RICK SANTORUM: We know the candidate Barack Obama, what he was like – the anti-war government nig… America was a source for division around the world, that what we were doing was wrong.
A signal has apparently gone out among the Bush family and faithful: Line up behind Romney!
Recently, former Gov. Jeb Bush, former Pres. George H.W. Bush, and his wife, Barbara, publicly endorsed the Mormon. The admiration is mutual, according to Reuters, since Romney is relying on members of Pres. George W. Bush’s administration to advise him on national security and foreign policy.
If the rest of the Republican party hoped for more in the way of a candidate this year, the Bush folks couldn’t be happier.
Romney has named 24 “special advisers” in national security and foreign policy, 16 of whom served in diplomatic or political roles under Bush. They include Michael Chertoff, the former homeland security chief, and Dan Senor, who was an administration spokesman in Iraq.
On judicial issues, Romney is advised by at least three top veterans of Bush’s Justice Department.
Romney’s education advisers include Margaret Spellings, who was secretary of education under Bush and a chief advocate for No Child Left Behind….
Privately, they believe that…a Romney presidency could have a look much like Bush’s presidency.
Romney’s campaign is “a restoration of the Bush establishment,” said former Bush speechwriter Matt Lattimer, who is not supporting Romney. Bush loyalists “all want to be back in power again, and Romney’s the best bet.”
Bill Press and Stephanie Miller, now on Current TV in the morning
If you’re up early and want political news and discussion on the teevee, but you can’t stomach MSNBC’s Fox News-lite Joe Scarborough show and you find C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” to be just too dry, there is a new alternative.
Current TV has begun running televised simulcasts of long-running radio chat shows hosted by Bill Press, weekday mornings at 6 a.m. Eastern/3 a.m. Pacific, and Stephanie Miller, from 9 a.m. Eastern/6 a.m. Pacific.
Sam Stein and Jason Cherkis at Huffington Post blame Rick Santorum’s failures in the 2012 Republican primaries on the fact that he learned nothing from the 18-point loss he suffered in his campaign for reelection to the Senate in 2006:
Interviews with more than a dozen former aides, adversaries, and close observers of the ‘06 contest, however, show that important lessons — about the need to stay on message, convey warmth to voters and appear less patronizing — haven’t been learned at all. The senator who stumbled so badly six years ago, many say, is the same candidate now locked in a hotly-contested race for the Republican presidential nomination: pugnacious and unscripted, talented at retail politics, but often his own worst enemy.
But this leaves out the fact that Rick Santorum never had a chance at becoming president because he is a narrow-minded jerk and a bully who is not intellectually or temperamentally suited for high office. It took Pennsylvania voters 12 years — the two terms he served in the Senate — to figure that out. A new Qunnipiac poll out yesterday finds that while Pres. Obama and Mitt Romney are virtually tied in Pennsylvania, 45 to 42 percent, the president beats native son Santorum, 48 to 41 percent.
Lynn Mulder, center, standing between her sons, Damien Skipper, left, and Ryan SkipperAs details have come to light about the murder of Trayvon Martin last month in Sanford, Fla., the questions being raised about police conduct in the case bring to mind the way police in Polk County, Fla., which is about 75 miles southeast of Sanford, handled the case of Ryan Skipper who was murdered there five years ago this month.
Except for the fact that both murders were senseless and tragic, and both crimes took down young men who should have had long and promising lives ahead of them, the circumstances around the murders diverge. Ryan was robbed, stabbed 20 times by a pair of crazed meth heads who left him to die on a dirt road near Wahneta. Trayvon was allegedly stalked inside the grounds of a gated community by an over-zealous and seemingly paranoiac community watch volunteer who shot him apparently during a struggle.
There are striking parallels, however. Both cases involved some sketchy police conduct, the murders both occurred in Central Florida and both victims were young and members of minority groups. Trayvon Martin was 17 and African-American, and Ryan Skipper was 25 and gay.
It took a month or so for the Martin case to gain attention, and now it has become a firestorm. In the Skipper case, the shock was immediate, but because of the way Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd characterized the case in his first news conference, interest in it in the national media fizzled over night.
Number of official “Romney Super Fan” T-shirts for $30 apiece Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign has sold, according to The Washington Post. By contrast, Rick Santorum has sold 3,000 of his $100 souvenir sweater vests.
Amount President Obama’s re-election campaign has spent so far, the AP reports. That’s about $3 million more than all his Republican challengers combined.
Trump’s renaming of Lake Ontario has created a litmus test —
Yield, and rename it Lake America, at Donald Trump’s behest,
Like Google and Apple, which already capitulated,
Changing the name just like Dear Leader stipulated,
But there’s one defiant holdout — the original mapping site, Mapquest.
“They’ve invested heavily in AI labs. They’ve invested heavily in data centers. So, the first family has a financial stake in this industry, and as a result, the president of the United States is compromised.”
— “Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) on Monday said President Trump will likely not heed calls from technology leaders to implement guardrails on the development of artificial intelligence because of his family’s investments in the industry,” NewsNation reports.
“Young Americans today have never witnessed Congress authorize a war, they’ve never seen a U.S. administration balance its books, they’ve never watched a well-funded and empowered state department operate, and they see only mistrust between allies. They assume the situation is normal. It is not. … The real cost of forgetting the pre-9/11 world is not a country that has changed, but one that no longer knows it could be different.”
“We’re working through some political issues in Israel. I think we agree with them on the end state. They just have a crazy election, and that makes them a little irrational in certain regards.”
— Jared Kushner, quoted by CBS News, on the lack of progress in Gaza.
Reuters has documented at least 470 targets of retribution under Trump’s leadership – from federal employees and prosecutors to universities and media outlets. The list illuminates the sweeping effort by the president and his administration to punish dissent and reshape the government.
“Iranian strikes have damaged or destroyed hundreds of buildings and other structures at bases across the Middle East, and caused about $184 million worth of damage at U.S. diplomatic facilities, according to a Pentagon watchdog report,” the Washington Post reports. “The inspector general’s report to Congress on Operation Epic Fury — the Trump administration’s name for the war with Iran — also details the extent of U.S. munitions shortages, in the first comprehensive public accounting of the war, which is now in its seventh month.”
Half (50%) of U.S. adults say they are either very concerned (23%) or somewhat concerned (27%) about the possibility that AI will cause the end of humanity, a new YouGov survey finds. Another 39% of Americans say they’re not very concerned (21%) or not at all concerned (17%) about an AI apocalypse, while 11% aren’t sure.
A majority of Americans ages 55 and up and a majority of Republicans of all ages support the use of Flock technologies in their communities, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted from August 28 to 31. Split by age, party, education level and gender, no other demographic group had a majority of support for the cameras. Among age groups, younger Americans were the least likely to support Flock, with only 21% of respondents aged 18 to 34 in favor of the technology.
About one-third (31%) of Americans strongly or somewhat approve of how the U.S. Supreme Court is handling its job, according to the latest Economist/YouGov Survey, while 53% disapprove. Almost all Democrats disapprove of the Supreme Court’s job handling (12% approve and 79% disapprove), while most Republicans approve (63% vs. 26%). Republicans who say they’re MAGA supporters overwhelmingly approve of the Supreme Court’s job handling (73% vs. 19%), while non-MAGA Republicans are more closely divided (49% vs. 36%).