Podcast Versus The Stupid!

Episode 11, Shoulda Tipped The Waiter, is up.  Bon and I talk about Mitt Romney's latest crash and burn from the secret tape from his May Florida fundraiser and what it means to be part of the 47%.

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Always tip your waiters, folks.

Paul, A Little Presidenting Music If You Would

President Obama was on the Late Show with Dave Letterman on Tuesday, talking about his campaign and of course, Mitt Romney's really awful week.  Here's the video, courtesy of Raw Story.

Barack Obama warned Tuesday his Republican foe Mitt Romney was “writing off a big chunk of the country” following his remark that 47 percent of Americans were “victims” and therefore backed the president.

Obama offered his first response to Romney’s remarks, made in a secretly recorded meeting with rich donors, at a “Late Show with David Letterman” taping in New York on Tuesday, 50 days before the presidential election.

“One of the things I learned as president is you represent the entire country. If you want to be president, you have to work for everyone,” Obama said.

“What people want to know though is you’re not writing off a big chunk of the country because the way our democracy works … this is a big country.

“When I won in 2008, 47 percent of the American people voted for John McCain,” Obama said.

“They didn’t vote for me and what I said on election night was: ?Even though you didn’t vote for me, I hear your voices, and I’m going to work as hard as I can to be your president.’”

“There are not a lot of people out there who think they’re victims,” Obama said.

“There are not a lot of people who think they’re entitled to something.”

It was a pretty good appearance by the President, a good reminder that he's a father and husband as well as President of the United States.  Oh, and he got in a couple of good digs, give it a watch.

Pictures Say More Than Words Ever Could

Go ahead.  Click here and look at twenty-two pictures that tell an amazing story.  While you watch, keep in mind that Romney didn't consider this guy important enough to thank.  People like this brave man didn't rate a side mention on his laundry list.

He's also ready to cut his pay and benefits, even though Romney has never sacrificed a damn thing for this country.

Please look, and I hope you are as touched as I was.  I have no way to verify the photos, but if they are somehow retouched, this story has played out enough times that we know it happens.  Far too often.

Hero Kid Stops Kidnapping

QUESNEL, B.C. - A quick-thinking teenaged girl stopped an elderly woman from trying to abduct a seven-year-old boy in British Columbia's Cariboo region, say police.

RCMP Const. Krista Vrolyk said the boy was with other youth and a parent in Spirit Square in the downtown core of Quesnel, 672 kilometres north of Vancouver, when the incident occurred just before 10 p.m. Thursday.

The woman tried to shake the boy's hand, but grabbed him by the wrist and pull him towards a nearby pickup truck, said Vrolyk.

That's when the teenaged girl, the boy's 13-year-old friend, took action.

"It just so happened that the 13-year-old was a little bit closer and kind of quick to act," said Vrolyk.

She said the girl, who is of slight stature and thin, physically pulled the boy away from the woman.

"This seems to be an isolated incident with this female," she said, adding that police are investigating her motive.

Thanks to that little girl, we'll never know what would have happened.  I admit I'm curious as to what caused this to come about, but I'll trade that for relief any day, every time.

Good for you, kid.  

Strike? Out.

Chicago kids are back in school today as the Chicago Teachers Union has voted to suspend the strike and finish hashing out their deal with Mayor Rahmbo.

Chicago Teachers Union delegates voted on Tuesday to suspend their strike, several delegates said as they departed a meeting of union leaders.

The decision ends a confrontation with Mayor Rahm Emanuel over reform of the third largest U.S. school district.

The strike of 29,000 teachers and support staff at Chicago Public Schools kept 350,000 kindergarten, elementary and high school students out of class for seven school days.

"We are going back. All of our teachers are happy to be going back," said Jay Rehak, an English teacher at Whitney Young high school as he departed the closed meeting.

And all without a word from President Obama, who was politically very wise not to get involved.  Pretty much everyone wins in this scenario in fact except for Rahmbo:  POTUS, teachers, kids, schools, parents...but not the Mayor.  No way.

Rahm in fact looks like a complete ass over this, especially in light of Romney's 47% comments.  We'll see, but he's persona non grata as far as I'm concerned.

What Mitt Really Thinks About Americans, Part 2

It's somewhat less juicy than yesterday's outright dismissal of 47% of the electorate as parasitic moochers, unless you thought that Romney gave a damn about the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Today, the role of the 47% will be played by the people of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Mother Jones has obtained video of Romney at this intimate dinner and has confirmed its authenticity. The event was held at the home of controversial private equity manager Marc Leder in Boca Raton, Florida, with tickets costing $50,000 a plate. During the freewheeling conversation, a donor asked Romney how the "Palestinian problem" can be solved. Romney immediately launched into a detailed reply, asserting that the Palestinians have "no interest whatsoever in establishing peace, and that the pathway to peace is almost unthinkable to accomplish." Romney spoke of "the Palestinians" as a united bloc of one mindset, and he said: "I look at the Palestinians not wanting to see peace anyway, for political purposes, committed to the destruction and elimination of Israel, and these thorny issues, and I say there's just no way."

Oh, it gets worse.

These are problems—these are very hard to solve, all right? And I look at the Palestinians not wanting to see peace anyway, for political purposes, committed to the destruction and elimination of Israel, and these thorny issues, and I say, "There's just no way." And so what you do is you say, "You move things along the best way you can." You hope for some degree of stability, but you recognize that this is going to remain an unsolved problem. We live with that in China and Taiwan. All right, we have a potentially volatile situation but we sort of live with it, and we kick the ball down the field and hope that ultimately, somehow, something will happen and resolve it. We don't go to war to try and resolve it imminently. On the other hand, I got a call from a former secretary of state. I won't mention which one it was, but this individual said to me, you know, I think there's a prospect for a settlement between the Palestinians and the Israelis after the Palestinian elections. I said, "Really?" And, you know, his answer was, "Yes, I think there's some prospect." And I didn't delve into it.

Naah, because delving into it would require decision-making and leadership. Better to kick the ball down field. Ironically, Romney then goes on to attack the President for what he says is a lack of leadership and for kicking the ball down the field on Iran.

The president's foreign policy, in my opinion, is formed in part by a perception he has that his magnetism, and his charm, and his persuasiveness is so compelling that he can sit down with people like Putin and Chávez and Ahmadinejad, and that they'll find that we're such wonderful people that they'll go on with us, and they'll stop doing bad things. And it's an extraordinarily naive perception.

Mr. Kick The Ball Down Field here, Captain Leadership himself, thinks actually talking to people is naive. Wow, here's a guy who just fills me with hope. More specifics here in this video so far on Romney policy than months of his campaign rhetoric, too. He really wasn't kidding when he said specifics of his policy positions would make it harder to negotiate later on. Hats off to you David Corn, and to James Carter IV, the former President's grandson, for putting this together. I hope there's even more. We get to watch Romney implode in real time now.

StupidiNews!

• A joint operation by the US, UK, and Colombia has caught alleged crime boss and drug lord Daniel "El Loco" Barrera in Venezuela.
• Mexican police and army units are combing the border with Texas, looking for 131 convicts in a mass prison break possibly organized by the infamous Zetas drug cartel.
• As final details are worked out over the planned Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement, US manufacturers are worried about the possible loss of thousands of jobs.
• Bloomberg News reports 326 billion euros have been withdrawn from banks in the PIGS nations, threatening the stability of the common currency. 
• Millions of Virgin Mobile USA customers could find themselves at risk of brute force crackers as account passwords are limited to just six digits.

Last Call

Pennsylvania's state Supreme Court made it all but clear that the voter ID law pushed by Republicans is a serious attempt to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters in the state, and that the law is living on borrowed time as the court sent the law back to a lower court demanding that the judge who okayed the mess take a second look. Immediately.  If not sooner.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ordered a lower court on Tuesday to reconsider its decision upholding a new state voter ID law, saying it should be blocked if voters would be shut out this Election Day by hurdles to obtaining ID cards.

The court battle over the law passed last March by the Republican-led legislature in Pennsylvania, considered a key swing state in the upcoming presidential election, is being watched closely on both local and national levels.

The Supreme Court's ruling sends the issue back to Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson, who must reconsider his earlier decision to allow the law to go forward. He is due to rule by Oct 2.

Supporters of the voter ID law say it is aimed at ensuring that only those legally eligible to vote cast ballots. Critics say it is designed to keep minority voters, who typically vote Democratic, away from the polls.

The law mandates that all voters show either a state driver's license, government employee ID or a state non-driver ID card to vote, including in the November 6 presidential election. Similar legal battles are under way in Texas and South Carolina.

Shorter PA Supreme Court:  "You might want to reconsider that whole constitutional thing."   Needless to say, if Judge Simpson doesn't stick a fork in this thing, the PA Supremes appear to be making the very loud argument that they will block this law cold if it comes back without an injunction.

It's good news.  Hopefully this law will be dead within a couple of weeks.

Indefensible Me

Not only is the Romney campaign imploding in real time, Romney's surrogates and proxies are coming apart at the seams as well.  Take loudmouth GOP anti-Muslim bigot Rep. Peter King of New York losing his shpadoinkle on CNN versus Soledad O'Brien.

O’BRIEN: Never once in that speech, as you know, which I have the speech right here. that was — he never once used the word “apology.” He never once said “I’m sorry.”

KING: Didn’t have to. The logical — any logical reading of that speech or the speech he gave in France where he basically said that the United States can be too aggressive. [...]

O’BRIEN: Everybody keeps talking about this apology tour and apologies from the President. I’m trying to find the words ‘I’m sorry, I apologize’ in any of those speeches. Which I have the text of all those speeches in front of me. None of those speeches at all, if you go to factcheck.org which we check in a lot, they all say the same thing. They fact check this and they say this whole theory of apologies…

KING: I don’t care what fact check says.

O’BRIEN: There are fact checks. You may not care, but they’re a fact checker.

KING: No. Soledad. Any commonsense interpretation of those speeches, the president’s apologizing for the American position. That’s the apology tour. That’s the way it’s interpreted in the Middle East. If I go over and say that the U.S. has violated its principles, that the United States has not shown respect for islam, that’s an apology. How else can it be interpreted? 

Like King and by extension Romney doesn't care about the truth in the least.  Which is clearly the case here.

"I don't care what fact check says" is the Romney motto, through and through.  Now you people need to shut up and give him your money already.

The Men Who Knew Too Little

The same day the Romney campaign announced an emphasis on "specifics", Paul Ryan was telling voters that specifics now would affect their ability to compromise with Democrats after the are elected,  and the Romney camp of course wouldn't actually specifically name any of those specifics they are trying to emphasize.

Mitt Romney’s campaign promised to unveil more specifics on Romney’s campaign proposals during a conference call with reporters Monday, pushing back on bipartisan criticism that the Republican has yet to say clearly what he’d actually do in office.

But the campaign’s pledge for specifics was lacking new specifics itself — campaign officials instead listed a litany of policy proposals Romney’s already discussed on the campaign trail.


“We are looking forward to this new emphasis and renewed emphasis on why it is electing Gov. Romney and Rep. Ryan would result in better, higher take-home pay an more jobs in our economy,” Romney adviser Ed Gillespie said on the call. He promised new specifics will come in “events and remarks and background papers, surrogate efforts and paid advertising.”

Gillespie pointed to Romney’s scheduled speech at the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Monday as evidence of the new focus on specific policy details. In excerpts from the speech, Romney points to several broad policy plans he’s outlined before.

“I will send a number of programs that have been growing uncontrollably fast back to the states where I will limit their funding to the rate of inflation, or in the case of Medicaid, to inflation plus one percent,” he says in the remarks. “I will look to sharply increase the productivity of Washington by reducing federal government employment by 10 percent through attrition, by combining agencies and departments to reduce overhead, and by linking government compensation with that of the private sector. These things combined will reduce spending by $500 billion a year by the end of my first term.”

Which of course isn't specific at all.

Specifically, this is the worst campaign I've ever seen.  "I will do some stuff and we'll save have a trillion dollars a year" is not a specific set of policies, it's specifically bullcrap.

They're not even trying anymore.

Calling All Idiots

Rick Santorum, the gift that just keeps on giving, has now stated that the elite smart folks will never be on the Republican side.

So, for all the rest of you guys... great job!

Rick Santorum, the former presidential candidate, had a message for attendees of theValues Voter Summit on Saturday.

"We will never have the media on our side, ever, in this country," Santorum said, according to BuzzFeed and a video posted by Right Wing Watch, available above. "We will never have the elite, smart people on our side, because they believe they should have the power to tell you what to do."

It made me laugh out loud.  So if you're not intelligent, welcome aboard!

Springfield Paper Returns To The People

As many of you know, I am a harsh critic of the News-Leader.  I feel they went from a local paper to an AP repeater, merely copying and pasting their way through their duty to educate the people of Springfield.  They have been lazy about telling the stories that matter, ones that don't make it to the AP desk.

They are finally starting to turn that around.

In an exciting new series, they are highlighting the struggles of area families.  These families can be from anywhere, and in fact at least one of them is from elsewhere, they landed in Springfield because that's where their car ran out of gas.

It's a good reminder at a time when politicians are talking about the future of the country.  We have Obama standing for empowerment, education and responsibility, an we have Mitt Romney, who talks about business priorities and success built on the backs of the common class.

This is about the people who have the most at stake in the future, because theirs isn't secure.  It's the story of people who slip between the cracks, and have the most to lose.  Or as I see them, the people Obama cares for while Romney shrugs and pays attention to his laundry list of important things.

Spend some time with Springfield’s struggling families and you will meet:

• A family living in a garage.

• A mother who went back to school only to have the economy turn against her.

• The mother of three young children who landed in a homeless shelter after her marriage fell apart.

• A married couple who gave up life as over-the-road truckers to seek financial stability for their young children.

• A young couple who want more than “low things” for their daughter.

Comparing Romney To Obama

A very intelligently written article by William Saletan compares Obama to Romney when it comes to their vision for the people, and of the people.

Mitt Romney has been caught on camera telling his donors that nearly 50 percent of Americans are dependent on government, that we’ll never take responsibility for our lives, and that it isn’t his job to worry about us.

It’s hard to salvage a presidential candidacy after saying something like that. But Romney’s supporters are doing their best. His gaffe, theyargue, is no worse than what Barack Obama oncetold his donors about voters who defend guns and religion.

So let’s compare the two episodes. Let’s see what they tell us about Romney and Obama.

He then breaks down one isolated incident regarding Obama's remarks about skepticism and conservatives. He does the same thing for the recent Romney gaffe, taking this one isolated incident and comparing what it tells us about the candidates and how they view us.

I wish he would do it over their careers, but Obama's occasional slip or slight can't hold up to Romney's offensive verbal diarrhea.  I guess this will have to do.

Portable, Mobile Minefields...Yeah, That's It

Texas Republican Michael McCaul demands we protect our diplomats, presumably with more than the thousands of Diplomatic Security Service agents we have assigned to the State Department now.  Maybe with trained attack bees or ninjas, or ninja bees, or ninjas that have throwing stars, and the throwing stars shoot bees.  That would be pretty awesome.  Anyway, much like the Bengals, we need more defense, and heads have to roll, and Justice And Freedom and stuff.

The cornerstone of diplomacy between civilized nations is the expectation that diplomats will be afforded safe haven in their own sovereign compounds, which are considered an extension of American soil. When this most basic of international principles is breached in a barbaric homicidal assault, it is time for a change in our strategy. The enemies of freedom will only be emboldened if we stand by and do nothing or simply hope that next time they won’t be successful.

That is why I am calling for a suspension of aid to Egypt and Libya until their leaders not only condemn the action of the thugs who killed Ambassador Stevens and the three Americans serving with him, but also until they can ensure the safety and security of our diplomats in their countries. This is not only common sense, it is essential. We give Egypt $1.5 billion a year and Libya $20 million. What’s more, our diplomats serving abroad risk life and limb to bring freedom to places that never had it. American diplomacy, the very thing that was threatened with the murder of our ambassador, is in part responsible for helping ensure that the citizens of Libya and Egypt have governments not born of coups or appointments, but of their choosing.     

Right.  Because cutting off foreign aid to Egypt and Libya will make them devote more resources to protect the areas around our diplomatic compounds, after all the Egyptian and Libyan governments are totally flush with cash right now to protect Americans.  Plus, collective punishment for an entire country always works, just ask the Palestinians.

Or maybe, our State Department should actually work with the governments of those countries, along with the extra forces sent by President Obama to protect the consulates and embassies, in order to secure a long-term solution for our personnel there.  It's like there's already a plan being executed to protect our diplomats.  Fancy that.

Romney's Death Rattle

How can Romney lead the country when he views half of us with utter contempt?

How dare he speak for us, telling others what we think and feel, when he does now know us?

Is America stupid enough to put this man at the helm, despite his many failings and shady characteristics?

If I could say one thing to Romney, it would be: Look here, jackass.  Look at these children with dirty feet because they have no shoes, and only two pairs of socks to their name.  Skinny not because they are fit, but because they don't have enough to eat.  Homeless despite mental illness and physical ailments.  They sure don't look lazy, well-fed and entitled to me.  They look lost, like they need a leader to help them out of the pit they are currently in. Look at the mother, standing barefoot in rubble in a garage she converted to a home.  Look at their refrigerator, empty except for a few condiments, with two weeks left to go before their food stamps arrive.  Imagine having a single tortilla with peanut butter, or going without because rations are low and the kids must eat.  A donated laptop gives the kids a chance to battle computer illiteracy, yet they are judged by Romney as failures who feel we should give them everything.  I guess she has plenty of time to feel entitled while washing her kid's clothes in the kitchen sink.

Death awaits many if Romney has his way.  That may sound melodramatic, but it's true.  Millions of people are going under, unable to afford health care or housing, even simple meals.  Romney's willing to cut them all off so "his" guys can enjoy the wealth they were entitled to by their own reasoning.  They also feel entitled to steal from the mouths of hungry babes so they can have more money than they could ever spend.  Without help, millions will starve or die for want of health care.

Romney does know business.  Especially when you define business as profit gained from the labor of poorly paid workers who never have enough so that a handful can enjoy bonuses.  That is not who I want leading this country.  How could anyone?

Either Romney loses, or we are in serious trouble.  It's just that simple.

Look at Ann Romney's words one more time:

“Well, I think the thing that I want to communicate to people, and that it's so important that people understand, is that Mitt and I do recognize that we have not had a financial struggle in our lives. But I want people to believe in their hearts that we know what it is like to struggle. And our struggles have not been financial, but they've been with health and with difficulties in different things in life,” she said, in an interview aired Sunday.

Have a tortilla and STFU, you ignorant wench.  I have gone from annoyed to afraid, from shocked to appalled. I've settled on flat out pissed off, and nothing is going to stop me from doing my part to drag these entitled pieces of crap off the board.

Cross-posted at Angry Black Lady's blog.