Last Call

But gosh, isn't President Obama supposed to be losing the Jewish vote because he's not loyal enough to Israel?  Could have fooled actual Jewish voters, it seems.

President Barack Obama is extending his lead with Jewish voters, leading among registered voters 70-25 percent according to unreleased Gallup daily tracking poll data .

The data, obtained through a Democratic source, shows Obama up from leading 64-29 in polling this spring — and on par with his 2008 performance at this point when he led 69-25 over John McCain in Gallup polling. The data is drawn from tracking polls taken between July 1 and September 10th.

Despite a heated debate on Israel, most Jewish voters are Democrats and align closely with the Democratic Party on domestic issues from abortion to taxes and spending, and Republicans have tried without success for years to pry the group away from the Democratic Party. The Israel debate, meanwhile, often aims at a broad national audience that sees Israel as an ally, rather than specifically at American Jews.

Every election cycle, Republicans say "This is the year when American Jews turn on the Democrats and vote Republican."  Just like they say women, African-Americans, and Latino voters are going to do.  It'll happen any time now, I'm sure.

Any time now...

Values-Added Stupidity

The annual Values Voter Summit continues this weekend in Washington DC, with the creme' de la creme' of the wingnut elite spouting epic levels of hate along with Mitt's veep choice.  Friday was everything you expected from the Obama Derangement Conference, headed by the American Family Association's Bryan Fischer.  But the conference quickly turned into a circular firing squad as Mitt Romney's crash and burn routine continued.

“If Barack Obama wins this election the Republican Party as we know it is finished, it is dead, it is toast — you can stick a fork in it,” he told TPM Friday at the Values Voter Summit in Washington. “And conservatives, grassroots conservatives, are either going to start a third party or they are going to launch a hostile takeover of the Republican Party.”

Fischer said he believed Romney would be leading national polls by double digits at this point if he had followed Paul Ryan’s lead and offered more detailed conservative positions on the budget and social issues.

“The biggest mistake is they put a bag over Paul Ryan’s head,” he said. Fischer said he was “deeply disturbed” that Ryan didn’t mention the campaign’s opposition to gay marriage in his speech to the summit on Friday.

Ryan spent his speech time saying the most important issue in the election was making abortion illegal in all cases.

“‘We’re all in this together’ — it has a nice ring,” Ryan said. “For everyone who loves this country, it is not only true but obvious. Yet how hollow it sounds coming from a politician who has never once lifted a hand to defend the most helpless and innocent of all human beings, the child waiting to be born.”

Ryan, who believes that abortion should be outlawed even in cases of rape and incest, cast Obama as an abortion extremist in the speech.

“President Obama has chosen to pander to the most extreme elements of his party,” Ryan said. “In the Clinton years, the stated goal was to make abortion ‘safe, legal and rare.’ But that was a different time, and a different president. Now, apparently, the Obama-Biden ticket stands for an absolute, unqualified right to abortion — at any time, under any circumstances, and even at taxpayer expense.”

PS, that includes outlawing contraception, too, folks.  Of course, the day wouldn't have been complete without entertainment, ranging from "former Islamist terrorist who found Jesus" Kamal Saleem...

“I started working for whoever paid the best to advance Islamism.” he said, pacing back and forth onstage. “Saddam Hussein pays better money than anybody else. He was very generous.”

If Saleem’s story sounds unbelievable it’s because there’s little sign any of it ever happened. News investigations into his past haven’t turned up any corroborating evidence of his terrorist resume, but they’ve found plenty of former colleagues and acquaintances who doubt the veracity of Saleem’s autobiographical details.

For one, Mother Jones reports Saleem, real name Khodor Shami, spent over a decade before his “ex-terrorist” act as a staffer at Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network and James Dobson’s Focus on the Family. And despite Saleem’s claims that the FBI relies on him for insight into jihadist thinking, they claim they’ve never heard of him. A 2008 expose by CNN’s Anderson Cooper found similar holes in his story, which paralleled other equally dubious figures making their living off the “ex-terrorist” talk circuit. 

...to professional racist dog-whistler Gary Bauer.

Conservative pundit Gary Bauer, the former president of the Family Research Council, which puts on the Values Voter Summit each year, told the crowd at the 2012 conference Friday that it needs to turn out in great numbers to defeat President Obama’s army of welfare recipients and fraudulent votes.

After his speech, Bauer told TPM “voter fraud is rampant in urban areas” and he expected that to help Obama.

Bauer also told TPM that “there are a lot of people who will vote this November because they depend on government largesse,” meaning checks from Washington. He expects those voters to go Obama as well.

“They will vote for their own perceived interests, which is they don’t want anybody cutting back the size of the checks,” Bauer said.

Yep, because we black people are just stupid, stupid negroes stuck on Obama's plantation.  Bauer didn't have a lick of evidence, but racism, chicanery, fear and facism is all the GOP has left, folks.

They're done.

Jackass Part II

They apparently even make jackasses bigger in Texas:

A Texas police department is defending an officer who is seen on a dashcam video pulling a 77-year-old woman out of her car during a traffic stop.

Sgt. Gene Geheb, an officer from the Keene Police Department, pulled Lynn Bedford over Aug. 19 for driving 66 mph in a 50 mph zone. But their stop grew heated when Bedford refused to hand over her driver's license and insurance card, according to police reports and video from the officer's dashcam. The officer was also wearing a microphone and camera.

"The incident has been reviewed thoroughly by the Keene Police Department and the city of Keene administration," a statement from the Keene Police Department said. "All parties have concluded that Sgt. Geheb did not violate any state laws or department policies, and in fact was following department policy in regards to violators not providing information."

It's nice to know that pulling an old woman out of her vehicle is following department policy.  Even if he had decided to arrest her, he didn't have to be such a jackass.

This does not imply there was not a better way to handle this, because of course there was.  There is no mention of the officer trying to calm the situation, instead it looks like he overreacted and made it worse.

And this concludes today's jackassapalooza.

Jackass Part I

(AP) STOCKHOLM - A drunk, middle-aged man falls off a subway platform and is knocked unconscious as his head hits the tracks.

A bystander who witnessed the accident jumps down after him — but not for a daring rescue before the train arrives.

Instead, the witness steals the man's valuables, climbs back on the platform and leaves his victim to be hit by a train.

"To me it's incredible that one could steal or rob from somebody who is lying in such a place where you know that, if I don't do something, then this person will, in a worst-case scenario, get killed by the train that is coming. Because the train is going to come," police inspector Dan Ostman told TV4.

He calmly walked out of the subway station, waving to the ticket vendor, as a train ran over the victim on the tracks below. 

That man will never be the same.  He survived, but lost part of his foot.   I award this man Jackass of the Day, but be ready for the 2:30 post.  He has competition.

If your rage-o-meter hasn't buried itself in the red, I recommend checking out the full article.  This covers the highlights, such as they are.

The Mask Slips Again...

...and Republicans accidentally tell the truth.  This time it's House majority leader Eric Cantor on the GOP's orchestrated campaign to destroy the economy through obstruction of government remedies and blame President Obama:

It’s an article of faith amongst Republicans that government can’t create jobs, and that cutting government spending will lead to job growth. Republicans even pushed the nation to the brink of a debt default in order to secure cuts in federal spending in 2010.

But with the consequences of that debt ceiling deal due to hit in January — at which point the so-called “sequester” will cut into both military and non-defense discretionary spending — House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) is seemingly having a change of heart. On Thursday he tweeted that the sequester would hurt federal spending in key areas, and thus kill jobs:


 

Well gosh, Eric.  You mean government spending cuts destroy jobs?  But what happened to "government spending cuts free up capital for jobs to be created in the private sector?"

Not if those cuts are at the Pentagon, apparently.  So government spending cuts are bad for jobs?  Who knew?

Eric Cantor does, apparently.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

Two Marines were killed in a "sustained attack" on a joint US/UK base in Helmund Province, Afghanistan as the newly deployed Prince Harry was the possible target.
President Obama, Vice-President Biden and Secretary Clinton were on hand as the four Americans killed in Libya on Tuesday were flown home to Joint Base Andrews.
New attacks on US embassies in Tunisia and Sudan rattled already high tensions at American diplomatic compounds across the globe on Friday.
The Dow hit its highest level since before the 2008 recession began as markets rallied further on the Fed's newest qualitative easing program.
Intel is working on its latest series of processors, the Rosepoint chips will have two Atom processors and a WiFi radio built in.