Saturday, September 22, 2012

Last Call

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Bon and I talk Mitt's taxes, Paul Ryan getting booed at the AARP convention, Queen Ann Romney and You People, plus the state of the Senate slipping away from the GOP and even putting the House into play.  Also, Todd Akin and Rand Paul are still losers.

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Palin Struggles For Spotlight, Romney In Denial

(CNN) - Sarah Palin became the latest conservative to lend her two cents to the Republican ticket on Saturday, urging Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan to give the country a "come to Jesus moment."
"With so much at stake in this election, both Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan should 'go rogue' and not hold back from telling the American people the true state of our economy and national security," Palin told the conservative "Weekly Standard" in a statement published Saturday.
Peggy Noonan, a conservative columnist for The Wall Street Journal, described Romney's campaign as "incompetent," and went on to stand by her comments in a Thursday column. Her word choice, she said, was "only because I was being polite. I really meant 'rolling calamity.' "
Romney defended himself in an interview broadcast by CBS News on Friday, saying his campaign "doesn't need a turnaround." 
Sarah Palin is clutching at straws, begging to stay relevant.  Exactly like we forecast four years ago.

Mittens is in denial and doubling down at every turn because he (mistakenly) believes he is above everyone, so ruling is his destiny.

I love to watch me a fine implosion on a Saturday night.

The GOP Plan, Revised Version

Elizabeth Drew at the NY Review Of Books blog absolutely gets why I'm still pushing like a madman for everyone to vote, even with Romney's apparent meltdown:  the GOP voter suppression and gerrymandering plan at the state level still means they can steal the election.  Drew nails this fear and reviews exactly how it can happen:

In a close election, the Republican plan could call into question the legitimacy of the next president. An election conducted on this basis could lead to turbulence on election day and possibly an extended period of lawsuits contesting the outcome in various states. Bush v. Gore would seem to have been a pleasant summer afternoon. The fact that their party’s nominee is currently stumbling about, his candidacy widely deemed to be in crisis mode, hasn’t lessened their determination to prevent as many Democratic supporters as they can from voting in November.

This national effort to tilt the 2012 election is being carried out on the pretext that the country’s voting system is under threat from widespread “voter fraud.” the fact that no significant fraud has been found doesn’t deter the people pursuing this plan. Myths are convenient in politics. Want to fix an election? No problem. Just make up a story that the other side is trying to rig the election—and meanwhile try to rig the election. (Jon Stewart recently concluded a searing segment about the imagined voter fraud by saying: “Next, leashes for leprechauns.”) 

I've been saying this since it became apparent that the GOP was trying to de-legitimize the Obama presidency since day one, since my own senator Mitch McConnell announced that the GOP's aim was to make President Obama a one-term president.  The "by any means necessary" was implied.  And 2010 put them in precisely the situation they needed to be in in order to carry out the plan: in charge of a number of state legislatures and governor's mansions in a redistricting year.

The Republicans have been making particularly strenuous efforts to tilt the outcomes—in most of the “swing states”: Florida, Ohio, Iowa, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin. The Republican leader of the House in Pennsylvania, previously considered a swing state, was careless enough to admit publicly that the state’s strict new Voter ID law would assure a Romney victory in November. In fact a state document submitted in court offered no evidence of voter fraud. On September 18, Pennsylvania’s supreme court sharply rebuked a lower court’s approval of the law, questioning whether the law could be fairly applied by the time of the election. This battle continues despite the fact that the Romney campaign in mid-September suspended its efforts in Pennsylvania because polls show that Obama was substantially ahead. Even if the state’s electoral votes are not in question the outcome could still decide whether a great many people will be allowed to vote in November, and could also affect the popular vote.

Eight states have already passed Voter ID laws—requiring a state-approved document with a photograph in order to register or vote, a form of identification that an estimated 11 percent or over 21 million of American citizens do not possess. But these laws are just part of an array of restrictions adopted to keep Democrats from voting. Some use other means to make registration difficult, or put strict limits on the number of days before the election that votes can be cast , or cut back the hours that polling places can stay open. 

And news now that Ohio Republicans plan to implement strict voter ID laws in 2013 just brings all that home.  The GOP plan to win elections hinges on limiting the number of people who are allowed to vote through disenfranchisement of millions of minorities, elderly, the working poor, and students.  If these laws stand, they will be red for another generation...and remember that Republicans are now on record as wanting to limit voting to as few people as possible.

This is the real thrust of the 47% attack.

How far is it to go from saying "Boy, these moochers and looters don't pay any income taxes" to "And why should they be allowed to vote?"  Not very, especially when the groups you're trying to blame for America's economic woes are the same ones you're blaming for electing the people who you say "aided and abetted" in those woes.

If you don't see the 47% as Americans, as your fellow citizens, or even as fellow humans, why would you resist the effort to disenfranchise them, especially when it means your vote becomes more powerful as a result?  The last gasp of white privilege is a powerful siren song to resist, something that could give the GOP the legislative and executive branch power they need to control the judicial...and then the game is really over.

If you think your vote is worthless now, sit out this election and the next few and see what happens.  2010 was just a taste.


Olympic-Class Stupidity

Walking anti-feminist cartoon Phyllis Schlafly, desperately trying to make Chickens In Favor Of McNuggets look sane, is now claiming that 40 years of Title IX legislation making education and sports programs more equal has somehow destroyed the US men's national Olympic team.  Right Wing Watch reports:

One of the main stories to come out of the 2012 London Olympics was the outright dominance of American female athletes, another sign of the success of the Title IX, which barred discrimination between men’s and women’s educational programs and is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. But Title IX has always provoked the ire of Phyllis Schlafly and the Eagle Forum. In a radio alert today, Schlafly claims Title IX in fact “weakened our competitiveness” at the Olympics.

The US won 104 medals in London (58 for women and 45 for men), which Schlafly believes shows that male athletes suffered a severe injustice. “Feminist-imposed gender quotas hurt us at the Olympics in events which our Nation once dominated,” Schlafly claims, “While our Nation won the most medals for the fifth consecutive Summer Olympics, many of our medals were in contests of dubious value like beach volleyball. Title IX quotas have hurt our competitiveness in sports that are most helpful to the development of our young men.” Schlafly points to the US failure to win medals in wrestling as a sign of Title IX’s allegedly disastrous impact; however, throughout Olympic history the US has never dominated wrestling in the Olympics” And while Schlafly believes that the policy wreaked havoc on male collegiate sports, female athletes and women’s teams still receive significantly less financial support compared to their male peers.

The woman is completely bonkers in every respect.  Only wingnut dipsticks could take "The US is dominating at the Olympics" and turn it into "stupid women!" and "BEACH VOLLEYBALL ISN'T A SPORT."

I'm betting we wouldn't be hearing complaint number one out of her during a Republican administration, right?

Please.  Women making the argument that women are responsible for the decline of men in the patriarchy is like grapes complaining that the grapes are responsible for the decline of wine sales among vintners.  The woman doth protest too much, methinks.

Perhaps Phyllis thinks all men are secretly Jets QB Tim Tebow, who wants a woman who looks good,  with "a servant's heart" and who has to be as awesome as his mom is.  Even better, Phyllis seems to think that it's a woman's duty to be attracted to Tim Tebow precisely because of this.

Oy.



Amanda Bynes Lost Her Damn Mind

Amanda Bynes has just been charged with driving on a suspended license, stemming from her traffic stop last weekend when her car was impounded ... TMZ has learned.

As we reported, Bynes was pulled over last Sunday outside the Burbank Airport. When cops ran her license, they discovered it was suspended. The car was impounded and Bynes got a ticket for driving on a suspended license.  

Bynes has been charged with TWO COUNTS of driving with a suspended license.  The other incident also occurred at Burbank Airport.  The two incidents occurred an hour-and-a-half apart.
TMZ has run constant coverage.  Bynes has had multiple car boo-boos, driven while smoking pot on a suspended license, driven aimlessly around getting high, had to have her mother come talk some sense into her, and still this is what we get.

Seriously, if you're so out of it you are removed from a yoga class, you got issues, girl.  Take a rest, sober up, but above all stop driving before you kill someone.

When Has Romney Had A Good Week?

By any objective measure, Mitt Romney has had now a couple months of bad weeks on the campaign trail.  It's literally a new thing every week it seems like.  He got a mild boost (1-2 points) from picking Paul Ryan, and it's been straight downhill ever since.

But this week has been a complete disaster every day.  It's been daily now that the mendacity has come back to bite the guy in the ass.  Monday's campaign epitaths and the now infamous MoJo video and the Worst press Conference Ever at 10 PM, Tuesday was 47 percent day all day, Wednesday was the backfired attack on the President over the "debunked" MoJo video and the brownface incident on Univision, Thursday was Ann Romney's contemptible "This is hard" comment, and Friday was Paul Ryan getting booed at the AARP convention and the tax return info dump.  It's been a disaster.

What will next week bring?  My guess is "nothing good".  Romney and Ryan will be in Ohio will President Obama will be in New York for the UN General Assembly meeting.

We'll see how it shakes out.  But now people are talking about the Senate slipping away from the GOP and the story's starting to move to what kind of chances the Dems have in taking back the House, a far cry from just six weeks ago when nobody seriously thought the Dems were going to keep either.

And the reality is the GOP is still a Presidential election and 3 senate pickups from controlling the government.  That's something we cannot overlook.

Keep that in mind:  as bad as it's been for Romney, we've still got a long way to go in Congress.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!