Year: 2012
Super PACs Receive Untraceable Funds
6 of 10
Top super PACs active in the 2012 elections have received money from untraceable sources, including nonprofits and shell corporations, according to Roll Call. “A third source of untraceable donations was money transfers from one super PAC to another … in cases where the super PAC making the contribution had itself received funding from one or more nonprofits.”
Romney Accuses Opponents of Acting Like Democrats
When Republicans act like Democrats, they lose. And in Newt Gingrich’s case he had to resign. In Rick Santorum’s case, he lost by the biggest margin of any Senate incumbent since 1980.
— Mitt Romney, quoted by NBC News.
Me Me Mimi
The press ignored it back in the day
Whenever the president had a roll in the hay.
But Mimi Alford’s assertions
About her amorous exertions
Boil down to, “I slept with JFK.”
Edwards Campaign Still Spending Four Years Later
$2.1 million
Amount John Edwards owes taxpayers in public matching funds improperly received after he dropped his 2008 run for the White House, the AP reports. “Edwards’ hopes for the Democratic presidential nomination imploded in a sex scandal four years ago that left him facing criminal charges. But reports filed last week show his 2008 primary campaign spent $836,712 in 2011 on airfare, hotel rooms, cell phones and other expenses.”
For Obama, No Re-Election Means No Positive Legacy
If Barack Obama loses this fall, he will forever seem a disappointment: a symbolically important but accidental figure who raised hopes he could not fulfill and met difficulties he did not know how to surmount. He meant to show the unity of America but only underscored its division. As a candidate, he symbolized transformation; in office, he applied incrementalism and demonstrated the limits of change. His most important achievement, helping forestall a second Great Depression, will be taken for granted or discounted in the dismay about the economic problems he did not solve. His main legislative accomplishment, the health-care bill, may well be overturned; his effect on America’s international standing will pass; his talk about bridging the partisan divide will seem one more sign of his fatal naïveté.
If he is reelected, he will have a chance to solidify what he has accomplished and, more important, build on what he has learned. All of this is additional motivation, as if he needed any, for him to drive for reelection; none of it makes him any more palatable to those who oppose him and his goals.
— James Fallows, writing in The Atlantic.
The Myth of Mitt’s Moderateness
So much for the arguments by independents that Mitt Romney is a moderate.
Mitt is not a moderate, he’s not a liberal, he’s not a conservative. He’s a rich guy doing whatever he thinks he needs to do to claim the power that rich guys feel entitled to.
Mitt is not a moderate, he’s not a liberal, he’s not a conservative. He’s a rich guy doing whatever he thinks he needs to do to claim the power that rich guys feel entitled to. And if that means saying one thing to these people and the opposite to others, so be it.
Addicting Info on Romney’s reaction to the decision by an appeals court that California’s Proposition 8, which outlawed same-sex marriage in the state, is unconstitutional:
Not long after the ruling was handed down, Mitt Romney, eager to pander to ultra conservative anti-gay hate groups, made a statement, condemning the decision.
[Romney’s statement begins] “Today, unelected judges cast aside the will of the people of California who voted to protect traditional marriage. This decision does not end this fight, and I expect it to go to the Supreme Court. I believe marriage is between a man and a woman and, as president, I will protect traditional marriage and appoint judges who interpret the Constitution as it is written and not according to their own politics and prejudices.” [Romney’s statement ends]
The problem with Mitt’s statement is that the judges did indeed correctly interpret the Constitution. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say anything about marriage. It does not say that straight couples are the only ones who can marry, nor does it say that homosexuals can’t get married. What the Constitution does say is that everyone has the right to personal liberty, privacy, and equality under the law. Laws that ban consenting adults from marrying violates the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses of the Constitution. In other words, the judges made the right call. So basically, Romney is promising to appoint judges who will consistently misinterpret the Constitution, which is similar to what Newt Gingrich has promised to do.
Obama’s Approval Rating Edges Up
38%
President Obama’s approval rating on the economy is far from robust, but has perked up from 30% in November and 26% last summer, according to Gallup. Despite these gains, Obama continues to rate worse on economic issues than on foreign policy issues.
Congress’ Approval Hits All-Time Low
10%
Of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing — a record-low and down from 13% in January and the previous low of 11%, recorded in December 2011.
Gaffe-a-Day Romney Strikes Again
How ridiculous does your campaign pandering seem when even Jimmy Kimmel challenges your claims of American exceptionalism?
