Tag: Campaign 2012

California Republican Protests ‘Romney’s Racist Heart’ with 14-Foot Neon Sign

Jon Ponder

photo-romneys-racist-heart-signCurbed LA:

Deep in the Conejo Valley, Steven Showers has put up a very tall neon sign in his front yard that flashes “Romney’s Racist Heart Dotcom. Save the GOP.” Showers tells the Ventura County Star that he is Republican and Christian and that, upon Mitt Romney’s apparent nomination for the presidency, he “was stunned to find out that the Mormon religion is a white supremacist, anti-black, racist ideology.” He launched the Romneys Racist Heart website (which warns that “You Are About to Read About the Most Gigantic Fraud Ever Perpetrated Upon the GOP in U.S. Political History”) and spent most of August designing and building the 120-pound billboard, which required a crane to mount.

The sign itself is ten feet tall and sits on a four-foot concrete foundation. The lights went on on Thursday and the first complaint came into Ventura County on Friday (Showers says he didn’t check to see whether the sign might be violating any codes). According to the LA Times, “On Friday, a Ventura County code inspector dropped by and left a notice that the monument was a violation of zoning laws.”

Meanwhile, you can buy your own smaller version for just $800. And a rep for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints points out to the Star that the religion let black people join the priesthood starting in 1978.

Shower’s site is here.

Response to Isaac This Week Should Remind Voters GOP Budget Calls for Draconian Cuts to Govt Disaster Relief

Jon Ponder

The Nation:

When the GOP nominates Paul Ryan as its vice-presidential candidate on Wednesday night, they will be putting a man who proposed steep reductions to disaster relief funds in his most recent budget—restrictions so radical that GOP appropriators in the House disobey them. Ryan proposed that Congress adhere to the debt-ceiling limitations, and not spend over them when appropriating disaster relief, but instead make cuts elsewhere to pay for them. This is the same “morally reprehensible” approach to disaster relief funding taken by House Republican leaders last summer: even as Hurricane Irene bored down on the eastern seaboard, Congressional Republicans threatened to withhold disaster relief funds if offsetting cuts were not made elsewhere in the federal budget. Holding federal disaster relief hostage to political food-fights was a truly unprecedented move.

[…]

Pennsylvania GOP Senate Candidate Equates Pregancy from Premarital Sex with Pregnancy from Rape

Jon Ponder

The Hill:

A second Republican Senate candidate has waded into rough waters while explaining his conservative stance on abortion.

Tom Smith, who is challenging Democratic Sen. Bob Casey Jr. (Pa.), said Monday that he believes in outlawing abortion, with no exception for rape victims. He then appeared to compare pregnancies from rape to pregnancies that result from consensual sex between people who are not married.

Smith was asked to explain how he would tell a victim of rape to continue with her pregnancy.

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Chris Matthews Calls Out Republican Party Chair Reince Priebus over Romney’s Dog-Whistle Racism

Jon Ponder

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

And then Tom Brokaw interrupts the debate with the same lazy “both sides are bad” B.S. that makes the “liberal” media elite complicit with the right wing’s relentless destruction of American values and institutions.

Partial Transcript:

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Why Does Romney Not Expect to Be Asked About His Birth Certificate?

Trish

Yes, he really said this:

No one has ever asked to see my birth certificate. They know that this is the place that we were born and raised.

And these people said this about the remark:

  • Take a moment or two to think about that, what he’s actually saying, and what it says about Mitt Romney. — Jim Messina, Campaign manager, Obama for America
  • [Romney] wasn’t using prepared remarks. — A Romney campaign aide quoted by CNN
  • The governor has always said, and has repeatedly said, he believes the president was born here in the United States. He was only referencing that Michigan, where he is campaigning today, is the state where he himself was born and raised. — Kevin Madden, Romney senior adviser
  • It’s one thing to give the stage in Tampa to Donald Trump, Sheriff Arpaio, and Kris Kobach. But Governor Romney’s decision to directly enlist himself in the birther movement should give pause to any rational voter across America. — Ben LaBolt, Obama campaign press secretary
  • I thought it was great because why should we have to worry about whether the president has a birth certificate or not? — Guy Myers, a Romney supporter from Clarkson, Mich., who witnessed the remark

Four Years Ago Today: Hate Group Spokesman Exhorts Followers to Pray That Rain Will Ruin Democratic Convention Event in Denver

Jon Ponder

Via Joe.My.God:

Focus On The Family spokesman STUART SHEPARD, speaking four years ago today: “Would it be wrong to ask people to pray? Would it be wrong if we asked people to pray for rain? O.K., not just rain, abundant rain. Torrential rain. Urban and small stream flood advisory rain. Would it be wrong if we prayed for rain on, say, a particular night at, say, a particular location? Ah, say the evening of August 28th, right here at Mile High Stadium here in Denver. During the prime time t.v. hour when a certain presumptive nominee is set to give a certain acceptance speech at a certain Democratic National Convention?

“I’m talkin’ umbrella ain’t gonna help ya rain. Not flood people out of their houses rain, just good old swamp the intersections rain. We’re not asking for hail the size of canned hams, or lightening bolts to set the bunting on fire. Just rain. Beautiful rain. Network cameras can’t see the podium rain. Attendees can’t walk to the indoor arena without wishing for hip waders rain.

“I know you might ask why would I pray for that. Well, I’m still pro-life and I’m still in favor of marriage being only between one man and one woman. And I’d like the next president, who’ll select justices for the U. S. Supreme Court to agree. So I’m praying for unexpected, unanticipated, unforecasted rain that starts two minutes before the speech is set to begin. Would it be wrong to pray for rain?”

Is God Planning to Smite Republicans in Florida?

Trish

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Remember when Christian Coalition founder and former presidential candidate Pat Robertson said the American Civil Liberties Union, feminists, blacks, and gays were responsible for the Sept. 11 terror attacks? Or when he said that Hurricane Katrina wiped out New Orleans as God’s answer to those who were pro-choice? How about when he said a Haitian earthquake was the result of a deal early Haitians made with the devil?

It looks like Florida, which Pat previously predicted would feel God’s wrath over Disneyworld’s annual “Gay Days” park admission, is finally getting its due. When Pat warned us in 1998, he turned out to be wrong, and the hurricane he thought was coming to Disney instead turned north to Virginia and smote the state that the 700 Club calls headquarters.

Now it looks like God is pissed again, and what is, as of this writing, Tropical Storm Isaac (but which will likely become Hurricane Isaac) is set to hit as Florida opens itself to the pit of inequity that is the Republican National Convention.

Consider how Republicans have recently earned God’s anger.
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Anderson Cooper Confronts GOP Operative Kellyanne Conway on CNN with Facts That Disprove Her False Claim about Rise in Sex-Selection Abortions

Jon Ponder

We’re so used to Republican operatives going on cable news shows and lying with impunity that it has become newsworthy when a news host exposes one of them in a lie in real time during a broadcast.

This happened recently on CNN when Soledad O’Brien challenged disgraced former Bush I chief of staff John Sununu, a Mitt Romney surrogate, during an interview after he trotted out the Romney campaign’s lie that Pres. Obama had “gutted Medicare.”

Similarly, Anderson Cooper challenged Republican operative/pollster Kellyanne Conway when she attempted to distort a conversation about Missouri tea party candidate Todd Akin’s claim that women’s ovaries naturally repel the sperm of rapists by interjecting a false claim (at about 03:30 in the video above) that there has been a rise in sex-selection abortions in the United States:

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WSJ/NBC News Poll: Ryan Pick Has -1 Impact on Likelihood to Vote for Romney – Compares with Dick Cheney’s +2, Palin’s +8

Jon Ponder

The new Wall St. Journal/NBC News poll finds that 22 percent of likely voters say that Mitt Romney’s decision to put Rep. Paul Ryan on the Republican ticket makes them more likely to vote for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, while 23 percent say he makes them less likely to vote for Romney; 54 percent say the pick doesn’t affect their vote either way.

That margin (-1) compares with the last five vice-presidential picks like this:

Year Candidate Party VP Helps Ticket?
2012 Mitt Romney GOP Paul Ryan -1
2008 Barack Obama Dem Joe Biden +8
2008 John McCain GOP Sarah Palin +9
2004 John Kerry Dem John Edwards +21
2000 Al Gore Dem Joe Lieberman +13
2000 George W. Bush GOP Dick Cheney +2

The approval rating for Congress is at 12 percent, according to the poll, with 82 percent disapproving. This may be a part of the reason that Congressman Paul Ryan also has a remarkably weak favorable/unfavorable rating: 33 percent/32 percent.