Last Call

If it's a day ending in "y" then Matt Drudge will lie.

The Drudge Report has deceptively edited President Obama's words to falsely suggest that Obama proposed additional bailouts or government control of private industry at a campaign event today in Colorado. In fact, Obama was promoting proposals to keep jobs in the United States, rather than outsource them -- not advocating government funded bailouts. Drudge's actions are in line with a recent conservative media pattern of distorting Obama's quotes.

Drudge pairs a picture of Obama with the headline "Let's Repeat Auto Bailout 'With Every Industry'."

But Obama's actual comments make clear that he was calling for the restoration of manufacturing jobs "not just in the auto industry, but in every industry." He proposed to do this not through government bailouts, but by using tax breaks and other incentives to reward employers for keeping jobs in America, rather than outsourcing them.

So yeah, at this point I'm just waiting for Drudge to edit together footage where Obama jump cuts around and says "I'm Barack Obama and I...want you to...kill...white...people".   Seriously.  It'll be a Romney attack ad within 48 hours, too.

Probably explains why FOX News's latest poll has Mitt down by nine, 49-40.  Makes you wonder, right?

Drum Doubles Down

Responding to his critics, Kevin Drum breaks out the shovel while standing in his hole and tunnels through a few more strata thick with false equivalence nonsense, looking for the exit.

If we're at the point where both sides publicly hold that it's defensible to simply make stuff up because the stakes are so high, we've abandoned all pretense of caring about the truth. Nor is the idea that it's defensible to make up any charge as long as it's somehow rebuttable much better.

Please note that Drum assumes Harry Reid must be lying, he must be making stuff up.  There's no way Harry Reid can possibly be telling the truth here, right?  How does Drum know this?  The one guy we know who has seen  Romney's tax returns, John McCain, isn't saying a damn thing.  Not only could Mitt Romney end this farce, John McCain could end this by saying "I've seen Mr. Romney's tax returns when my team vetted him in 2008, and Harry Reid is a liar."  Instead, nothing.  It looks like to me Kevin doesn't care about the truth, but he sure does care about being "right" here.

I'm not even sure how to react to my critics anymore. When a bare minimal standard of decency (no flatly invented stories) is widely mocked as pearl clutching and fainting couch-y, there aren't really any standards left aside from "whatever works." All I know is that I want no part of that.

"Whatever works" is what Romney is doing, lying about the President weakening welfare-to-work rules.  "Whatever works" and "making stuff up" is Michele Bachmann's anti-Muslim witch hunt.  "Whatever works" is the racism birther nonsense that continues years after the President put out his birth certificate, and then Republicans screaming IT'S FAKE.  Comparing any of these to Harry Reid saying "Mitt Romney paid no federal income taxes for ten years" which is  an eminently provable or disprovable thing is not only disingenuous, it's obnoxiously lazy for a reporter of Drum's bona fides.

By the way, it's really not true that every candidate for the past 40 years has released all their relevant tax information. John McCain released only a couple of years of returns, and released none of his wife's returns even though that's where the vast majority of his family's wealth lies. Likewise, John Kerry never released his wife's returns, which accounted for the vast majority of his family's wealth. I agree that Romney should release more of his tax returns, and I think it's fine for Democrats to beat him up about it. But let's keep our facts straight.

What facts?  We have no facts because the people who have the fact refuse to release them.  Kerry and McCain played these games.  They didn't end up winning for a number of reasons, but there you are.  Meanwhile, we're treating Harry Reid like he's 100% the worst liar on Earth when A) we don't have all the facts and B) Republicans actually do lie all the goddamn time.

I refuse to go after Reid over this, especially to satisfy Kevin Drum's sense of centrist honor.  If Romney proves him wrong then I will say "Harry Reid was full of crap and a liar."  But the "fact" that he's a liar has yet to be established because Romney won't release his returns.

Do we get this?

Any Portman Out Of A Storm

I'd say the buzz around Ohio involves Rob Portman, except for the fact that Rob Portman is the most boring human being alive and is incapable of generating buzz, so we'll go with feigned disinterest.

Ohio Sen. Rob Portman threw cold water on the idea of becoming Mitt Romney's running mate on Wednesday, saying he thinks he'll "end up staying" in the Senate.

"I just got elected two years ago. I think that's where I'm going to end up staying," Portman said when asked his thoughts about possibly leaving the Senate and becoming vice president.


"I think it's a very important position right now," Portman continued. The senator reasoned there are pressing issues facing the nation - including the debt, the deficit, developing energy resources and health care issues.

Portman then added: "And right now Congress is paralyzed. And we're really in kind of a partisan gridlock. We need leadership, and that's where I intend to stay. I think I can really help in there."

"That's where I think I'll end up being."

Moments before, the senator used similar words, telling a reporter, "We need Mitt Romney. And I will help him all I can. But I'll probably stay in the United States Senate."

So yes, Rob Portman looks like he's smart enough to not be Mitt's veep.  C'mon Mitt, pick Paul Ryan already so you can be losing by 12 by October and we can get back to trying to keep the Senate.  Zombie-Eyed Granny Starvers forever!

Mama Grizzly, My Ass

Sarah Palin's visit was an epic fail.  I've been reading The Immoral Minority and laughing my butt off.  If Sarah's kicky trash shoes doesn't tell you what she thinks of Midwest people, the lame pants, overdone hair and Hooters-esque Superman t-shirt finishes the job.  This was in Missouri.  I wanted to cry, but settled at tears of laughter watching her wobble around on those dollar store rejects.

Way to keep it subtle, babe.

Why did Caribou Barbie decide to come so far south?  To endorse Sarah Steelman.

I wonder if Sarah knows what minimum wage is, by now.

According to Palin, Steelman protects our tax dollars like a mama grizzly.  I bet she does.  As for the people, well, you're on your own.  If you want your tax dollars protected, she's the one for the job.  If you don't get paid in tax dollars, you may be getting screwed with a lead pipe.  As far as she's concerned, she doesn't need to know what the minimum wage is, she knows what people deserve.

Possible Murder Charges Coming For Toddler's Sake

JOPLIN, Mo. (AP) — An 18-month-old Joplin girl who never regained consciousness after being hospitalized Tuesday died during the weekend.

Ada Bowman was on life support since being taken to a Kansas City hospital from her home near Joplin. The cause of her death on Saturday has not been determined.

Jasper County Sheriff Ken Copeland said the girl’s 22-year-old mother, Gina L. Salazar, was arrested Saturday after being allowed to see her daughter. She was charged Thursday with endangerment of the girl’s life and hindering prosecution.

I'm not so heartless that I don't wonder if the mother is also a victim of circumstances.  But she's still alive.  She'll get a chance to live a better life, something her daughter will never have.  The man who caused her death will have rights and a standard of living, something they denied this little girl.

Do your worst.  This has to stop, and stop now.

The sheriff is going to ask the prosecutor to up the charges to second-degree murder.  I wish him the best of luck.

You're Doing It Wrong, Mitt

And the Romney campaign pretty much lost their minds on Wednesday in response to this SuperPAC ad supporting President Obama:



The Romney campaign's response was...classic.

A Mitt Romney spokesperson offered an unusual counterattack Wednesday to an ad in which a laid-off steelworker blames the presumptive GOP nominee for his family losing health care: If that family had lived in Massachusetts, it would have been covered by the former governor’s universal health care law.

“To that point, if people had been in Massachusetts, under Governor Romney’s health care plan, they would have had health care,” Andrea Saul, Romney’s campaign press secretary, said during an appearance on Fox News. “There are a lot of people losing their jobs and losing their health care in President [Barack] Obama’s economy.”

YAY GO UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE!  Oh, wait a minute.  Universal Health Care is 100% evil to Republicans, we forgot.

The 2008 Election? I Have No Idea What You Mean, Madam

Rep Steve King goes for the gold with the Nullify Everything Good, Repeal Obama! (NEGRO) bill.

Rep. Steve King (R-IA), a favorite among tea party Republicans, told an audience on Tuesday that he would like to introduce a bill that, once enacted, would nullify every single law President Barack Obama has signed over the last three years.

King is running for reelection against Democrat Christie Vilsack, wife of former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, who now serves as the U.S. Agriculture Secretary. The long-serving Iowa Republcian told onlookers at the Humboldt County Events Center that “Obamacare,” better known to policy makers as the Affordable Care Act, contains “a certain regenerative DNA” that would make the law “grow back on you like a bad seed” if all of it is not ripped out — which is why he wants a massive bill to do the impossible: reset U.S. legislative text to Jan. 19, 2009.

“If you don’t tighten the belt on Congress by insisting upon a balanced budget amendment to our Constitution, I’m afraid we don’t have five years before we go off the cliff into the abyss of an economic collapse for our country,” King added, according to quotes published by The Messenger newspaper in Iowa. 

So unless we expunge America's black President, you and everyone you know will be destroyed.  Vote for Steve King or else your family and loved ones will burn in the writhing flames of total economic collapse.

Republicans call this "positive messaging".  They're positive that a second Obama term will destroy white America.  And yes, I'll use the racist stupidity tag against anyone running on proposing a bill to repeal every law signed by the nation's first black President.  Steve King doesn't want to work with the other side, he wants to erase them from the history books.

StupidiNews!

• President Obama says he disagrees with the Boy Scouts of America's policy to exclude gays from its ranks, despite serving as honorary chairman.
• Somewhat unreal expectations for America's young adults: five out of six expect their marriages to last a lifetime when half end in divorce.
• Egypt's military has launched its air force for the first time in nearly 40 years as President Morsi scrambled jets to attack militants in the Sinai Peninsula.
• The deregulation of Greek power plants is the latest headache in the country as Greece's powerful electrical utilities union is threatening blackouts in response.
• Google is bringing its Android-based enhanced voice search to iOS devices, competing directly with Apple's Siri search assistant.