Day: July 27, 2012

Salt Lake City Winter Olympics: Hey Mitt, You Didn’t Build That

Trish
SLFireworks
Did the government pay for the fireworks over the Mormon Temple during the 2002 opening ceremony?

We’ve been stupefied at the public relations disaster that has been Mitt Romney’s European vacation.

Especially amazing is that the candidate would want to draw attention to his role in the 2002 Winter Olympics, particularly in light of his effort to disavow the impact of infrastructure and public works in American business success (and if you don’t think it makes a difference, just ask a Somalian).

Romney used his role as CEO of the 2002 games, held in Mormon world headquarters, aka Salt Lake City, Utah, to jump-start his successful bid for governor of Massachusetts. But as this article in the Washington Examiner notes, the event wasn’t exactly a one-man show.

Romney: “No matter how well we did cutting costs and raising revenue, we couldn’t have games without the support of the federal government’

In Romney’s book “Turnaround: Crisis, Leadership and the Olympic Games,” Romney describes in a chapter entitled “Funds from the Feds” how he lobbied Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., for funding, saying he “would need hundreds of millions of dollars worth of federal support from a long list of departments.”

“No matter how well we did cutting costs and raising revenue, we couldn’t have games without the support of the federal government,” Romney wrote.

[…]

Carroll: Lesbians Can Be Attractive Black Married Women with Children, Too

Buck Banks

It is wrong and inexcusable to make a comment that hurts people, and that was not my intention.

— Florida Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll (R), apologizing “for offending lesbians when she said black women who engage in those relationships don’t look like her,” the AP reports. “Carroll, who was implying that black lesbians aren’t attractive, made the remarks more than a week ago when she was asked about court documents in which a fired staffer claims that she walked in on Carroll and a female travel aide in a compromising position. Carroll denies that claim.”

Republicans Spend More at Strip Clubs Than Dems During Conventions

Buck Banks

$150

Average amount Republicans spend at strip clubs during their national convention, according to The New York Times. Tampa’s “well-known strip clubs have joined the welcome wagon” for the Republican national convention. Angelina Spencer, the executive director of the Association of Club Executives, which serves as a trade association for strip clubs, said an informal survey of convention business in New York and Denver had determined that Republicans dropped more money at clubs, by far: “Hands down, it was Republicans. The average was $150 for Republicans and $50 for Democrats.”

Romney Called England ‘Just a Small Island’

Buck Banks

England [sic] is just a small island. Its roads and houses are small. With few exceptions, it doesn’t make things that people in the rest of the world want to buy. And if it hadn’t been separated from the continent by water, it almost certainly would have been lost to Hitler’s ambitions. Yet only two lifetimes ago, Britain ruled the largest and wealthiest empire in the history of humankind. Britain controlled a quarter of the earth’s land and a quarter of the earth’s population.

— Mitt Romney, from his book “No Apology.”