Tag: Republicans

This Smells Bad: Booker Took Campaign Money from Romney’s Company

Trish

For those trying to understand Newark Mayor Cory Booker’s tortured stance on whatever exactly he was trying to say that Pres. Obama should do in his campaign to defeat Mitt Romney, this sheds quite a bit of light.

Bain Capital was among Booker’s earliest and most generous backers

A ThinkProgress examination of New Jersey campaign finance records for Booker’s first run for Mayor — back in 2002 — suggests a possible reason for his unease with attacks on Bain Capital and venture capital. They were among his earliest and most generous backers.

Contributions to his 2002 campaign from venture capitalists, investors, and big Wall Street bankers brought him more than $115,000 for his 2002 campaign. Among those contributing to his campaign were John Connaughton ($2,000), Steve Pagliuca ($2,200), Jonathan Lavine ($1,000) — all of Bain Capital. While the forms are not totally clear, it appears the campaign raised less than $800,000 total, making this a significant percentage.

He and his slate also jointly raised funds for the “Booker Team for Newark” joint committee. They received more than $450,000 for the 2002 campaign from the sector — including a pair of $15,400 contributions from Bain Capital Managing Directors Joshua Bekenstein and Mark Nunnelly. It appears that for the initial campaign and runoff, the slate raised less than $4 million — again making this a sizable chunk.

In all — just in his first Mayoral run — Booker’s committees received more than $565,000 from the people he was defending. At least $36,000 of that came from folks at Romney’s old firm.

Was Crist Blackmailed for Placeholder Senate Seat?

Trish

There’s a lot more to this story that someday may be told, but I’m not ready yet to tell it.

Jim Greer, former head of the Republican Party of Florida, confirming reports that George LeMieux was not Gov. Charlie Crist’s first pick for the U.S. Senate set vacated by Mel Martinez in 2009. According to Greer, whose criminal trial over mismanagement of funds promises to expose skeletons in the closets of Sen. Marco Rubio, Crist, and other top Florida Republicans, LeMieux, “strategized how to get the interview and how to get the appointment, and that strategy included direct pressure on the governor.” Rumors that Crist is gay and has been protected by those around him have long surrounded the former governor, whose first choice for the seat was reportedly his lieutenant governor Jeff Kottkamp.

The Guy Whose Economic Advice We Are Least Likely to Take

Trish

This is roughly equivalent to John Edwards publishing a book on marital fidelity, or Ron Paul publishing a book on racial tolerance.

Pundit Henry Decker, in a column called, “Not A Joke: Bush To Publish Book On Economic Growth.” The book is part of an effort to rehabilitate the reputation of former Pres. George W. Bush, whose policies of mortgage and finance deregulation, and of cutting taxes at the top of the income scale while launching two wars plunged the country into recession.

Gay Republicans Defy Logic to Condemn Obama’s Gay Marriage Conversion

Buck Banks

From the You Can’t Please All the Gay Republicans Any of the Time Department comes this:

“That the president has chosen today, when LGBT Americans are mourning the passage of Amendment One, to finally speak up for marriage equality is offensive and callous,” said Log Cabin Republicans president R. Clarke Cooper in a statement. “Log Cabin Republicans appreciate that President Obama has finally come in line with leaders like Vice President Dick Cheney on this issue, but LGBT Americans are right to be angry that this calculated announcement comes too late to be of any use to the people of North Carolina, or any of the other states that have addressed this issue on his watch.”

“This administration has manipulated LGBT families for political gain as much as anybody, and after his campaign’s ridiculous contortions to deny support for marriage equality this week he does not deserve praise for an announcement that comes a day late and a dollar short.”

Hold on there R., that amendment passed in N.C. by more than a 60 percent margin. Do you really believe that if President Obama had endorsed gay marriage a day sooner and a dollar more it would have changed the minds of any of those benighted Tarheels? Really?

But wait, there’s more:

[…]

Swiss Miss? Bachmann is Sworn in as Swiss Citizen

Trish

It’s hard to imagine an American president gushing about the wonders of another country the way Switzerland’s newest citizen, U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, does in this video.

Were the United States to have a conflict with Switzerland, whose side is hypothetical Pres. Bachmann on?

Bachmann took the astounding initiative to become a Swiss citizen for what can only be described as fuzzy reasons. Her husband is Swiss. O.K. Yes, but why would someone who ran for president of the United States so recently that she still hasn’t paid off her campaign debts decide to be a citizen of a whole other country?

The move raises even more questions than being born in Hawaii (Obama) or Panama (McCain). For starters, to which country is her allegiance? Were the United States to have a conflict with Switzerland, whose side is hypothetical Pres. Bachmann on?

[…]

WWMD: What Would Mitt Romney Do… If He Were Someone Else?

Trish
manning
Romney: 'I would have done that'

Mitt Romney has famously said that “of course” he would have made the same decisions that led to the death of Osama bin Laden as Pres. Obama did. Obama, we will recall, elected to launch a Navy Seals attack without tipping off the Pakistani government because he had good intelligence on bin Laden’s whereabouts and no reason to trust the Pakistanis. Had the plan gone wrong, “of course,” we imagine Romney would have found much to fault.

We also know that in 2007, when he was running for president last, Romney echoed the sentiments of Pres. George W. Bush, who said he didn’t give a rat’s ass if we ever found bin Laden. Romney put it this way: “It’s not worth moving heaven and earth, spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person.”

Since Romney now says if he were president, he would have done exactly what Pres. Obama did, I think it’s a good time to list some of the other things that Romney would have done if he were the person who did them, which he is not.

New Republican Ad Just as Bad as the 2008 Version

Trish

The folks who tried to bring you John McCain apparently have learned nada in four years. They dusted off the “celebrity president” jibe that helped lose in 2008 to help lose again in 2012. See if this rings a bell:

What really bothers Republicans: Pres. Obama, a black man, is president. And he’s acting all black cool, like he’s not even ashamed of being black.

Did you catch that? Gas prices were soaring when George W. Bush was president. I thought that was all Obama’s fault. But more on that later.

Now take a look at the updated ad, which replaces the booming sound effects, foreboding music, and the frightened female narrator with a catchier tune and the guy from the super monster truck event going, “Oh yeah.”

[…]

Anybody Got a Teleprompter? Rubio Can’t Finish Speech Without His Crib Notes

Trish

Like all loyal Republicans, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) has noted that Pres. Obama uses a teleprompter when he delivers a speech. The racist implication is that Obama, a black man, could never be so ARTICULATE on his own, and only comes off looking smart because he’s reading his lines. In fact in 2010, Jr. Sen. Full-of-Himself was quoted in the New York Times ridiculing the president as, “the most articulate and talented teleprompter reader in America.”

Is it any wonder that PoliticalWire.com noted the contrast between Rubio then — all smart-ass know-it-all less-than-original-thinker — and now. Now he is staring straight down as reads his notes, which any Toastmaster participant would recognize as a huge no-no, even for amateurs, and then totally loses it when he can’t find the last page of his speech.

Next time, Wonder Boy, do us all a favor and do as modern speakers the world over — use a frickin’ teleprompter.

Penguin Bites Newt Gingrich

Trish
penguin
Move over honey badger. Penguin really don't care.

We imagine the penguin was just standing its ground.

Newt was nipped on the finger by a penguin during a private tour of the famous St. Louis zoo on Friday before he spoke to the National Rifle Association convention, zoo officials confirmed on Monday.

Gingrich, who is trailing in the Republican race for the White House and is under pressure to withdraw, passed unscathed through Big Cat Country and avoided contact with the crocodiles in the Herpetarium. But his visit took a turn when a Magellanic penguin pecked at the candidate’s hand.

“He was nipped on the finger by a penguin,” zoo public relations director Susan Gallagher said. “A Band-Aid took care of the injury.”

Mitt Said in January That Staying Home with Kids Wasn’t “Work”

Trish

It was only January — four short months ago– that former Gov. Mitt Romney applauded the idea of women abandoning their two-year-olds so they could experience “the dignity of work.” That’s work as compared to…what? Possibly, “never working a day in their lives?”

Mitt better warm up his Etch A Sketch for this one. The Mormon maladroit was caught on tape in New Hampshire, with Sen. John McCain looking doubtful, as Mitt upped his own bad bet by boasting that even if it cost the state more money to provide childcare, it was worth it to him to force women receiving assistance while he was governor of Massachusetts to get out of the house and…what was that word again? Oh yeah, WORK. You know, some number of days in their lives.

Obviously Mitt was pandering in this speech, which sets it apart not at all from every other speech he’s made. It’s always popular among the folks looking for support from Republicans and tea partiers to beat up on welfare recipients, dreaming up new and different ways to humiliate them (like drug testing) or run their lives for them, as Mitt was attempting to do here with his tough love paternalism. What they say doesn’t even have to make economic sense. Neither drug testing nor forcing needy mothers to put their children in daycare would save money. The point is to extract a pound of flesh along with that EBT card.

It’s speeches — and attitudes — like this that account for the gender gap in poll numbers that leave Republican candidates in the dust with women.