Day: June 27, 2012

Breaking News: Democrats Set to Walk Out on Holder Contempt Vote

Trish

Joy-Ann Reid is reporting that House Democrats, outgunned and outnumbered by House Republicans and Teabillies, will join the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) in walking out on the contempt of Congress vote set to be held on our hero, Attorney General Eric Holder, on June 28.

Yes, with all the pressing issues before the country, which, if you listen to FOX News is about to collapse from same, House Speaker John Boehner found time to not only investigate Holder (but not his predecessor in the Bush administration who started the Fast and Furious program), but to stop everything and take a vote on whether the voluminous information Holder has supplied to date is sufficient. The problem is that what Holder has coughed up does not show criminal wrong doing on the part of the Obama administration. Boehner and his co-conspirators want more, even if the proof they need never existed.

The CBC:

Instead of focusing on job creation and other critical issues before this Congress, we have been asked to engage in a political stunt on the floor of the United States House of Representatives. Our constituents elected us to do real work, not to engage in meaningless partisan activity.

For those keeping track, Pres. Obama announcing he will not enforce deportation of the narrow group of children and young adults defined by the Dream Act, which failed to get a filibuster-proof majority in 2010, is election year prostitution. But stopping the work of the House of Representatives to focus on a partisan witch hunt that, if anything incriminates Republicans’ gun lobby pals, is time well spent. Yeah, no.

The Issue That Romney Will Never Live Down

Trish

coneofseamus

We don’t just “Like” Dogs Against Romney on Facebook, we love them! The group is dedicated to a single issue: that Mitt Romney was wrong, wrong, wrong in 1983 when he strapped a crate to the roof of the station wagon that he and his wife and five sons rode in on a trip to Canada while the family’s Irish Setter (whose name was pronounced “shame-us”) rode in terror and gastroenterologic stress above.

Now they are offering all kinds of merch that keeps the incident front and center, including the fabulous bumpersticker shown.

Romney Has Less Idea What He Thinks Than You Do

Trish

It’s gotten to the point now where you could ask Gov. Romney what he wants for breakfast and he will respond something like, “The president has failed to lead on this issue.”

— Michael Scherer, White House correspondent for Time magazine, responding to the question of what Mitt Romney’s proposal is for immigration reform. Romney criticized Pres. Obama, even in the light of the recent Supreme Court ruling which supported the Obama Justice Department’s assertion that federal crimes cannot be created by state laws, such as those in Arizona.

Fortune Magazine Shows What You Suspected: Weak, NRA-Written Gun Laws Are to Blame for Fast and Furious

Trish

guns

Fortune magazine proves what everyone who doesn’t watch FOX News suspected: The congressional investigation into the Fast and Furious program is a partisan witch hunt, and much of the responsibility for the murder of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry has to go to the gun lobby, which blocks maintaining a database of firearms.

A six-month Fortune investigation reveals that the public case alleging gun walking is replete with distortions, errors, partial truths, and even some outright lies

Quite simply, there’s a fundamental misconception at the heart of the Fast and Furious scandal. Nobody disputes that suspected straw purchasers under surveillance by the ATF repeatedly bought guns that eventually fell into criminal hands. Issa and others charge that the ATF intentionally allowed guns to walk as an operational tactic. But five law-enforcement agents directly involved in Fast and Furious tell Fortune that the ATF had no such tactic. They insist they never purposefully allowed guns to be illegally trafficked. Just the opposite: They say they seized weapons whenever they could but were hamstrung by prosecutors and weak laws, which stymied them at every turn.

Indeed, a six-month Fortune investigation reveals that the public case alleging that [ATF Supervisor Dave] Voth and his colleagues walked guns is replete with distortions, errors, partial truths, and even some outright lies. Fortune reviewed more than 2,000 pages of confidential ATF documents and interviewed 39 people, including seven law-enforcement agents with direct knowledge of the case…How Fast and Furious reached the headlines is a strange and unsettling saga, one that reveals a lot about politics and media today…

“Republican senators are whipping up the country into a psychotic frenzy with these reports that are patently false,” says Linda Wallace, a special agent with the Internal Revenue Service’s criminal investigation unit who was assigned to the Fast and Furious team (and recently retired from the IRS). A self-described gun-rights supporter, Wallace has not been criticized by Issa’s committee.

…Irony abounds when it comes to the Fast and Furious scandal. But the ultimate irony is this: Republicans who support the National Rifle Association and its attempts to weaken gun laws are lambasting ATF agents for not seizing enough weapons—ones that, in this case, prosecutors deemed to be legal.

Take a few minutes and read the whole piece.

Why Fox News Equates “F&F” with Watergate

Buck Banks

They throw around the term Watergate so much at Fox, you’d think the guy running Fox had been a Nixon operative.

— Daily Show’s Jon Stewart, turning his attention to “Fast and Furious” and Republican outrage over the botched ATF operation. Fox chief Roger Ailes was a media consultant for Republican presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, and Rudy Giuliani’s first mayoral campaign (1989).

New Poll Find That Just a Third of Voters View Romney Favorably – Lower by Double Digits Than the Losing Candidates in Recent Election History

Jon Ponder

George W. Bush ended his term as president in January 2009 with just one signature “accomplishment”: After eight years, he left office as the most unpopular president in the history of presidential polling — his unfavorable ratings were upside down for 39 straight months. When he finally flew back to Texas for good, Bush’s approval was a miserable 34 percent, according to Gallup.

Romney’s favorable rating is down to 30% in swing states in one poll – worse than George Bush’s overall 34% overall favorable rating when he left office.

With numbers like those, Bush could not have been reelected, obviously, were that even legally possible. In fact, no candidate who is viewed so negatively could be elected to any office, especially the presidency. Right?

Which brings us to Mitt Romney, the man who would be Bush’s successor as the next Republican president — the candidate who all but refuses to mention Bush as he campaigns — and the pol whose unfavorables among voters, especially in swing states are as bad, or, in at least one case, worse than Bush’s.

[…]

Prez Race Remains Steady, Tight

Buck Banks

47% to 44%

Percentage spread between President Obama and Mitt Romney among registered voters, essentially unchanged from May, according to a new NBC/WSJ poll. Despite the stability on the surface, there are some fascinating things going on inside the numbers. Obama is ahead among African Americans (92%-1%), women (52%-39%), Latinos (66-26%), voters ages 18-29 (52%-35%) and independents (40%-36%). Romney leads among Tea Party supporters (94%-1%), whites (53%-38%), white independents (46-32%), white women (50-41%) and men (48%-43%). The two are running even among seniors, Midwest residents, and high-interest voters.