ROMNEY: President Obama “says we need more firemen, more policemen, more teachers. Did he not get the message of Wisconsin? The American people did. It’s time for us to cut back on government and help the American people.”
In the 1960s, like most high-profile neocons — Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Bill Kristol, John Bolton and their cheerleaders like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly — Mitt Romney avoided serving in the Vietnam War. Like Cheney, Romney sought and received multiple deferments. Cheney had five; Romney had four. (Like George Bush, John Bolton served in the National Guard, which was all but a guarantee against service overseas in those days.)
But unlike his fellow draft-dodging neocons, Romney has a record of lying about his deferments:
Though an early supporter of the Vietnam War, Romney avoided military service at the height of the fighting after high school by seeking and receiving four draft deferments, according to Selective Service records. They included college deferments and a 31-month stretch as a “minister of religion” in France, a classification for Mormon missionaries that the church at the time feared was being overused. The country was cutting troop levels by the time he became eligible for the draft, and his lottery number was not called.
And:
The New York Times reports that the Romneys are pissing off their liberal California neighbors in the one-time right-wing beachside enclave of La Jolla. For one thing, the Romneys are super-sizing the house they bought four years ago — turning it into a McMansion complete with the infamous car elevator. For another, Romney, who has appointed himself leader of the national gay-hate movement, seems to have been unaware that he bought property in one of San Diego’s ritziest, gay-friendliest neighborhoods.
From the perspective of the California mindset, however, the worst offense of all is that Romney has appointed himself head narc on the beach in front of his house, a self-appointment that apparenlty entitles him to accost townsfolk and stop them from enjoying a joint or a beer at the ocean:
Showing the kind of right-on-top-of-it leadership style we expect from someone born in the end zone who thinks himself an MVP, Mitt Romney is finally looking for a better copywriter, according to Buzzfeed’s Andrew Kaczynski.
The candidate suffered through three copy errors in one week, the most famous being the misspelling of the word, “America” in his “With Mitt” app as “Amercia.”
It is verboten for Mitt Romney or his campaign surrogates to mention the most recent Republican president by name. Instead, George W. Bush — who left office as the most unpopular president in the history of presidential polling — must be referred to in every reference as Pres. Obama’s “predecessor.”
Here is an example of Romney using the euphemism four times in one statement in mid-May:
ROMNEY: [Obama] was very critical of his predecessor for the debts his predecessor put in place. And sure it’s true you can’t blame one party or the other for all the debts this country has, because both parties in my opinion have spent too much and borrowed too much when they were in power. But he was very critical of his predecessor because the predecessor put together $4 trillion of debt over eight years. This president however — oh, by the way, he said that doing that was unpatriotic, irresponsible and unpatriotic. And he said he would cut the debt in half if he became president.Instead he doubled it, alright, he doubled it.”
And, of course, Romney is lying. Bush increased the national debt by nearly $5 trillion, and it has increased by almost exactly the same amount under Obama, in large part as a response to the financial collapse caused by the borrow-and-spend policies, anti-regulatory zeal and colossal incompetence of Bush and his Republican rubberstampers in Congress.
Since everyone knows that Mormons no longer practice polygamy (in this life) and they also don’t consume alcohol, how could they be offended by a vodka named “Fives Wives?” Uh, you got us there.
But the Idaho State Liquor Division has banned the new libation from being sold in the state, based on the idea that the 23 percent of Idahoans who are Mormon might take it personally.
“We feel Five Wives Vodka concept is offensive to a prominent segment of our population and will not be carried,” according to a letter from the Idaho State Liquor Division to an Idaho distributor wishing to carry it…
The head of Idaho’s liquor division acknowledged that Mormons don’t drink, or at least that they don’t admit it if they do.
“Presumably, people of the LDS faith would not be shopping in our [liquor] stores, but that does not mean that we are not sensitive to them.” But [Jeff Anderson] said Five Wives was rejected for other reasons, too, including the fact that vodka is a “crowded and competitive category” and that “there was nothing that really differentiated [Five Wives] other than its name and its label that had five women with cats in their crotches covering their genitals.
How anything differentiates a clear liquor with no taste is debatable. One wonders where Anderson worships, but that’s beside the point. Or is it?
While [Steve Conlin, director of marketing and a partner at Ogden’s Own, the Utah micro-distiller which makes the product] concedes the name could be seen as referencing polygamy (especially since it’s made in Utah), he said it carries many meanings. “The person who came up with name, she really liked the idea of five wives sitting around having a drink. There really is no pointed meaning to it and everyone can bring what they want to it … it’s not about making fun of Mormons at all. Quite simply it’s a name that seemed to fit.”
We’ll take his word, not having tried his vodka, that the name “fits” but I see no reason to protect the sensibilities of people who practice polygamy. Which of course, Mormons don’t. Anymore.
Birthers are adamant that certificates of live birth are not the same as birth certificates. Using their logic, the document Mitt Romney released yesterday is insufficient proof that he was born.
Many, many people believe Mitt Romney is a robot. If so, he would not have a birth certificate at all, would he?
What is Mitt Romney hiding?
And while the Romney campaign is at it, we also want proof that Ann Romney has no sister-wives.
Storify is among those chronicling the memes popping up after Mitt Romney’s new iPhone app misspelled the name of the country which Romney wants to run. And while we all wish him well on attaining the presidency of Amercia, we fervently hope he will never be the president of America.
Playing off the Obama campaign, which Romney just keeps doing, his team came up with a new tagline. You know how Obama asks, “Are you in?” Well Romney wants you to say you’re “With Mitt.” That this rhymes so closely with “nitwit” seems to have escaped Romney’s strategists.
You’re supposed to use the app to upload a picture of yourself and, choosing one of 14 pro-Mitt slogans provided, post it on Facebook or Pinterest or someplace else that people you know would enjoy seeing it.
Romney’s folks are learning what is meant by the loss of control that goes with social media, as people are using the hashtag #Amercia on Twitter to provide such bon mots as:
Wiferism is the new birtherism.
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“I think it’d be marvelous if the Senate were to pick up Paul Ryan’s budget and to adopt it and pass it along to the president,” Mitt Romney told Wisconsin voters early last month — referring, of course to the federal budget passed by Republicans in the House on a party line vote that would cut trillions out of the budget over 10 years, including $3.3 trillion from programs that benefit low-income families.
But now Romney appears to view the draconian cuts he endorsed just a few weeks ago as decidedly un-marvelous. In a softball interview with right-wing Time Magazine reporter Mark Halperin published this week, Romney has executed one of his trademark 180-degree flip flops when it comes to cutting the budget:
Pundits say that Trump’s $5,000 midterm bribe was an overreach,
And they agree that if lies were a crime, he’d be impeached.
Despite all the dividend promises he’s made,
The fact is, not one has ever been paid,
So even before the midterms, he already owes us $8,000* each.
*$5000 stimulus checks via “DOGE dividend”; $2000 stimulus checks via a “tariff dividend”; $1000-plus checks via “savings” from expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies
