afford it.  We want this to be the land of opportunity.  Everything they do pretty much works against that.  Fact of the matter is conservatives have been working on behalf of the plantation owner since before this country was founded.   We don't expect them to change any time soon.

Pray For a Cure

Raw Story:  Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) is arguing that President Barack Obama’s health care reform law should be repealed because rights come from “nature and God,” not the government. 

Half of men in this country will get cancer.  If Paul Ryan is unlucky enough to be in the half that does, we'll expect him to renounce his government health care plan and let God cure his cancer.  For the rest of us, we'll need help paying for treatment. So unless Paul Ryan can get God to pay up, he really needs to stop spouting nonsense on national TV.

And while Ryan may say that God wants him to repeal Obamacare, he knows very well his rights don't come from God.  They come mostly from the Koch Brothers.