Rick Perry, R-Murderer and Believer of Junk Science

UPDATE VI:  "What happens in Texas when you get a man executed on the basis of bad testimony?"

Read Slate, Justice Deferred.


Perry, the former prosecutor John H. Jackson, and others should be prosecuted for conspiracy to commit murder.

UPDATE V:  "In a major turn in one of the country’s most-noted death penalty cases, the State Bar of Texas has filed a formal accusation of misconduct against the county prosecutor who convicted Cameron Todd Willingham, a Texas man executed in 2004 for the arson murder of his three young daughters.

Following a preliminary inquiry that began last summer, the bar this month filed a disciplinary petition in Navarro County District Court accusing the former prosecutor, John H. Jackson, of obstruction of justice, making false statements and concealing evidence favorable to Willingham’s defense.

'Before, during, and after the 1992 trial, [Jackson] knew of the existence of evidence that tended to negate the guilt of Willingham and failed to disclose that evidence to defense counsel,' the bar investigators charged."

Read the Washington Post, Prosecutor accused of misconduct in disputed Texas execution case.

UPDATE IV:  "More than a decade after Cameron Todd Willingham was executed for the arson murder of his three young daughters, new evidence has emerged that indicates that a key prosecution witness testified in return for a secret promise to have his own criminal sentence reduced. . .

In two days of interviews recently with the Marshall Project, [the witness, Johnny E] Webb gave the most detailed account to date of how he came to testify against Willingham. He said that [the prosecutor, John H.] Jackson threatened him with a life sentence in the robbery case — a possibility under Texas law because Webb had several prior convictions — unless he testified. . .

During Willingham’s three-day trial in August 1992, Jackson pointedly asked Webb on the witness stand whether he had been promised a lighter sentence or some other benefit for his cooperation. Webb told the judge and jury that he had not."

Read the Washington Post, Letter from witness casts further doubt on 2004 Texas execution. 

UPDATE III: For those Republi-cons who are reading challenged, a reminder that you can watch the PBS Frontline documentary on the Willingham case.


UPDATE II: Read the report of the Arson Review Committee, A Peer Review Panel Commissioned by the Innocence Project regarding Willingham’s case, and another case of alleged arson. One executed, but one not, based on junk science.


UPDATE: "There is little dispute that the arson evidence in Willingham’s case, based on myths that had permeated fire investigations for years, was invalid. Every independent expert, including the top experts in the country, has concluded that there was no evidence of arson." Read SSRN, The Execution of Cameron Todd Willingham: Junk Science, an Innocent Man, and the Politics of Death.

"Faith and reason are not mutually exclusive, but Perry makes you think they are." Read the Washington Post, Rick Perry, the Republicans’ Messiah?

And Perry's no messiah, he rushed to have the man executed for political reasons, his reelection.

Read a previous post, Executing an Innocent Man and Trying to Hide It.

Cha-Ching, Baby, Cha-Ching

UPDATE XI:  Here is a sample. In response to Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s speech on the '11 Commandments of Progressivism' that fast-food workers deserve livable wages, Palin said on her new channel:

'We believe?' Wait, I thought fast food joints, hurh. Don’t you guys think that they’re like of the Devil or something ... Liberals, you want to send those evil employees who would dare work at a fast food joint that you just don’t believe in, thought you wanted to, I dunno, send them to Purgatory or somethin’ so they all go vegan and, uh, wages and picket lines I dunno they’re not often discussed in Purgatory, are they? I dunno why are you even worried about fast food wages because ... Well we believe in an America where minimum wage jobs, they're not like life time gigs, they're stepping stones.

Read Slate, Sarah Palin Is Getting Good at Her Tina Fey as Sarah Palin Impersonation.

Or watch the Great Palin herself:



Reminds me of the election criticism of her tired cliches, random jargon, and catchphrases she had been coached to repeat, often resulting in nonsensical answers and gibberish during the election.

She must be using the Sarah Palin Quote Generator.

 

UPDATE X:  "Sarah Palin announces the launch of her own online news channel as part of a continuing quest to remind America of her existence. "

Watch The Colbert Report, The Sarah Palin Channel, which notes that "[i]t's all about Sarah Palin . . . a safe space where like-minded folks can hear things they already agree with from someone whose opinions they already know.":

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,The Colbert Report on Facebook,Video Archive

UPDATE IX:   It is the "the most rigorous infotainment site ever launched by a half-term governor of Alaska.

Read The Atlantic, Sarah Palin's Low-Budget TV Channel Is Pricier Than Netflix.

UPDATE VIII:  Years later, still monetizing the flools (a flock of fools).

Read the New York Daily News, Sarah Palin's new online channel provides commentary and more for $9.95 per month.  

Read also Slate, Sarah Palin to Sell Her Real American Lifestyle for $10 a Month, which notes that "Palin’s audience is composed of people who are steeped in the paranoid belief that everyone else is out to get them, a paranoia she's happy to stoke at every turn."

UPDATE VII: Giving new meaning to never missing a chance to monetize, first get knocked-up by your teenage boyfriend, then run a con as an "abstinence ambassador." Read the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Non-profit paid Bristol Palin more than it donated to anti-teen pregnancy programs, which notes:

That abstinence "charity" (a term used loosely as you will see) "took in about $1.7 million in donations and only gave $35,000 to groups trying to lower teen pregnancy rates.

Forty-six percent of Candie’s total expenses — $573,000 — went to Palin. Only 6 percent went to anti-teen pregnancy programs.

About $165,000 was paid to ABC for TV advertising."

Even for the Palins, this con strikes me as immoral.


UPDATE VI: Taking a chance to monetize to a new low, now she's cashing-in on the 9/11 terrorist attacks. CBS News, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin Sept. 11 Event Ticket Price: $73 to $225.

Pretty despicable if you ask me.


UPDATE V: Like Mother, like daughter -- never missing a chance to monetize. Read WHYfame, Bristol Palin's Story Sold to Us Weekly for $100,000!

And admit it, you knew it was coming, another unreality show. Read My Fox New York, Bristol Palin, Levi Johnston Eye Reality Show Ahead of Wedding.


UPDATE IV: Now the Palin clan will monetize out-of-wedlock teen pregnancy. Read the Washington Post, Bristol Palin to hit the paid lecture circuit, speaking about teen pregnancy.


UPDATE III: Compare Palin's efforts to monetize her new found 'celebrity' with Truman's refusal to accept corporate positions at large salaries. He declined the corporate offers because he knew they didn't want him, they wanted the office of the President, about which he later wrote "I could never lend myself to any transaction, however respectable, that would commercialize on the prestige and dignity of the office of the presidency."

FYI, when Truman retired from office, he returned home to Independence, Mo., his "only source of income was his $111.96-per-month World War I pension. In those days, ex-presidents didn't get pensions."

Later, Congress did enact a pension for former presidents. But when Congress attempted to give Truman the Medal of Honor, he said he would refuse it, saying the Medal of Honor was for combat bravery, and in any case, he did not consider that he had done anything to merit any award.

Truman is also quoted as saying: "My choice early in life was either to be a piano-player in a whorehouse or a politician. And to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference."

Truman also said "I never give them hell. I just tell the truth and they think it's hell."

I think it's time to dig him up and clone him.


UPDATE II: "Nowadays, for both poles of the political spectrum but especially for the right, politics is a business—the entertainment business. The freak show, as Mark Halperin termed it, has been turned into a fully merchandised product. It was Fox’s Roger Ailes who had the insight that the American right was an underserved market, one with a powerful kind of brand loyalty. Fox News has turned a disaffected segment of the populace into a market, with the fervor and idiosyncratic truth standards of a cult. Wingnut-ism has been monetized, is one admittedly partisan way of looking at it. Palin stokes the disaffection of her constituents and then, with the help of Fox, offers to heal them, for a price. And—surprise—they’re more affluent than most Americans. Fifty-six percent make over $50,000 a year, according to a Times/CBS poll. Running for president is no doubt part of her business model. But forget elections (as many Palin supporters already seem to have done); she’s already the president of an alternative America—and also its CEO. " Read New York magazine, The Revolution Will Be Commercialized.


UPDATE: Not only is she getting the green, she demands the divas treatment and doesn't want you to know. Strictly nondisclosure, The Rogue Diva requires first class for two from Anchorage to California if she flies commercial, if not, a private aircraft that "MUST BE a Lear 60 or larger." In addition, she need a suite and two single rooms in a deluxe hotel. (Don't ask me why she needs three rooms for two people.) Of course, that is in addition to her speaking fee, as high as $100,000. Read the Washington Post, Calif. students find Palin contract in trash.

BTW, don't forget to "stock her lectern with two water bottles and bendable straws."

Just show her the money!

As I said last July, "[w]hy will the Rogue Diva quit her office early? The media was unfair. People were filing ethics complaints against her. Bloggers (and late night comedians) were saying mean things about her. She didn't want to be a lame duck. The state would be better off without her. Those are some of the reasons she gave.

She will build her network for 2012 by campaigning and fund raising for other candidates.

But I think the primary reason she quit is to cash in with a book and some speeches, maybe a little paid commentary on not-the-FoxNews, before she loses the 2012 Republi-con primary."

And cashin in she is. Read ABC News, Sarah Palin Has Earned an Estimated $12 Million Since July.

Cha-Ching, Baby, Cha-Ching! Those Republi-cons are all about the money!

Now if they could only balance a budget.

Morning Joe for President?

UPDATE IV:  Another trial balloon:  "The MSNBC host has Beltway buzz for his flirtation with the 2016 presidential race. Republican primary voters may be a different story."

Read The Atlantic, Joe Scarborough for President? Sure, Why Not?

UPDATE III:  “The hot buzz from No Labels circles is the TV host is ‘mulling’ a bid. He can't win, but it'd be funny to watch.”

Read Salon, Run, Joe, run! Why a Scarborough presidential run would be doomed and amazing.   

UPDATE II:  Another divorce for Morning Joe.  

Read the Washington Post, TMZ, Quiet Divorce ... After 12-Year Marriage. 

One divorce might have been explainable, but now after two there will never be a President Joe.  But don't shed too many tears, his current gig pays $99,038/week.

UPDATE: The Draft Morning Joe movement appears to have started back in June with The Daily Beast, Joe Scarborough Can Save the GOP.

And the talk continues on Politico, David Petraeus, Joe Scarborough eyed for '12.

Sometimes a political hack, Scarborough can be independent, calling them like he see them, regardless of party politics.

Will it be Scarborough v. Obama in 2012? One "fresh, aggressive voice for Democrats and a watchdog of the Republican Party" New Yorker thinks it would be an interesting race.

Read The Ostroy Report, President Scarborough? "Morning Joe" Would Be a Viable Threat To Obama in 2012.

How about Scarborough/Palin or Palin/Scarborough?

BTW, what do Joe and Sarah have in common? (Hint, think Mel Marinez.)


P.S.

I predict that Morning Joe doesn't run because he's got a good gig and he doesn't want to explain why he resigned from Congress. Too bad because lord knows that the Republi-con party needs some help and he might be just the person to reform a party awash in grievance, self-pity, resentment, and anger.

All Joe has to say to resurrect his political career is that he didn't like the person that he became in Washington D.C., but that he has matured and is ready to try again.

The Civil War Continues: Republi-CON Establishment v. Republi-CON Rage

UPDATE IX:  "In the three years they've been in power, Tea Partiers have gone through the stages of grief—from denial to acceptance of how Washington works."

Read The Atlantic, Why Republicans Are Surrendering on the Debt Ceiling. 

Read also, The New Republic, Why the Tea Party Is Folding on the Debt Limit, which noted that "[p]ior to the shutdown, it wasn’t clear whether Bachmann et al were irrational (that is, so zealously attached to their ideological goals that they ignored conventional political incentives, like widespread public disapproval), or delusional (meaning they were perfectly capable of responding to political incentives in theory; they just assumed the masses supported them).

The shutdown demonstrated that the Tea Partiers are, for the most part, delusional rather than irrational: They can be forced to reconsider a particular tactic if you persuade them it’s politically catastrophic. It just requires an epic level of public anger to break through their epistemically-stunted consciousness. The Tea Partiers had basically believed that the country backed their monomaniacal fixation on repealing Obamacare, and their jihadi plan for getting it done. The shutdown, or at least the endless shutdown-inspired hand-wringing on Fox News, managed to disabuse even them of this belief."

UPDATE VIII:  Does the Republi-con Party now regret its many Tea Party Frankensteins?

"Stockman, the would-be senator, must have thought he had gamed the system just right when he entered the primary battle against Cornyn on the last possible day. He seems to have calculated that his extreme views would automatically make him a contender, but it hasn’t turned out that way."

Read the Washington Post, Stockman steps forward as Republicans step back.

Read also about how Boehner has "reached his limit. In a meeting with his House colleagues to discuss Wednesday’s budget agreement, the House speaker finally let loose on the conservative groups that have been roiling Republican politics.  Read Slate, Boehner Lowers the Boom. 

 

UPDATE VII:  And the Republi-con civil war continues

"Texas Senator John Cornyn's challenge from Steve Stockman, a militia-loving birther congressman, could be the ultimate expression of Tea Party nihilism."

Read The Atlantic, The Republican Primary to End All Republican Primaries or Salon, Texas’ insane Tea Party caper: Nutjob challenges extreme conservative!

Go Ted and the Tea Party, Go!

UPDATE VI:  "With a budget conference forming and a new debt-ceiling hike coming early in 2014, there's more strife to come. Here is who to watch."

Read The Atlantic, Sanity Caucus vs. Kamikaze Caucus: A Cheat Sheet for the GOP Civil War.

UPDATE V:  "Shutdown polling looks apocalyptic for the Republican Party, but at the Values Voters Summit, activists weren't ready to back down."

The Atlantic, Inside the Conservative Bubble, It Looks Like Ted Cruz Is Winning Big. 

UPDATE IV:  "Skeptics warned from the start that it was a suicide mission for Republicans to shut down the federal government in a long-shot attempt to defund Obamacare. Now that such dire predictions have come to pass, the lawmakers who engineered the shutdown are getting the conflagration — and the martyrdom — they sought.

Call it the Cruzifiction of the GOP.

At least so far, the standoff has been a political bloodbath for Republicans. And maybe that’s exactly what was needed to right the political system: The effort to gut Obamacare had to crash like this so that Republican leaders and lawmakers would find the courage to stand up to tea party toughs, and so that business leaders would decide to stop funding a small band of right-wing activists whose interests are antithetical to their own.

A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found that Americans, by 53 percent to 31 percent, blame the Republican Party for the shutdown more than they do President Obama — worse even than Republicans fared during the 1995-96 shutdown that also proved ruinous to their party.

The poll, confirming earlier results, found the Republican Party and the tea party had both reached all-time lows. Americans now favor a Democratic Congress to a Republican Congress by eight percentage points. And the percentage of Americans who think Obamacare is a good idea is up seven points from last month. Seventy percent say Republicans are putting politics ahead of the good of the country.

The small-but-vocal tea party had been seeking just such a confrontation since the 2010 election, and they opposed compromises by Republican leaders that postponed the showdown until now. Conservative groups that advocated for a standoff spoke openly about their motives. At a breakfast with reporters Wednesday, Michael Needham, chief executive of the conservative group Heritage Action, freely admitted that he was 'pretty optimistic' that we will soon see a crackup of the old Republican order.

Read the Washington Post, Cruzifiction of the GOP. 

UPDATE III:  "In trying to understand the Republican Party’s internal battles, it helps to think of Michael and Sonny.

Corleone, that is.

On one side we have Sonny, the hotheaded, impulsive, shoot-now-take-names-later son of Don Corleone. On Capitol Hill, he personifies the tea party followers who would rather die on principle than live to win a later day.

On the other side, we have Michael, the cooler-headed son and intellectual strategist. On the Hill, Michael represents the so-called establishment legislators who understand the way forward but thus far have been reluctant to pull the trigger."

Read the Washington Post, The GOP divide: A battle of Corleones.

UPDATE II:  "We’re used to brinkmanship in Washington resulting from conflict between Democrats and Republicans. But this shutdown is different. It’s a fight between Republicans and Republicans -- or, more specifically, Republicans and the Tea Party. . .

Back in 2011, the Republican establishment was sufficiently in sync with the tea party to harness their recklessness against the Obama administration. Boehner argued that his new members were just wild enough to crash through the debt ceiling and harm the economy, which gave him crucial leverage in his negotiations with the White House.

But then Mitt Romney lost the 2012 election, and the Republican establishment began to alter its approach. The tea party, however, didn’t. Now Boehner and other mainstream Republicans dealing with tea party legislators face the same problem Democrats faced in 2011: It’s hard to negotiate with people who don’t care about, or even really believe in, the consequences of burning the place down. . .

The problem for Boehner and the rest of the Republican establishment is that the tea party ethos is now being turned against them. After all, mainstream conservatives will compromise with 'evil' (or, if you prefer, 'Democrats'). For tea partiers, that makes them suspect, too. In fact, one way tea party Republicans can prove they haven’t sold out to Washington’s ways is by opposing any compromise Boehner proposes."

Read the Washington Post, The shutdown is a Republican civil war.

BTW, the previous update was 07/29/2011, during earlier budget negotiations.  And as I said before, this civil war has been brewing since November 2008.

UPDATE: The title says it all.

Read the Washington Post, Debt ceiling debate shows GOP at war with itself.

The Republi-con civil war continues. "The Republican Party is undergoing a big change in how it chooses its leaders."

Read The New York Times, For G.O.P., End of the Preordained Candidate.

Republi-CON Political Opportunism and Hypocrisy

UPDATE IX:  The House Republi-cons met with Treasury inspector general J. Russell George, also a Republi-con, limited "the scope of his IRS review" to slant the finding of his investigation and "hide the fact that investigators found 'no indication that pulling these selected applications was politically motivated' or that progressive groups were also targeted.'"

Read the Washington Post, Two Democrats call for investigation of IRS watchdog who led targeting probe.

UPDATE VIII:  "Principal Deputy Commissioner Danny Werfel on Monday revealed that the IRS had used other "inappropriate" lists – and, according to documents released by (surprise!) congressional Democrats, the buzzwords included 'progressive,' 'Occupy' and 'Israel.' Part of the committee to defeat or impeach President Obama? Not so much, these sorts of groups. . .

This was not the IRS singling people out for audits or prosecution. This was a case of the agency tasked with determining tax status and compliance actually forcing groups to prove they are worthy of tax-free status as a 'social welfare' group."

Read U.S. News & World Report, The IRS-Tea Party Scandal Fizzles.

For more on the Republi-con problem with reality, re-read these prior posts:

More Partisan Zealotry Through Highly Selective Editing of Reality, and

Republi-CON Created Reality.

UPDATE VII:  From Ben Bernanke’s Baccalaureate Address at Princeton:

"[M]ost of our politicians and policymakers are trying to do the right thing, according to their own views and consciences, most of the time. If you think that the bad or indifferent results that too often come out of Washington are due to base motives and bad intentions, you are giving politicians and policymakers way too much credit for being effective. Honest error in the face of complex and possibly intractable problems is a far more important source of bad results than are bad motives."

UPDATE VI:  "When CVFC, a conservative veterans’ group in California, applied for tax-exempt status with the Internal Revenue Service, its biggest expenditure that year was several thousand dollars in radio ads backing a Republican candidate for Congress.

The Wetumpka Tea Party, from Alabama, sponsored training for a get-out-the-vote initiative dedicated to the “defeat of President Barack Obama” while the I.R.S. was weighing its application.

And the head of the Ohio Liberty Coalition, whose application languished with the I.R.S. for more than two years, sent out e-mails to members about Mitt Romney campaign events and organized members to distribute Mr. Romney’s presidential campaign literature.

Representatives of these organizations have cried foul in recent weeks about their treatment by the I.R.S., saying they were among dozens of conservative groups unfairly targeted by the agency, harassed with inappropriate questionnaires and put off for months or years as the agency delayed decisions on their applications.

But a close examination of these groups and others reveals an array of election activities that tax experts and former I.R.S. officials said would provide a legitimate basis for flagging them for closer review.

“Money is not the only thing that matters,” said Donald B. Tobin, a former lawyer with the Justice Department’s tax division who is a law professor at Ohio State University. “While some of the I.R.S. questions may have been overbroad, you can look at some of these groups and understand why these questions were being asked.”

The stakes are high for both the I.R.S. and lawmakers in Congress, whose election fortunes next year will hinge in no small part on a flood of political spending by such advocacy groups. They are often favored by strategists and donors not for the tax benefits — they typically do not have significant income subject to tax — but because they do not have to reveal their donors, allowing them to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into elections without disclosing where the money came from"

Read The New York Times, Groups Targeted by I.R.S. Tested Rules on Politics.

UPDATE V:  Obama is damned if he doesn't, and damned if he does.

"Before the outcry over the Obama administration’s leak investigations, Republicans complained that the administration wasn’t pursuing national security leaks vigorously enough. Last June, Republican Sens. John McCain, Saxby Chambliss, John Cornyn and Roger Wicker demanded the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate leaks because, they said, Attorney General Eric Holder wasn’t aggressive enough. “Any other administration, in my memory, Democrat or Republican, would have been absolutely apoplectic looking for the culprits, trying to find out who were the people that actually committed these criminal leaks,” Wicker said.

Republicans have been consistent on this point. During the George W. Bush administration, congressional Democrats (and a handful of Republicans) proposed shield laws to protect journalists from leak investigations. The Bush administration fought back. Attorney General Michael Mukasey and Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell wrote that such proposals were “both unwise and unnecessary.” The Bush Justice Department even produced a Web site (now defunct) to campaign against a shield. (A shield law died in the Senate, another victim of a Republican-led filibuster.)"

Read the Washington Post, Scandals usually lead to reform. Maybe not this time.

UPDATE IV:  Republi-con 'contortions are reaching comic proportions.' 

They can't decide "whether the scandals show Obama as a power-mad Nixonian figure manipulating the levers of overbearing, intrusive government to realize sinister ends, or a weak bystander unable to control a government run amok."

Read the Washington Post,  Republicans struggle to connect IRS scandal to Obama. 

UPDATE III:  Not only did Republi-cons vote twice in the last two years to cut the State Department's embassy security budget, but they have also failed to disclose that the Ambassador "twice turned down offers of security assistance made by the senior U.S. military official in the region in response to concerns that [he] had raised in a still secret memorandum . . .

[Why the Ambassador] would turn down the offers remains unclear. The deteriorating security situation in Benghazi had been the subject of a meeting that embassy officials held Aug. 15, where they concluded they could not defend the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi. The next day, the embassy drafted a cable outlining the dire circumstances and saying it would spell out what it needed in a separate cable."

The Republi-cons have been hiding that cable because it contradicts their 'con-scandal'. 

Read McClatchy, Ambassador Stevens twice said no to military offers of more security, U.S. officials say. 

UPDATE II:  "[S]tupid laws can create administrative chaos. The more I read about the scandal of the IRS and its scrutiny of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, the more convinced I am that the blame for this mess -- just like the blame for my having to put down my tripod -- lies almost entirely with Congress.

Plainly, if IRS officials were systematically discriminating against conservative groups with the aim of harassing or suppressing them, that’s outrageous, not to mention criminal. If this was going on at the direction or with the knowledge of the White House, then the scandal rises, of course, to Watergate proportions. But there’s no evidence of any such system or conspiracy, and the idea seems improbable. What we do have, though, are tax laws so complex, and so muddled with the regulation of political spending, that straightforward enforcement is almost impossible."

Read Bloomberg, Sympathy for the IRS.  

UPDATE:  "What’s the real lesson of Benghazi? It’s that the party-aligned press works so well for Republicans that they’ve become too lazy to bother explaining their ideas, or doing the hard work of actual oversight. . .

Part of what’s happening is, as Jamelle Bouie pointed out today, the strong demand within the conservative marketplace for scandal. But there’s more than that; it’s not just a demand for scandal, but how easily the customers accept anything presented to them. The result — and Alex Pareene is very good on this today — is that they don’t bother putting together a 'coherent or convincing narrative.'"

Read the Washington Post, The real lesson of Benghazi.

Read also, The American Prospect, Demand-Side Scandals, which explains "[w]hy Republicans continue to manufacture controversies:

"Right-wing media has stoked huge demand for scandal among conservative consumers, but there isn’t a supply. And so, Republicans have had to create them, latching onto mistakes and ambiguities, and magnifying them into epic examples of administration misconduct."

And remember:  "there was a lot of concern about the thing that nobody [can] talk about, which was the CIA's role in Benghazi. Of the 30 Americans who were evacuated after the attack, approximately only seven of them worked for the State Department. The rest of them were working for the CIA."

Also, the Republi-cons, "who voted to cut funding for State Department security should understand that their philosophy — small government is always better — has consequences. Bureaucrats have to make judgment calls. Sometimes they will be wrong."

"Which makes more sense to you, that the State Department ignored requests for more security because the Obama campaign was running on the message that the administration had crippled al-Qaida, and additional security at diplomatic posts in unstable areas would contradict the message? Or that the requests were denied because a culture of excessive thriftiness has taken hold in Washington since the 2010 Republican wave election and the subsequent endless debt showdowns?"

Talk about hypocrisy.

Talk about hypocrisy.

First, Republi-cons "voted [twice in the last two years] to cut the State Department's embassy security budget."  Now they accuse Obama of ignoring requests for more security before the deadly attack. Read the Christian Science Monitor, Libya attack: Congressmen casting blame voted to cut diplomatic security budget. 



Then during 'special' hearings scheduled before the elections to score some political points, the same Republi-cons disclosed that the Benghazi consulate was part of an undercover CIA operation. 

Read the Washington Post, Letting us in on a secret. 

Start Balancing the Budget, Vote Obama

UPDATE III:  "If we are going to have radical deficit reduction, the fiscal cliff may be the fairest, least harmful way it can be achieved. Expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts, for example, would restore rates on the top 2 percent of earners to the levels they paid during the 1990s boom. Any likely deal would raise those rates less, and require either other tax increases or spending cuts to offset the revenue loss. (You can guess who’ll be hit hardest by those.)

Likewise, non-defense discretionary funding, which supports everything from national parks to Head Start — and which was already slashed in the 2011 debt-limit deal — would almost certainly face deeper cuts than those required in the sequester. . .

[I]f the New Year’s Day changes remain in full force — the result would be sacrifice shared broadly among rich, middle-class and poor, and between domestic and military programs. Any bargain proposed to avoid the fiscal cliff should be judged against that standard."

Read The New York Times, Bring on the Fiscal Cliff.   

UPDATE II: "Grover Norquist, who’s led the anti-tax movement on the right, similarly hailed the election as a victory and affirmation of Paul Ryan’s approach toward taxes and the budget."

Read the Washington Post, How Republicans are trying to look on the bright side today. 

Fiscal cliff here we come!

UPDATE:  "If all you wanted to do was to reduce the deficit as quickly as possible, here’s one very simple way to get it done: Go off the fiscal cliff.

Do so would result in about $720 billion in total austerity in 2013, and it would bring down the deficit that year in some of major ways, including $180 billion from income tax hikes, $120 billion in revenue from the payroll tax, $110 billion from the sequester’s automatic spending cuts, and $160 billion from expiring tax breaks and other programs, according to Bank of America’s estimates."

Read the Washington Post, The fiscal cliff would cut the deficit by $720 billion in 2013, but even deficit hawks hate it. 

"If the Obama administration were to really lay out their plans, they would go something like this. In November, President Obama will reiterate, clearly and firmly, that he will veto any attempts to extend the high-income tax cuts or lift the big, dumb spending cuts without finding equivalent savings elsewhere. In fact, as my colleague Lori Montgomery reports, they’re already reiterating that promise.

That veto threat is the center of the Obama administration’s second-term strategizing. The Obama administration believes – and, just as importantly, they believe Republicans believe — that they’ve got the leverage here. The Republican position on taxes is less popular than the Democratic position. The outcome of gridlock is much higher taxes, which is more anathema to Republicans and arguably cheering to Democrats. The big, dumb spending cuts, despite being poorly timed and inanely constructed, are very progressive in their effect, falling heavily on military spending while exempting Medicaid, Social Security, and Medicare beneficiaries.

I’ve called this the GOP’s dual-trigger nightmare. It’s bad for the economy, but it also effectively ends our deficits with a mix of tax increases and spending cuts more progressive than anything any Democrat has dared propose. Republicans absolutely can’t let it happen. But the only way they can stop it from happening is to make a deal."

Read the Washington Post, Obama’s plan: Push Republicans off the fiscal cliff, which includes this comparison of various proposals to start balancing the budget:

You might remember, almost a year ago I discussed 'the GOP's dual trigger nightmare' and asked: Did Obama Con the Republi-CONs?

Romney Sings Concession!!!

A parody of "Romney’s concession speech in a cheery musical number currently making the Youtube rounds. The Gregory Brothers song, paired with real footage from Romney’s concession, pokes fun at the candidate’s wealth with lines like "I’m done pretending to have fun with the plebeians,' and 'besides, who on earth could possibly get by on $400,000 a year?'":



It's a great country! Where else would something like this be done and published freely and openly so soon after such a closely contested election.

Who Will Win?, the Final Stretch

UPDATE XIX:  "After disappointing results in Tuesday’s election, Mr. Priebus said that it was time for Republicans to become "'more tolerant of those with a math-and-science lifestyle.'"

Read The New Yorker, Republicans Consider Welcoming People Who Believe in Math and Science.

UPDATE XVIII:  And what organization had the most accurate polling?  Read Talking Points Memo, Public Policy Polling Deemed Most Accurate National Pollster In 2012, which notes that 'lamestream media' easily beat Hedgehog News.

As I said before, watch Hedgehog News, be dumber than the ill-informed

Channel surfing, I briefly watched Hedgehog last night and it was a hoot as the hosts realized reality trumped partisan delusion. Trump pun intended.

Hedgehog News brings to mind what George Orwell wrote in a famous essay, "In Front of Your Nose": "[W]e are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield."  In this case, that battlefield was the 2012 election.

Speaking of Trump delusions, did ya hear about the Trump twitter meltdown, he even called for a 'revolution'!  You might remember that he's a birther and was once the next Republi-con celebrity candidate. 

UPDATE XVII:  Numbers (and facts) have such a liberal bias. 

Read the Washington Post, Guess what? The polls (and Nate Silver) were right., Forbes, Three Lessons From The Nate Silver Controversy, Bloomberg, Nate Silver-Led Statistics Men Crush Pundits in Election. , and The Atlantic, How Conservative Media Lost to the MSM and Failed the Rank and File, which notes that "Nate Silver was right. His ideological antagonists were wrong. And that's just the beginning of the right's self-created information disadvantage."

UPDATE XVI:  Try The New York Times, 512 Paths to the White House, which allows you to "[s]elect a winner in the most competitive states . . . to see all the paths to victory available for either candidate."  The interactive graph show that Obama has 431 paths to victory, Romney has 76, and 5 result in a tie, and each begins with who wins Florida.

UPDATE XV:  Here are several final forecasts for the Electoral College and, if any, the national two-party popular vote (Obama - Romney):

Jay DeSart and Tom Holbroo, Utah Valley University:  303 - 235 and 51.37 - 48.63%

Drew Linzer, Political Science, Emory University:  326 - 212

Sam Wang, Princeton Election Consortium: 312 to 226

Nate Silver, FiveThirtyEight at The New York Times:  313 - 225 and 50.8 - 48.3%

Politico.com:  303 - 235.

Real Clear Politics:  303 - 235 and 48.8 - 48.1.

According to Robert Erikson, a prominent forecasting specialist at Columbia, and his colleague Karl Sigman, the polls would have to be wrong by four points for Romney to win.  The article notes that a win by Romeny would be unheard of, '"[u]nheard of' doesn’t mean 'impossible,' of course, but it does suggest that Romney has tough odds to overcome Tuesday."

For other forecasts and predictions, read the Washington Post, Pundit accountability: The official 2012 election prediction thread.

UPDATE XIV:  "The polls, taken together, are typically pretty accurate. Systemic problems, while possible, aren’t likely. There are a lot of pollsters producing a lot of polls and each and every one of them has every incentive to try and get it right. When they converge, it’s typically with good reason. And right now, they have converged. The 3-4 percentage point error necessary for Romney to be the real favorite in this race is extremely unlikely.

Critics of the polls, meanwhile, tend to be self-serving. You don’t hear Romney supporters arguing that the cell phone users really are undersampled, and their candidate’s position is even more dire than it seems. Similarly, no prominent Obama supporters have argued that the polls are assuming an electorate that looks too much like 2008, and as such, are undercounting Romney’s likely support. Frankly, I’d be much more likely to take a critique of the polls seriously if it cut against the critic’s self-interest. But somehow, it never does.

Self-serving critiques can be correct, of course, but because they’re motivated by what the critic wishes to see happen, or what the flack needs the media to think is happening, they deserve to be treated with suspicion. And because the pollsters themselves have clear incentives, more expertise, and a deeper understanding of the data, I tend to give them the benefit of the doubt.

So here’s my prediction for tomorrow: The polls will prove to be right. President Obama will win with 290 electoral votes. I’m not extremely confident in the precision of that estimate: Some swing states are close enough that it’s entirely possible for a good ground game to tip, say, Florida into Obama’s column, or Colorado into Romney’s. Virginia is basically tied, and I’m giving it to Romney based on the assumption that challenger wins in a tie, but it could easily go the other way. So if Obama ends up winning with 303, I won’t be surprised."

Read the Washington Post, Wonkblog, The polls will be right and Obama will win with 290 electoral votes.

UPDATE XIII:  If Obamney is so confident that he's going to win, why, in the final week of the campaign, do his campaign ads have an air of desperation?  Read The New Republic, Chrysler, GM to Romney: Stop Lying and the Washington Post, Mitt Romney’s Kamikaze strategy and Romney video blames Obama for death of barbecue joint.

Also read the comments on the last article.  It seems Romney didn't do his due diligence, the restaurant had crappy food, bad locations, and health violations, and, to quote one former customer, was "a dirty dump".  Really, does Obamney really think the president of the United States is responsible for failed restaurants, and that he's our great savior?

UPDATE XII:  With a week until the election, the chart below shows "'the estimated probabilities of an Obama victory and current Electoral College forecasts (where available) from the political scientists Jay DeSart and Tom Holbrook, Stanford’s Simon Jackman, Emory’s Drew Linzer, Silver, Princeton’s Sam Wang, the British sports book Betfair, and the Intrade futures market (here and here).'"

Read the Washington Post, Nate Silver and the forecasting consensus, in one chart, which quotes Columbia Journalism Review, Pundits versus probabilities, The misguided backlash against Nate Silver, and includes this chart:

We''l know next week whether these forecasts are correct, and whether the  Republi-cons  are just trying to create their own reality again.

UPDATE XI:  "[O]n June 7, the closest states were Colorado, Ohio and Virginia, each of which slightly favored Mr. Obama. In Florida and North Carolina, meanwhile, we had Mitt Romney listed as a modest favorite.

Pretty much the same could be said about the race today. In fact, our projected leader in all 50 states is the same as it was at our launch of the forecast in June."

Read The New York Times, Oct. 28: In Swing States, a Predictable Election?

UPDATE X:  "A straightforward read of the polls suggests we’re likely to see Mitt Romney win the popular vote and Barack Obama win the electoral college — and, thus, the presidency. But most pollsters don’t think that will happen."

Read the Washington Post, Will Romney win the popular vote but lose the presidency?

UPDATE IX:  As of October 25, just 12 days before the election, there is not "any continuously updated model that shows Romney ahead. Nate SIlver’s model gives Obama a 71 percent chance of winning. Sam Wang’s meta-analysis predicts 293 electoral votes for Obama. Drew Linzer’s Votamatic predicts 332 electoral votes for Obama."

Read the Washington Post, Where the 2012 presidential election is right now, which in addition to the election forecast models, summaries the national and state polls, the campaign ground games, enthusiasm, early voting, and the momentum narrative.

For earlier updates (July-October), see Who Will Win?

Who Won the The 2012 Presidential Candidate Wife Cookie Contest?

UPDATE II:  "Polls — who needs them? You want election-picking accuracy? Try World Series winners, school-kid polls, 7-Eleven coffee cups and more."

Read the Washington Post, Who will win the election? A few un­or­tho­dox indicators., which including the Chia hair growth forecast, the Redskins rule, and the Halloween mask predictor, as well as the cookie test below.

UPDATE:  And with "just 287 votes separated the two women, [the] smallest margin ever, the winner is . . .  Read Politico, Michelle Obama wins cookie contest.  

Was it the white and dark chocolate cookie made with "two sticks of butter and a stick of Crisco" or the "the 'healthier' non-Crisco, non-flour, heavy-on-the-oats M&M cookie?"

And which cookie was from which wife?

And did you know that "all winners since 1992 have ended up living at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave—except Cindy McCain, whose borrowed recipe for oatmeal-butterscotch cookies beat Michelle’s lemon zest shortbread in 2008."

Read Time, Obama Wins Crucial Cookie-Related Precursor to Re-Election.

God Must Love Obama and Want Him Relected

UPDATE:  More proof that God must love Obama and sent a hurricane to rescue his campaign: "In a surprise announcement, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said Thursday that Hurricane Sandy had reshaped his thinking about the presidential campaign and that as a result he was endorsing President Obama."

Read The New York Times, Bloomberg Backs Obama, Citing Climate Change. 

Unemployment is closely related to presidential approval ratings and G.D.P. growth, which, as noted before, are two of the three factors important to the outcome of the election.

And "[t]he unusually warm winter in the United States gave payroll employment numbers a big boost this year. How big? Macroeconomic Advisers estimates that the warm weather, with below-average precipitation, boosted payroll employment in February by 72,000." (Read the Washington Post, How an unusually warm winter boosted the economy.)

Ergo, God must love Obama.

I am sure Pastor Poppins of Pensacola would agree.

Republi-CON Team Rape

Colbert "enlightens his fellow conservatives on rape's approval rating" because "[c]ome on, they're kind of asking for it."  Watch the Colbert Report, Richard Mourdock's Rape Comment:

The Colbert Report
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Who Will Win?

UPDATE VIII:  "In recent days, the vibe emanating from Mitt Romney’s campaign has grown downright giddy. Despite a lack of any evident positive momentum over the last week — indeed, in the face of a slight decline from its post-Denver high — the Romney camp is suddenly bursting with talk that it will not only win but win handily. (“We’re going to win,” said one of the former Massachusetts governor’s closest advisers. “Seriously, 305 electoral votes.”)

This is a bluff. Romney is carefully attempting to project an atmosphere of momentum, in the hopes of winning positive media coverage and, thus, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy."  Read New York Magazine, Romney Says He’s Winning — It’s a Bluff. 

Also, read The Atlantic, Despite a Strong Debate Campaign, Romney's Path to 270 Remains Steep,  which notes "[n]ational polls show a tight race, but the campaign has stabilized and the map still favors Obama. . .

If Obama carries Ohio and Wisconsin, where he is ahead in most polling, he gets the 270 with one electoral vote to spare, so Romney could sweep Colorado, Florida, Iowa, and New Hampshire and still come up short. No matter how you cut it, Ohio is the pivotal state, and it isn't just the history of having gone with every winner from 1964 on and with no Republican ever capturing the White House without it.

To be sure, this race is so close that it clearly can go either way, but the Obama electoral path looks less steep than the one Romney must traverse, and the final debate seems unlikely to have altered that fact."

UPDATE VII:  If forecasts are correct there are now only seven of an original nine battleground states left to be decided: "Ohio, Iowa, Colorado, Virginia, New Hampshire, Florida and Wisconsin."  Read Politico, 2012: The battle for 7 states. 

From below you'll note that the swing state most likely to flip to Romney was North Carolina, and it is expected to.  However, it appears that Nevada will not. And according to that earlier estimate, if Romney can't win Ohio, Wisconsin, or New Hampshire he won't get at least 270 electoral votes.

UPDATE VI:  For up-to-the-date polling on the election and who is favored to win, see Real Clear Politics, General Election: Romney vs. Obama, which includes links to Electoral College predictions.

UPDATE V:  "Four stories are at the heart of any campaign. If you understand them, you know who controls the message — and with it, perhaps the election. These stories make up what campaign strategists call the 'message grid,' which has four quadrants. The first two comprise the positive stories the candidates are telling about themselves; the other two feature the negative stories each candidate is telling about the other.

In some elections, one quadrant of the grid dominates the conversation — for example, when the economy or a candidate is particularly strong or weak. Campaigns jostle for position on the grid, trying to emphasize the stories they prefer and to alter elements of the stories their opponents are effectively telling. In 2008, the stars were aligned for a new and exciting candidate to tell a story about hope and change after eight years of fear and loathing, skillfully turning his 'different-ness' into an asset.

But 2012 is not 2008. This year, the stories President Obama and Mitt Romney can tell about themselves are just not that compelling. In contrast, the stories they have to tell about each other are far more powerful."

Read the Washington Post, The candidates’ message: I might be so-so, but the other guy is terrible.

UPDATE IV:  Read the Washington Post, Forecasting the election: Most models say Obama will win. But not all.

UPDATE III:  "[T]he campaigns themselves don’t much care about national polls. They’re focused on 8-12 battleground states. That’s pretty much all they care about. And they have a lot of information on what’s going on in those states. . .

[The] list the swing states from most likely to flip to Romney to least likely to flip to Romney:

    1. North Carolina
    2. Iowa
    3. Florida
    4. Colorado
    5. Virginia
    6. Nevada
    7. Ohio
    8. Wisconsin
    9. New Hampshire

Their conclusion:

'What’s striking about this list is if you give Romney the Top 4 (NC, IA, FL, and CO) that only gets him to 250 electoral votes. And if you give him the next two on the list (VA and NV), he’s still one short of 270 (bringing us to that 269-269 tie). That means he has to put one of Ohio, Wisconsin, or New Hampshire into the mix to get past 270. Bottom line: Romney’s map to 270 is more than doable, but it’s also a high-wire act.'

Read the Washington Post, Romney’s tough road to 270.  

UPDATE II: National polls show Obama leading Obamney by an average of 1.3%.  But a more complicated analysis estimates Obama's lead at about 3.5%.  Why?

Because, the "United States of America is a constitutional republic made up of 50 states and the District of Columbia."

Read The New York Times, State and National Polls Tell Different Tales About State of Campaign.

UPDATE: The latest prediction, from the Washington Post:

"The first look at the 2012 FiveThirtyEight presidential forecast has Barack Obama as a very slight favorite to win re-election. But his advantage equates to only a two-point lead in the national popular vote, and the edge could easily swing to Mitt Romney on the basis of further bad economic news.

Mr. Obama remains slightly ahead of Mr. Romney in most national polls, and he has had a somewhat clearer advantage in polling conducted at the state level. Mr. Obama would be about 80 percent likely to win an election held today, according to the model.

However, the outlook for the Nov. 6 election is much less certain, with Mr. Obama having winning odds of just over 60 percent. The forecast currently calls for Mr. Obama to win roughly 290 electoral votes, but outcomes ranging everywhere from about 160 to 390 electoral votes are plausible, given the long lead time until the election and the amount of news that could occur between now and then. Both polls and economic indicators are a pretty rough guide five months before an election."

For an in-depth analysis of the 2012 general election, read The New York Times, Election Forecast: Obama Begins With Tenuous Advantage.

And for a "killer calculus of the president’s re-election chances," read these prior posts, Obama in 2012 and Obama in 2012?, Another Forecast Model.

The Economist Ideal Candidate

"Recently, the smart folks over at NPR’s Planet Money decided, just for kicks, to ask five economists from across the political spectrum to design their dream candidate for president. Essentially, they wanted to know, what are the policies that virtually all economists will endorse, at least in principle?

Here’s the resulting platform:

    * Get rid of the tax deduction for mortgage interest on homes, raising about $90 billion.

    * Get rid of the tax benefit for employer health care, raising $184.5 billion.

    * Eliminate the corporate income tax. Entirely.

    * Reform the entire tax code so that we tax consumption (in a progressive way) rather than income, in order to boost growth.

    * Put a tax on carbon emissions.

    * Legalize marijuana–just tax it and regulate it."


Read the Washington Post, Economists design their dream candidate. But could he ever get elected?

Who is the Real Obamney?

UPDATE IV: "After an evening of light-hearted jabs, President Barack Obama returned to his cutting criticism of rival Mitt Romney Friday, accusing the GOP nominee of forgetting the hard right positions he took during the GOP primary in order to seem more moderate.

Obama, speaking at a rally in the Northern Virginia suburb of Fairfax, told the crowd his opponent was suffering "Romnesia" after seeming to change his position on contraception, coal, equal pay, and taxes."

Read CNN, Obama diagnoses 'Romnesia'. 

UPDATE III:  "Scrubbing one’s brain clean of previous positions has been Mitt Romney’s stock in trade. In fact, his foreign-policy speech Monday to the Virginia Military Institute was one long gargle-and-rinse of the candidate’s previous positions.

Last year, Romney called the Obama administration’s intervention in Libya 'mission creep and mission muddle.' On Monday, he accused Obama of declining to use 'America’s greatest power to shape history' and of eschewing 'our best examples of world leadership' in that same corner of the world.

Last year, Romney said American troops 'shouldn’t go off and try to fight a war of independence for another nation. Only the Afghanis can win Afghanistan’s independence from the Taliban.' On Monday, he spoke of that same conflict as a matter of the utmost national importance, saying the route to 'attacks here at home is a politically timed retreat that abandons the Afghan people to the same extremists who ravaged their country and used it to launch the attacks of 9/11.'

Last year, Romney reversed his earlier support for the Iraq war, saying, 'If we knew at the time of our entry into Iraq that there were no weapons of mass destruction . . . obviously we would not have gone in.' On Monday, he was back to his original view, accusing the Obama administration of an 'abrupt withdrawal' from Iraq and portraying the situation there as part of 'a struggle between liberty and tyranny, justice and oppression, hope and despair.'

Just a few months ago, Romney said 'there’s just no way' to achieve peace between the Israelis and Palestinians because Palestinians are 'not wanting to see peace.' He said it was necessary to 'recognize this is going to remain an unsolved problem.' On Monday, he said he would 'recommit America to the goal of a democratic, prosperous Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security' with Israel.

Rub-a-dub-dub! Four positions got scrubbed."

Read the Washington Post, A scrubbing on foreign policy.

Read also, Slate, Mitt Romney’s Most Dishonest Speech. 

UPDATE II:  "Romney isn’t an ideological moderate. He’s a pragmatic executive. When he needs to govern from the center, he does. When he needs to lurch to the right, off he goes. So if you want to know how he’ll govern, don’t listen to what he says. Look at who he has reason to fear."  Read the Washington Post, Moderate Mitt isn’t so moderate.  

UPDATE:  Old Obamney couldn't win, so meet new Obamney, who has a history "of shifts, equivocations, and reversals, coupled with ongoing revisions of his image and his autobiography". Read New York Magazine, Can Obama Discredit the New Romney.  

Is he the "severe conservative" he claimed to be in the primary, or the 'spirited' moderate who threw the tea party under the bus by denying policies he promised before the debate?

Read the Washington Post, Romney’s personality shift; Slate, In Domestic Debate, Mitt Romney Shakes The Etch-a-Sketch; The New York Times, Entering Stage Right, Romney Moved to Center and Moderate Mitt Returns!; New York Magazine, The Return of Massachusetts Mitt. 

During the debate I was reminded of what The Great Lecherer, aka Newtenstein, said of Obamney:  "Lincoln once said if a man won't agree that two plus two equals four then you'll never win the argument because facts don't matter, Romney's the first candidate I've seen who fits the Lincoln description."

Obamney has proven he is just another Republi-CON.

The Obamney Snow Job

The Obamney campaign was asked "to substantiate their claim that his policies will create 12 million jobs during his first term. The results were, as the kids say, LOL-worthy.

One study said a Romney-like tax plan could create 7 million jobs. The only problem? That was over 10 years, not four years. Worse, the study assumed that a Romney-like tax plan would be completely paid for and would happen in an economy at full employment. Neither is likely.

The next study was a Citigroup Global Markets effort that projected 3 million energy-related jobs. The only problems? It was over eight years, not four. Oh, and it wasn’t evaluating any of Romney’s policies at all. It was actually looking at current trends and policies — which is to say, Obama’s policies.

Then there’s the 2 million jobs that a 2011 International Trade Commission report estimated we could create if China stopped violating our intellectual property rights. This study wasn’t looking at either Obama or Romney’s policies, and no one thinks that any U.S. president could get Chinese businesses to respect American patents.

So Romney’s claim of 12 million jobs over four years breaks down to 7 million jobs over 10 years in an economy that’s already at full employment, 3 million jobs over eight years that have nothing to do with any of Romney’s policies, and 2 million jobs if China suddenly became very, very respectful of U.S. intellectual property laws."

Read the Washington Post, The Romney campaign’s job math is just as bad as its tax math.

"[T]he true Romney plan is to create an economic boom through the sheer power of Mr. Romney’s personal awesomeness. But the campaign doesn’t dare say that, for fear that voters would (rightly) consider it ridiculous. So what we’re getting instead is an attempt to brazen it out with nakedly false claims. There’s no jobs plan; just a plan for a snow job on the American people"

Read The New York Times, Snow Job on Jobs. 

Republi-CON CONcern for the Poor

Who stopped by a soup kitchen on his way to the airport for a 15 minutes photo op washing clean dishes?  Read the Washington Post, Charity president unhappy about Paul Ryan soup kitchen ‘photo op’, which includes this video showing the shameless political stunt:



A perfect metaphor of 'the GOP disrespect for the poor.'

The Republi-CON Budget Con

The Republi-cons can't even explain their budget proposal to their media cronies at Hedgehog News, "[i]t would take me too long to go through all the math."

But "the problem isn’t that the math on their plan takes too long to detail. It’s that the math on their plan can’t be done. Or, it can be done, but when you do it, you get answers the Romney campaign doesn’t like — for instance, that the tax plan will either raise taxes on the middle class or add to the deficit."
Read the Washington Post, This is how you quickly do the math on the Romney-Ryan tax plan. 

The Wizard of Republi-CONism Strikes Again!

UPDATE VII:  His job is not to worry about 'those people'.  From the Washington Post, Brutal new Obama ad features Mitt Romney and the 47 percenters:

"The Obama campaign has not sent this ad to national reporters, but I’m told it will air in the seven key swing states. It is a brutal shot at Mitt Romney’s videotaped remarks about the freeloading 47 percent — it features nothing but audio of Romney’s own words, accompanied by pictures of veterans, workers, families with children, and other 47 percenters:



The ad concludes on these words: 'My job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.'"

And he needn't worry that it will be his job not to worry about 'those people'. 

UPDATE VI:  Willard "Mitt Romney stands by his secretly taped stance that half of Americans are mindless moochers who don't pay income tax"  Watch The Colbert Report, Mitt Romney's Secret Video, as he shows Obamney how to deliver his message to the freeloaders and moachers with a little more penache:

The Colbert Report
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UPDATE V:  The Republi-con Party "has been taken over by an Ayn Rand-type vision of society, in which a handful of heroic businessmen are responsible for all economic good, while the rest of us are just along for the ride."  Read The New York Times, Disdain for Workers.

UPDATE IV:  And just who are those '47 per-centers'?  More likely than not, Republi-cons.  Read the Washington Post, Mitt Romney’s “47 percent” problem — in 2 maps.  

UPDATE III:  "The candidate needs to stop talking.

Talking includes 'issuing statements' and 'approving this message.' Talking includes making faces that could be interpreted as expressing an opinion. This extends to talking at fundraisers and talking in private and reading books to your grandchildren. This includes making remarks that you thought were off the record. There is no longer any such thing as off the record. You are a candidate for public office. If it were possible, your thoughts and your eerie clown-dreams and the rare occasions when you lusted in your heart would be on the record. If you ever open your mouth, you must assume that everyone who disagrees with you is listening. So avoid the problem altogether. Don’t open your mouth.

This will create a few problems, sure, but it will solve more. Yes, the debates will be a little awkward, as President Obama speaks candidly and at length on a variety of subjects, and Mitt Romney just stands there silently looking presidential and occasionally making a hand gesture of polite disagreement. But it cannot possibly be worse than the present state of affairs."

Read the Washington Post, Mitt Romney needs to stop talking. 

UPDATE II:  "Mitt Romney’s comments on the 47 percent of Americans who make too little to pay income tax and 'will vote for this president no matter what' are causing him some political problems this morning. But could they cause him any electoral problems? Is he really insulting anyone who would already be willing to vote for him?

Actually, yes. The Tax Foundation put out this helpful map of the states with the highest and lowest percentage of people who don’t file income tax returns. The biggest non-filing states are — except Florida and New Mexico — solid red states:

 

Three of the states with the lowest number of non-filers are solidly conservative: Alaska, North Dakota and Wyoming. Two, New Hampshire and Virginia, are swing states. All the rest are solidly Democratic, including half of New England. All told, Obama gets 50 electoral votes from the 'maker' states to Romney’s 9 — 17 are tossups — while Romney gets 96 electoral votes from the 'taker' states to Obama’s 5, with 29 as tossups.

Read the Washington Post, Mitt Romney will probably get 95 electoral votes from ‘moocher’ states. Obama will probably get 5.

UPDATE:  "For what it’s worth, this division of “makers” and “takers” isn’t true. Among the Americans who paid no federal income taxes in 2011, 61 percent paid payroll taxes — which means they have jobs and, when you account for both sides of the payroll tax, they paid 15.3 percent of their income in taxes, which is higher than the 13.9 percent that Romney paid. Another 22 percent were elderly.

So 83 percent of those not paying federal income taxes are either working and paying payroll taxes or they’re elderly and Romney is promising to protect their benefits because they’ve earned them. The remainder, by and large, aren’t paying federal income or payroll taxes because they’re unemployed. But that’s a small fraction of the country."

Read the Washington Post, Romney’s theory of the “taker class,” and why it matters.

"Who are these [so-called Republi-con] freeloaders? Is it the Iraq war veteran who goes to the V.A.? Is it the student getting a loan to go to college? Is it the retiree on Social Security or Medicare?

It suggests that Romney doesn’t know much about the culture of America. Yes, the entitlement state has expanded, but America remains one of the hardest-working nations on earth. Americans work longer hours than just about anyone else. Americans believe in work more than almost any other people. Ninety-two percent say that hard work is the key to success, according to a 2009 Pew Research Survey.

It says that Romney doesn’t know much about the political culture. Americans haven’t become childlike worshipers of big government. On the contrary, trust in government has declined. The number of people who think government spending promotes social mobility has fallen.

The people who receive the disproportionate share of government spending are not big-government lovers. They are Republicans. They are senior citizens. They are white men with high school degrees. As Bill Galston of the Brookings Institution has noted, the people who have benefited from the entitlements explosion are middle-class workers, more so than the dependent poor.

Romney’s comments also reveal that he has lost any sense of the social compact."

Read The New York Times, Thurston Howell Romney.