Day: February 2, 2012
There’s No RomneyCare
Before Mitt speaks he should stop,
Before the next gaffe starts to drop.
But you can be sure
What he said of the poor
Was true, and not some kind of flip-flop.
At Least It Wasn’t a Flip-Flop
I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs a repair, I’ll fix it.
— Mitt Romney, quoted by CNN.
Romney’s Gaffe Was a True Gaffe
It may not be true that, at a personal level, Romney doesn’t care about the poor. He probably does. But his platform doesn’t. In that sense, his slip-up was a gaffe in the classic sense of admitting what he actually thinks.
— Jonathan Chait, writing in New York Magazine.
Obama Is an Interview Machine
408
Number of times President Obama has been interviewed in his first three years as president, according to The New York Times. In comparison, President George W. Bush had given 136 interviews at the same time in his presidency, and President Bill Clinton had given 166.
GOP Candidates Never Invoke Bush’s Legacy
Can you find a single significant point on which Romney, Gingrich, or Santorum differ substantially from George W. Bush? It’s amazing. If Bush were considered a successful president, they would be bringing him up all the time. That they do not, even as they have an incumbent Democrat they deride as a failure, tells you that they know Bush and his legacy are poison. And yet, they may not believe in Bush, but they sure believe in what he stood for. And so does the GOP base, evidently.
— Rod Dreher, writing in the American Conservative.
Ties Between Ron Paul and White Supremacists Exposed
We’ve all wondered about the zealotry of Ron Paul followers and dismissed it as the idealistic naivete of his frequently young apostles. They call into radio shows and protest that their man isn’t being respected. They wave signs from freeway overpasses. They post on Facebook that, despite all evidence to the contrary, Paul still has a path to the White House. And they whisper to each other about a third party run.
But what if there is more to this devotion? What if, like the racist statements in Paul’s newsletters that appeared regularly and for years, it is exactly what it looks like?
Anonymous, the internet hacking group, is exposing close ties between Ron Paul’s campaign and neo-Nazis and white supremacists.
Members of the nationalist American Third Position Party (A3P), whose website was defaced by Anonymous, organised Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul’s meetings and campaigns, according emails hacked by the collective…
“According to these messages, Ron Paul has regularly met with many A3P members, even engaging in conference calls with their board of directors,” read a statement from Anonymous.
Paul is apparently unconcerned about these supporters’ views.
Republican Party Boss Puts Impeaching Obama on the Table
NORQUIST: Obama can sit there and let all the tax [cuts] lapse, and then the Republicans will have enough votes in the Senate in 2014 to impeach.
ThinkProgess suggests impeaching Pres. Obama because Congress let tax cuts expire would be tough sledding:
Norquist certainly revels in his power, but suggesting Republicans impeach the president over tax cuts is wildly outlandish. According to the Constitution, the president, vice president, or public officials can only be impeached for “treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors.” Preserving a tax cut that gives more to the top 1 percent than the average income of the 99 percent hardly qualifies.
California GOP Loses Again
The best known California Republicans are also the state’s least-popular politicians, including former Govs. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Pete Wilson and current House members, Rep. Darrell Issa, the wealthiest House member, an accused car thief and arsonist who chairs the House committee that investigates the Obama administration, and Rep. “Styrofoam Dan” Lungren, the former state attorney general and current chairman of the House Administration Committee, who made news recently for rescinding Democrats’ efforts to “green” the Capitol Building.
