Must Reads

Henry Rollins: The American People Kicked Your Ass, Republicans

Eliot Spitzer: Why the GOP Quashed a Superb Report on Income Tax Rates for the Rich

The Rude Pundit: They've Lost Their Fucking Minds Again (Limbaugh Edition)

Bob Cesca: Evidence that John Schnatter is Big Whiny Pouty Sore Loser

Tim Murphy: Top Georgia GOP Lawmakers Host Briefing on Secret Obama Mind-Control Plot

Igor Volsky: Romney Says Obama Only Won Because He Gave ‘Big Gifts’ To Blacks And Latinos

Mike Polk: A Letter To Texas From The Remaining 49 States

President Obama's Weekly Address - November 17, 2012

Working Together to Extend the Middle Class Tax Cuts

Reid to McCain: Cut the Crap

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had some words for John McCain about his ongoing sour grapes. And he put them in a letter addressed to the Maverick, and CC'ed Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham and Kelly Ayotte because they are now being insufferable assholes on this Benghazi thing.

"I refuse to allow the Senate to be used as a venue for baseless partisan attacks... 

...You already have the opportunity to engage more fully in the fulsome and ongoing investigation in the events in Benghazi... [but] failed to attend a classified briefing held by the Senate Homeland Security Committee on this very issue."

In other words, you're making a fool of yourself. Knock it off, you idiot.

View the full letter here.

McCain Needs to Go Away

How much hate can one man hold against another? How bitter must a person be to look for any misguided excuse to fingerpoint and shake his fist in outrage despite making himself look like a complete loon in the process?

Arizona Senator and former 2008 losing Republican presidential candidate John McCain is still in stage two of the five stages of loss and grief: Anger. And since he doesn't have the balls to challenge the president directly, he'll hypocritically go after UN Ambassador Susan Rice for expressing CIA intelligence at the time almost verbatim in regards to the Benghazi embassy attack.

But no matter. McCain can keep tilting at windmills along with his personal Sancho Panza, Sen. Lindsey Graham, about the Benghazi attack and claim a coverup or incompetence in this instance, but defend then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice in her "mushroom cloud" assessment because that's what the intelligence assessment said at the time. Why is that explanation good enough for Condoleezza Rice when it then had a direct result of taking the country into war on false pretenses, but not good enough for Susan Rice who had no direct involvement with the State Department and whose statements were consistent with CIA intelligence at the time? Oh right, it's okay if you're a Republican.

John McCain needs to go away. His mind is muddled with anger and revenge, never getting over 2008's loss. If he were so interested in the actual information about what happened in the Libyan embassy attack and the intelligence leading up to Benghazi on September 11th, he should have attended the classified briefing for members of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, of which he is a member, instead of holding a photo op press conference demanding information that was being disseminated in said meeting simultaneously, and calling for another investigation, also known as another witch hunt.

 Reporters would do well to skip McCain's pressers from now on, else they'll risk missing actual news.

Must Reads

Charles Pierce: The Real Problem with the Demented Republican Party

Chris Cillizza: Who had the worst week in Washington? CIA Director David H. Petraeus.

Mark Ambinder: How the Secret Service Said Goodbye to Mitt Romney

Matt Sedensky: Florida Vote Beyond Recount Range; West Won't Concede

Ta-Nehisi Coates: Hippies Wander Into the Lions' Den, Maul Lions

President Obama's Weekly Address - November 10, 2012

Extending Middle Class Tax Cuts to Grow the Economy

FOUR MORE YEARS! - Update

Observations and Musings Post Election Day

- Despite looking at factual evidence, the emotional heart will always doubt what your logical mind already knows.

- How many times does President Obama and his team need to prove doubters wrong before they realize that "I Got This" actually means something?

- If three million votes was a "mandate" for George W. Bush in 2004, you'd better fucking believe it's good enough to be a mandate for President Obama. "I've got political capital, and I intend to spend it" never sounded so good.

- The bubble that Fox News and the Republican Party's live in is so massive, they dismissed every single poll that didn't show their desired outcome, to the point of creating the ironically named UnskewedPoll.com, and seemed truly shellshocked that President Obama won reelection.

- Is Nate Silver a witch? No. But he's one badass numbers genius motherfucker!

- Joe Scarborough and every idiot talking head on TV who doesn't live in reality, doesn't deserve your precious time. Unless you're a masochist, stop watching them.

- I've had it up to here (pointing to my ball sac) with Republican talking heads now saying that President Obama has to prove anything to Republican politicians. Bipartisanship and compromise is a two way street. And it the GOP wants to stay relevant, they'd better jettison the crazies in their party and start acting like adults instead of holding their breath until they get what they want.

- Not only is he a media whore and an opportunist, but Donald Trump has become a boil on the ass of America. I don't understand how he thinks he looks like anything but a laughingstock now. Even Brian Williams called him out today with this: "Trump has "driven well past the last exit to relevance and veered into something closer to irresponsible." How that sloth continues to live on his head and share in the embarrassment is amazing to me. I guess love knows no bounds.

More to come...

 UPDATE – 8pm: 

- Today is the first day of work towards regaining the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives in 2014. Just as in 2008, we can’t think this is over after the election. It’s not the end, it’s the beginning.

 - Unless Citizens United is overturned, we will have a much harder time matching the Dark Side dollar for dollar, especially in the mid-term elections, so we have to double our efforts on the ground. And it starts now.

 - Despite only four hours sleep between 16 hour days, I have a spring in my step today. The air is a little fresher, the sky is a little bluer, and the tears of dumbass Republican voters are a little sweeter.

 - No matter what anyone says, yesterday’s results PROVE we are not a center right nation. Maine and Maryland voted for marriage equality. Washington and Colorado voted for recreational marijuana use. The times, they are a-changin’.

- After Chris Murphy won his Senate race in Connecticut, part of me wanted WWE magnate Linda McMahon to sneak up behind Murphy during his victory speech and cold cock him in the back of the head with a metal folding chair.

- Rape apologists Richard Mourdock and Todd Akin got their asses handed to them by their opponents. They were totally asking for it. BOOM!

ELECTION DAY!

I voted.

... Didn't get a sticker. Now I will watch with my logical brain being more confident than my emotional heart.

President Obama's Weekly Address - November 3, 2012

Recovering and Rebuilding after the Storm

Must Reads

David Roher: Nate Silver’s Braying Idiot Detractors Show That Being Ignorant About Politics Is Like Being Ignorant About Sports

Bob Cesca: Geraldo Destroys Bolling on Benghazi

Charles Pierce: Sandy and the Job Numbers: The Week When the Actual Turning Points Stepped Out of the Campaign Shadows

David Badash: Photo Op: Romney Campaign Bought Supplies To Give To Red Cross Which Only Accepts Money

The Rude Pundit: A Filthy End to the Filthy Campaign of a Filthy Liar

Mayor Mike Bloomberg Endorses Obama

Being a native New Yorker, I am not a big Mike Bloomberg fan. In fact, sometimes I consider him to have a Napoleonic Complex. From "urging" rule changes to run for a third term to combatting obesity by restricting soft drink sizes to 16 ounces he has shown a bit of an authoritarian stance. And just today, he screwed up royally in the 3 passengers per vehicle imposition for entry onto Manhattan island on people trying to get to work with a disabled public transportation system after Hurricane Sandy.*

But today, the New York City Mayor endorsed President Barack Obama for a second term.

I believe Mitt Romney is a good and decent man, and he would bring valuable business experience to the Oval Office. He understands that America was built on the promise of equal opportunity, not equal results. In the past he has also taken sensible positions on immigration, illegal guns, abortion rights and health care. But he has reversed course on all of them, and is even running against the health-care model he signed into law in Massachusetts.

And although I vehemently disagree with his perception that the President has "embraced a divisive populist agenda focused more on redistributing income than creating it" and and "engaged in partisan attacks" instead of trying to reach across the aisle because after all, it takes two to tango and it's been well known that there has been no reciprocation from the entire Republican Party, this endorsement is worth a read.

_______________
* Bloomberg had the right sentiment but blew it big time. All crossings into Manhattan were carpool restricted except for the George Washington Bridge. Everyone knew that. What they didn't tell you was that after you got over the GWB, there were still checkpoints preventing vehicles from entering Manhattan. After a local radio traffic reporter went ballistic on air, the Mayor's office got rid of said checkpoint, but not until it caused immense backups and made incoming highways into parking lots in the midst of a gasoline shortage.

Can I Politicize Hurricane Sandy Yet?

Here's the quote of the day:

“The president has been all over this and he deserves great credit. I’ve been on the phone with him, like I said, yesterday, personally, three times. He gave me his number at the White House, told me to call him if I needed anything, and he absolutely means it. It’s been very good working with the president, and he and his administration have been coordinating with us great. It’s been wonderful.“

That quote brought to you Republican NewJersey Governor Chris Christie, whose state (my state) has been crushed by Hurricane Sandy. Major sections of the Jersey shore have been destroyed. I'm shocked at the devastation I see on the news reports on television.

Luckily, I was spared any damage or power outage. The storm made landfall about 90 minutes south of me, near Atlantic City (another destroyed city). I took a short walk around my neighborhood and couldn't go more than a couple of blocks without coming across downed trees, severed power lines and blocked streets.







But back to my point.

Kudos to Christie figuring out what's important and how crucial issues like federal disaster relief can be. I don't know if he was one of the Republican governors Mitt Romney called to offer advice*, you know because I suppose only Republican governors have been affected by the storm, but I wonder if Christie will have a come to Jesus moment at the voting booth next week. ... I doubt it.

Speaking of federal disaster relief, let's not forget, and really how can you at this point, that FEMA is in the crosshairs for Mitt Romney to gut if he's elected president. During a primary debate, Romney not only thought that disaster aid should be in the hands of the states, but went a step further and said that the private sector should be first in line for these types of situations.

Who knows what he's saying now, but last year, Mitt Romney said it was "immoral" for the government to borrow and spend money to pay for disaster relief. 

Importantly, he wasn't just talking about the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which some conservatives say is a horrible waste of money. He was talking about "disaster relief."... 

..."Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that's the right direction," Romney told debate moderator John King. "And if you can go even further, and send it back to the private sector, that’s even better. Instead of thinking, in the federal budget, what we should cut, we should ask the opposite question, what should we keep?” 

When John King interrupted to clarify, "Including disaster relief?" Romney continued, "We cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids. It is simply immoral, in my view, for us to continue to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids, knowing full well that we’ll all be dead and gone before it’s paid off. It makes no sense at all."

Sure! No federal relief for devastated states due to natural disasters. Let them fend for themselves since their coffers are always overflowing. And hell, while we're at it, it's the private, for-profit sector that should take care of the clean up and restoration of towns and cities that got washed away in the hurricane. Nothing like giving preference to the highest bidder when it comes to restoring essentials to survive. 

I really don't know what else to say about this except that we are witnessing, in live time, the differences between the two candidates in their response to the disaster we've seen here these last 36 hours. While President Obama admittedly has a bit of an advantage in actually being the president, he's suspended his campaign, continues to make sure help gets to ALL that need it, and is keeping in contact with state leaders regardless of political affiliation. Mitt Romney has "suspended his campaign" and decided to have "storm relief events" that look exactly the same as his campaign events.

Yesterday, the Republican team said it had canceled today's campaign event in Ohio. Mitt Romney was set to headline a "victory rally" at a specific venue in Dayton, alongside specific celebrity guests, but out of sensitivity, the event was scrapped. 

Instead, Romney will appear at the exact same venue at the exact same time with the exact same celebrity guests, but it will be billed as a "storm relief event." What about yesterday's promise about cancellations? A Republican official said Romney/Ryan hadn't broken its word because, technically, this is "not a campaign event per se." 

Hmm. The badge for today's "storm relief event" says "victory rally"; the sign on the door described the event as a "campaign rally"; they're playing the campaign warm-up songs for the audience; and before the "storm relief event" could begin, campaign officials showed the official campaign video on Romney's awesomeness.

But hey, it's not a campaign event if it we don't call it a campaign event, huh?

_________________________________
*Chris Christie was one of the governors that was called by Mitt Romney.

Disaster Relief -- from Mitt

POSTED BY JHW22

“Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that’s the right direction. And if you can go even further and send it back to the private sector, that’s even better. Instead of thinking in the federal budget, what we should cut — we should ask ourselves the opposite question. What should we keep? We should take all of what we’re doing at the federal level and say, what are the things we’re doing that we don’t have to do? And those things we’ve got to stop doing, because we’re borrowing $1.6 trillion more this year than we’re taking in. We cannot --

KING: Including disaster relief, though?

ROMNEY: We cannot — we cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids. It is simply immoral, in my view, for us to continue to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids, knowing full well that we’ll all be dead and gone before it’s paid off. It makes no sense at all.

Romney thinks disaster relief should fall solely on states and the "private sector". Considering many states are broke and have already cut crucial services such as wildfire resources in a record-drought, first responders, health care, and infrastructure and considering the "private sector" folks will have been hit by the same natural disaster or because private sector means insurance companies who HATE paying out after disasters, I'd say he doesn't get it. In fact, just the other day insurance companies acknowledged global warming and want something done about it because they're so sick of paying out after disasters like Sandy.

It's "simply immoral" to vote for the man who doesn't get it and will make sure disaster victims don't get anything either.

Batten Down The Hatches!

Must Reads

John Scalzi: Fan Letter to Certain Conservative Politicians

Greg Palast: Mitt Romney's Bailout Bonanza

Elcectablog: Reality intrudes on Mitt Romney’s dream world. So does Nate Silver.

Douglas Brinkley: Obama and the Road Ahead: The Rolling Stone Interview

JM Ashby: Microwaves. Air-Conditioning. The Good Life!

Paul Krugman: Pointing Toward Prosperity?

The Rude Pundit: Note to Richard Mourdock: Your God's an Asshole

Nathan Bomey & Brent Snavely: Romney repeats false claim of Jeep outsourcing to China; Chrysler refutes story

Brent Snavely: Romney camp silent on his Jeep-to-China gaffe

Steve Benen: Chronicling Mitt's Mendacity, Vol. XL

Ron Fournier: The Story (on Racial Attitudes) That Obama and Romney Don't Want You to Read

Jim Wright: Guns and Butter. Also, Nazis!

Current GOP Incapable of Being Satirized?

A casualty of Poe's Law. I admit I'm a bit embarrassed... but can you blame me?

I was surfing through the Twittersphere... (Twitterverse?) this morning and came across an article that took my breath away. In an attempt to win the endorsement of an Evansville newspaper, Republican candidate Richard "Rape Pregnancy is a Gift from God" Mourdock, went on at considerable length about his stance on pregnancies that occur as a result of rape, how rape victims should have prayed harder, how scientific studies show that a woman is less likely to get raped if she prays before a big date, and how people who aren't "right with God" have a stronger chance of finding themselves in those undesirable situations, among other things.

I was outraged. I immediately retweeted with my own added comment: "Unvelievable! Will Mitt still support this nut after this?!" I added it to my Facebook page: "Eagerly awaiting a statement from Mitt Romney about this. Anything other than a complete repudiation and withdrawal of support from Richard Mourdock after these fantastical comments is a complete fail for Romney and should disqualify him from any chance of elected office, especially the Presidency." I was livid!

...Ahem... I was then informed a bit later that the piece (from the Daily Currant) was satirical. I suppose the comments were really fantastical after all. Not knowing that The Daily Currant is a satirical website, I became a victim of Poe's Law. I then sent out tweets and status updates informing everyone of my mistake. But with the current mindset of the Republican Party, can you blame me for believing it?

It was not a far cry for me to believe that Mourdock would say such things after his "God intended" rape pregnancy comment. Perhaps the "rape halo" section of the piece should have given away the satire, but is that a far cry from Georgia Rep. Paul Broun's comments that "evolution, embryology, the Big Bang theory" are "lies straight from the pit of hell"? By the way, Broun, who believes the Earth is 9,000 years old because the Bible says so, is on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee. THE SCIENCE COMMITTEE!!!

You can understand my mistake when Missouri Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin makes a statement about "legitimate rape" and women's bodies having "ways to shut that thing down." That "thing" being pregnancy from a rape, you know because... science and sorcery!

You can understand my mistake when Rep. Steve King (R-Douchelandia) says he's personally never heard of a child becoming pregnant due to a rape or incest, which is completely believable when you consider he co-sponsored a bill, along with Akin and GOP Veep candidate Paul Ryan in 2011, originally calling for an exemption in the federal ban on abortion funding only in the case of “forcible rape.” Yes, forcible rape, as opposed to consentual rape because no means no, but does it really?

When over 30% of Republicans still believe that President Obama is Muslim (a higher percentage than in 2008), when 63% of Republicans still believe that Iraq had WMD to this day, long after the invasion of 2003 and long after the facts have shown otherwise, when a majority of Republicans have fallen for the Birther conspiracy and still believe that President Obama was born in another country despite all evidence to the contrary, trying to satirize a GOP member who has already said something ridiculous is an almost insurmountable task. Just ask Roger Simon.

My point is this: with all the lunacy that's been uttered on an almost daily basis by the Fox "News" network and conservative radio hosts led by Rush Limbaugh, and swallowed hook, line and sinker by this new species of "Republican," it's really getting harder and harder to differentiate the truth from satire. And when a political party is incapable of being satirized it makes for a very sad state of affairs for the future of said party when an outrageous joke can be mistaken for the truth.

(Cross-posted on ABLC)

President Obama's Weekly Address - October 27, 2012

Protecting the American People with New Wall Street Reforms

What the Hell Is Wrong With These Nutball Republicans?!

I don't even know what to say about this. All I can do is shake my head in amazement and try to suppress a sickening sadness for the state of partisan political affairs in our country.

Missouri Lt. Governor Peter Kinder (R) on Thursday warned that “Albanian” election monitors who will observe polling places on November 6 are part of President Barack Obama’s plan to let the United Nations take over the United States. 

“UN observers, monitors, have no business in our elections and should be kept out of Missouri,” he told radio host Dana Loesch. “I’m calling on legislative leaders in the majority party in both the House and Senate — Republican leadership — to join me in saying we will not have these UN election monitors in our state." 

Kinder said he was inspired by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who threatened to arrested the international election monitors if they come within 100 feet of a polling place. 

Following a request from eight civil rights groups, the Organization of Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), a United Nations partner, agreed to send 44 election monitors to the United States. The international organization began monitoring U.S. elections in 2002, when then-President George W. Bush invited them to the country.

Where was the outrage then? Was George Bush trying to "sign away our sovereignty" when he invited the election monitors TEN YEARS AGO? Oh wait, "sovereignty"? Nevermind.

 What the fuck are these assholes even talking about?!

VOTE!

(Photo courtesy of CBS News)

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Donald Trump: Media Whore

Why can't these sad sack, irrational Birthers get over it?

Donald Trump, who went full Birther and hence became an official laughingstock for more than just the beaver that lives on his head, can't stand the idea of being out of the spotlight for very long. He can't live with the fact that he had to sit there and take a shellacking from President Obama at the 2011 White  House Correspondents' Dinner. But there he sat with egg on his face and after more than a year, he can take it no longer.

So The Donald has glommed on to yet another Obama conspiracy theory, this one involving the President's school records. He wants the world (and all the racist scumbags out there) to know that there's no possible way the President could have gotten where he has without affirmative action. That he didn't deserve to go to Occidental. Or Columbia. Or Harvard. That he wasn't intelligent enough to become President of the Harvard Law Review. And how does he intend to prove it? By trying to force President Obama's hand with money.

Trump has been trumpeting a "big announcement" this week, you know because it all has to be out in the open - it has nothing to do with seeing his name in the papers or being interviewed on the local news, or trying to inject himself into the presidential race from which he was rejected by the Republican electorate.

Donald Trump has offered $5 million to any charity of President Obama's choice IF he "agrees to give all of his college records and applications and if he provides all of his passport records and applications..." 

That's such an awesome deal, isn't it? If the President says yes, Donald Trump can then call all the documents forgeries, gin up another Manchurian Candidate conspiracy theory while writing off $5 million from his taxes. Everybody wins! Or Trump can just turn around and say the documents weren't to his satisfaction and not bother ponying up the dough. I mean, it's not like that man has shown to have any principles, morals, or integrity, right?

But he'll still win his little two weeks of news coverage because at the very least, Fox News will wonder why Obama doesn't take such an easy offer. He must be hiding something!

I seriously can't want for this election cycle to be over so we can get a break after the morons crawl back under their rocks for another 18 months.