Tag: Campaign 2012

Dept. of Irony: GOP Flip-Flop on the Individual Mandate in 2009 Could Cost Them the Presidency in 2012

Jon Ponder

In the video clip above from the Republican presidential debate at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, Calif., in June 2008, Mitt Romney defends the individual mandate as a right-wing solution to universal health care:

In 2009, the GOP propaganda machine erased the mandate’s conservative roots from the national memory banks and redefined it in the public mind as a tool of jack-booted, Kenyan socialism.

ROMNEY: [So we in Massachusetts] said: No more free riders. It was like bringing “workfare” to welfare. We said: If you can afford insurance, then either have the insurance or get a health savings account. Pay your own way, but no more free ride.

And that was what the mandate did. It said, you have got to come with either the insurance or a health savings account or the like.

I think it’s the conservative approach, to make sure that people who can afford care are getting it at their expense, not at the expense of the taxpayers and government. That I consider to be a step towards socialism.

Republicans were not only for the individual mandate before they were against it, they invented it in the 1990s. Now, of course, Romney’s enacting the mandate statewide when he was governor of Massachusetts is a contributing factor to his fading prospects in the 2012 campaign.

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Prophetess Michele Bachmann: God Sent Earthquake, Hurricane to Smite ‘Politicians’ Because of Govt Spending

Jon Ponder

I don’t know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We’ve had an earthquake; we’ve had a hurricane. He said, “Are you going to start listening to me here?” Listen to the American people because the American people are roaring right now. They know government is on a morbid obesity diet and we’ve got to rein in the spending.

– Republican politician Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, campaigning at a megachurch in Florida, making the sort of ridiculous assertion that would have forced a serious presidential contender out of the race just a few years ago.

GOP Florida Sen. Rubio: Social Security ‘Weakened Us As a People’

Jon Ponder

art-assault-floridaPart of the series, Assault on Florida.Via Digby:

RUBIO: These programs actually weakened us as a people. You see, almost forever, it was institutions in society that assumed the role of taking care of one another. If someone was sick in your family, you took care of them. If a neighbor met misfortune, you took care of them. You saved for your retirement and your future because you had to. We took these things upon ourselves in our communities, our families, and our homes, and our churches and our synagogues. But all that changed when the government began to assume those responsibilities. All of a sudden, for an increasing number of people in our nation, it was no longer necessary to worry about saving for security because that was the government’s job.

Diby’s take:

Isn’t that nice? If only we could go back to the days of Ward and June Cleaver when everyone took care of each other and didn’t need things like money or health insurance when they got old and sick and couldn’t work. Back in the good old days everyone took care of the poor and there was no suffering or pain. It was one big happy family. Except, of course, that’s just crap.

Think Progress reports:

[P]rior to Medicare’s enactment in 1965, “about one-half of America’s seniors did not have hospital insurance,” “more than one in four elderly were estimated to go without medical care due to cost concerns,” and one in three seniors were living in poverty. Today, nearly all seniors have access to affordable health care and only about 14 percent of seniors are below the poverty line.

Study: Tea Party Is Least Popular Group

Jon Ponder
Source: RMS/MSNBC, via David E. Campbell and Robert D. Putnam
Source: David E. Campbell and Robert D. Putnam via RMS/MSNBC

Over the past week or so, there has been considerable coverage of the results of new study on the tea party that tracked the rise of the “movement” from 2006.

The tea party is really nothing more than the same racist social conservatives who have been seeking dominion over American politics since the Reagan era.

The first news that came out of the study, which was introduced by its authors — David E. Campbell, an associate professor of political science at Notre Dame, and Robert D. Putnam, a professor of public policy at Harvard, who are also the co-authors of the book, “American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us” — in a New York Times’ piece titled, “Crashing the Tea Party,” was that they found yet more evidence that the most durable myth about the phenomenon — that it is a grassroots uprising of what Profs. Campbell and Putnam called “nonpartisan political neophytes” — is patently false.

To the contrary, their research underscored what many observers have long-suspected — that the tea party is really nothing more than the same racist social conservatives who have been seeking dominion over American politics since the Reagan era.

But there was another finding from the study that is even more damning of the fake grassroots tea party phenomenon — a factor that makes the tea party’s total domination over Republican Party leaders in Congress even more puzzling:

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The Line: Measuring the Drapes for Romney’s Western White House

Jon Ponder
Random scenes of winter in La Jolla
  • New York Times, Aug. 9, 1999: Gov. George W. Bush, who has his eye on one new house in Washington, went to settlement today on another west of Waco. “I am pleased to own this beautiful piece of land in Central Texas,” said Mr. Bush, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination. Mr. Bush declined to disclose details of the purchase of the property, an 1,550-acre ranch … The settlement confirmed weeks of rumors that Mr. Bush was planning to set up a retreat here.
  • La Jolla Light, Aug. 18, 2011: Bob Schuman, a La Jolla-based political consultant who has made a long and successful career out of being the man behind the candidate, has found himself squarely in the media spotlight recently. Schuman, who lives and works in La Jolla, has made headlines by launching Americans for Rick Perry, a national, independent grassroots campaign to draft the Texas governor into the presidential race. He was successful — Perry announced his intention to seek the Republican nomination over the weekend.
  • La Jolla Light, Aug. 22, 2011: Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is increasing his presence in San Diego, with plans to raze his 3,000-square-foot home in La Jolla to make way for an 11,000-square-foot house, according to documents filed with the city. The former Massachusetts governor … paid $12 million for the three bedroom, oceanfront house built in 1936 at 311 Dunemere Drive on May 30, 2008…
  • New York Times, Aug. 22, 2011: A [Romney] campaign official confirmed the report, noting, “Construction will not begin until the permits have been obtained and the campaign is finished.” The official also explained that the large renovation is family-motivated.
  • Pricey real estate: La Jolla had the highest home prices in the nation in 2008 and 2009, the average price for such a home in La Jolla was reported as US $1.842 million in 2008 and US $2.125 million in 2009.
  • Party Registration in La Jolla: La Jolla is in California’s Senate 39th District, in which voter registration is 42.6 percent Democratic, 27.9 percent Republican adn 24.7 percent Decline to State.
  • Jess Durfee, chairman of the San Diego County Democratic Party: Let’s hope [Romney] hires a contractor that provides union-equivalent wages and helps to stimulate the local economy. He also could register to vote here and help out the Republicans, whose numbers are dwindling.

House Republicans Finally Found Taxes They Are Eager to Raise

Jon Ponder

Charles Babbington, Associated Press:

News flash: Congressional Republicans want to raise your taxes. Impossible, right? GOP lawmakers are so virulently anti-tax, surely they will fight to prevent a payroll tax increase on virtually every wage-earner starting Jan. 1, right?

Apparently not.

Many of the same Republicans who fought hammer-and-tong to keep the George W. Bush-era income tax cuts from expiring on schedule are now saying a different “temporary” tax cut should end as planned. By their own definition, that amounts to a tax increase.

The tax break extension they oppose is sought by President Barack Obama. Unlike proposed changes in the income tax, this policy helps the 46 percent of all Americans who owe no federal income taxes but who pay a “payroll tax” on practically every dime they earn.

More evidence, if any was needed, that Republicans are out to sabotage the economy, even if it hurts their constituents, in order to ensure the election of Mitt Romney or Rick Perry next year.

Next up: Complete and utter silence from Republican Party boss Grover Norquist when these House Republicans vote en masse against extending these tax cuts, thus breaking their oath to him that they would never vote for a tax increase in any shape or fashion.

Anti-Perry Ad Digs for Sex Dirt

Buck Banks

Have you ever had sex with Rick Perry? Are you a stripper, an escort, or just a ‘young hottie’ impressed by an arrogant, entitled governor of Texas? … we will help you publicize your direct dealings with a Christian-buzzwords-spouting, ‘family values’ hypocrite and fraud.

— A Texas supporter of Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), who has taken out a full-page ad in an Austin alternative weekly newspaper publicly seeking women (or men) who have slept with Texas Gov. Rick Perry, reported by Salon.