Meanwhile, In Evil Mirror Universe...

Taegan Goddard grabbed some screenies of the Romney transition team website pages, in case he won.




And remember, in an unknown number of evil, awful alternate realities out there, this is happening right now.

You prevented this, America.  I like you a lot now.

Last Call

Where's Paul Ryan been?  He's certainly been very quiet it seems over the last month.  There's a reason for that:  Romney's been hinting that he won't really give in to GOP House austerity hysteria...but he picked the author of that budget with trillions in cuts to social programs and health care as his veep.  And should Robot/Zombie '12 prevail on Tuesday, you can bet that the Ryan budget will be the only game in town.

Representative Paul D. Ryan may have largely disappeared from the national spotlight down the campaign homestretch, ceding attention to Mitt Romney. But if the Republican ticket prevails, Mr. Ryan plans to come back roaring, establishing an activist vice presidency that he said would look like Dick Cheney’s under President George W. Bush.

Mr. Ryan would dedicate most evenings to dinners with senators and House members of both parties, aides said, as he steps into the role Mr. Romney promised: architect of a Romney administration’s drive to enact a budget that shrinks the government and overhauls programs like Medicare. 

On a grinding schedule in the election’s final hours, rushing to as many as five states in a day, Mr. Ryan avoids specifics in his speeches about his duties if elected. Behind the scenes, he speaks at least weekly to the office of Mike Leavitt, the former Utah governor who leads the Romney campaign’s transition team. 

The prospect of a deeply engaged vice president was described in interviews with campaign aides, close House colleagues and the few times Mr. Ryan has discussed his potential future job. Asked by a reporter last month if he expected the kind of broad responsibility for the economy that Mr. Cheney held for national security — as an aide suggested — Mr. Ryan said, “I do.” 

So yes, the Ryan budget will be America's budget, and that means trillions in cuts to health care and social programs, trillions in tax cuts for the richest Americans, and trillions added to the national debt.  Imagine Paul Ryan with Dick Cheney's power over domestic issues and you're getting close to the screw job that awaits if these clowns win.

You can do something about that, you know.

Vote.

Last Call

Here's your scary Halloween story for the night:  The Most Wrong Man In America is predicting a Romney landslide.  And he actually used the term “landslide”.

Voters have figured out that President Obama has no message, no agenda and not even much of an explanation for what he has done over the past four years. His campaign is based entirely on persuading people that Mitt Romney is a uniquely bad man, entirely dedicated to the rich, ignorant of the problems of the average person. As long as he could run his negative ads, the campaign at least kept voters away from the Romney bandwagon. But once we all met Mitt Romney for three 90-minute debates, we got to know him — and to like him. He was not the monster Obama depicted, but a reasonable person for whom we could vote.

You have to love his awesome little bubble of unreality.

Or will the Romney momentum grow and wash into formerly safe Democratic territory in New Jersey and Oregon?

Nice choice of phrase, Dick.  And sure, Romney will get 350 EVs because ARGLE AND THE BLARGLE.  Even better, he’s calling for the GOP to pick up six Senate seats in the wake of Romney’s long, long coattails.

I mean, why wouldn’t we give Morris the benefit of the doubt over Nate Silver or this empty can of Diet Coke with Lime?  Morris has a long, long track record of being completely full of garbage.  But it’s a long track record, so Nate Silver is a wimp because SHUT UP LIBTARDS.

So yes, now that Toesucker here has called it for Romney, President Obama is spiking that there football.

Scary stuff.

Queen Ann And Education

When's the last time you heard a potential First Lady talk like this about America's schools.

I’ve been a First Lady of the State. I have seen what happens to people’s lives if they don’t get a proper education. And we know the answers to that. The charter schools have provided the answers. The teachers’ unions are preventing those things from happening, from bringing real change to our educational system. We need to throw out the system.

But of course, the Romneys are going to be moderates.  When's the last time you heard a First Lady slag teachers as the problem in the US?  That's crazy, crazy stuff...but Queen Ann has spoken.

We need to throw out the system.  Because if teachers get paid less, that's sure to attract more qualified people to become teachers, right?

Jesus.  These people are mad.

The Brains Behind Mitt

Firefly creator, filmmaker and TV writer Joss Whedon thinks Mitt Romney's the best candidate for driving America forward...



...driving us forward into the zombie apocalypse.

“I don’t pretend to see the future,” Whedon says. “No one knows for sure if they’ll be the super fast ’28 Days Later’ zombies, or the old school shambling kind. But they’ll be out there, and they’ll need brains.”

He continues: “So, whether you’re a small business man just trying to keep his doors open; a single mom so concerned with her son’s welfare that she’ll run to embrace him when he’s clearly infected and going to bite her; or a strung out ex-military type who’s been out there too long and is taking the same kind of damn fool chances that’ll get us all killed — you need ask yourself, ‘Am I ready… for the purity and courage of Mitt Romney’s apocalyptic vision?’”

“Mitt’s ready,” Whedon concludes. “He’s not afraid to face a ravening, grasping horde of subhumans, because that’s how he sees poor people already. Let’s all embrace the future, stop pretending we care about each other and start hoarding canned goods, because if Mitt takes office, sooner or later, the zombies will come for all of us.”

Well played, Mr. Whedon.  Well played.

Robot/Zombie '12?  More like Zombie/Zombie '12.

Last Call

As Hurricane Sandy ravages the East Coast today causing rain, wind, and snow damage from Columbus, Ohio to Augusta, Maine, keep in mind what President Romney's response to the storm would be.

During a CNN debate at the height of the GOP primary, Mitt Romney was asked, in the context of the Joplin disaster and FEMA's cash crunch, whether the agency should be shuttered so that states can individually take over responsibility for disaster response.

"Absolutely," he said. "Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that's the right direction. And if you can go even further, and send it back to the private sector, that's even better. Instead of thinking, in the federal budget, what we should cut, we should ask the opposite question, what should we keep?"

"Including disaster relief, though?" debate moderator John King asked Romney.

"We cannot -- we cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids," Romney replied. "It is simply immoral, in my view, for us to continue to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids, knowing full well that we'll all be dead and gone before it's paid off. It makes no sense at all."

Privatize FEMA because disaster relief is immoral unless we cut something else from the budget.  So if you live in Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, where your vote is crucial this year, you might want to keep that in mind.  At best, his plan is to leave national disasters up to states to deal with.

You're own your own under a Romney administration.  Nothing united about these states in a disaster.

Your choice, America.

Buzz Off, Creep

Friday Night Lights author Buzz Bissinger has decided that last Wednesday's debate was the impetus he needed to go from "life-long Democrat" to "Romney moderate".  If you can stop laughing at that moronic leap of non-logic to read the rest of Bissinger proving he should stick to sports and not politics, it's comedy gold on par with the best of the Village Idiots.  Here's a taste:

I have never seen a performance worse than Obama’s, distracted, his head dipped into the podium as if avoiding the smell of something rotten, acting above the very idea that a debate does provide a pivotal referendum on his first term as it has for all incumbent presidents, whipsawed by the legion of usual advisers telling him to play defense when his own intuition should have told him that he needed to go on the offensive as Romney slapped him around.

But there was more than the entitlement of entitlement. He struck me as burnt out, tired of selling his message although he has always been terrible at selling his message when it veers from idealism into the practical.

By instinct I still cling to my Democrat roots. But I admit that as I get older, on the cusp of 58, I am moving more to the center or even tweaking right, or at least not tied to any ideology. Those making more than $250,000 should pay more taxes, and that does include me. But I also am tired of Obama’s constant demonization, of those he spits out as “millionaires and billionaires,” as pariahs. Romney’s comments at a fundraiser were stupid, but 47 percent of Americans do not pay federal income taxes. Yes, a majority are poor and seniors. But millions do not pay such taxes with incomes of more than $50,000, and whether it’s as little as $10, every American should contribute both as a patriotic obligation and skin in the game. This is our country, not our country club.

Come to think of it, Buzz here probably does have a long and glorious future career as rich white dude scolding the rest of us lazy schlubs over at the NY Times or Washington Post, I would imagine.  Look, if any part of your "middle-aged crisis conversion to Republican" speech involved your belief that President Obama is acting privileged and entitled, and that Mitt Romney is a regular Joe Moderate, I call bullshit on you ever being a liberal in the first place.

He even uses the odious phrase  "skin in the game", which is Villager 101 for "screw you poor people, it's time for you to suffer.  You've had it too easy."  If your train of thought involves you coming around to "toss a few of those folks into the volcano to please the island gods" you were never, ever a liberal.  You're just an asshole.

Buzz's article is so intellectually bankrupt, I swear it's recycled Bobo Angst and Friedman's Mustache, but the entire argument is too sophomoric for even that level of effort.  It's Bobo and Friedman's Mustache phoning it in after an all-night bender of NCIS episodes, unsweetened iced tea and boneless teriyaki wings, and by "all-night" I mean 11 PM.

Like I said, he'll fit in fine over there.

Last Call

Your nightly read comes from TNR's Alec MacGillis on the biggest employer in Ohio coal country along the West Virginia border:  Murray Energy.  CEO Bob Murray is a major backer of the Republican Party...and apparently he seems to think his employees should be backing the GOP too.  This year that means the company line is "give to Mitt Romney, and give till it hurts."

Over the years, CEO Robert Murray has brought in GOP pols from as far away as Alaska, California, and Massachusetts for fund-raisers. In 2010, the year John Boehner became House speaker, the firm’s 3,000 employees and their families were his second-biggest source of funds. (AT&T was in first place, but it has nearly 200,000 employees.) This year, Murray is one of the most important GOP players in one of the most important battleground states in the country. In May, he hosted a $1.7 million fund-raiser for Romney. Employees have given the nominee more than $120,000. In August, Romney used Murray’s Century Mine in the town of Beallsville for a speech attacking Barack Obama as anti-coal. This fall, scenes from that event—several dozen coal-smudged Murray miners standing behind the candidate in a tableau framed by a giant American flag and a COAL COUNTRY STANDS WITH MITT placard—have shown up in a Romney ad.

The ads aired even after Ohio papers reported what I was told by several miners at the event, a bit of news that an internal memo confirms: The crowd was not there of its own accord. Murray had suspended Century’s operations and made clear to workers that they were expected to attend, without pay. “I tell ya, you’ve got a great boss,” Romney said in acknowledging Robert Murray from the stage. “He runs a great operation here.”

Gosh, he sure does.  Ahh, but it gets worse.  Not only is Bob making sure that being a good company man involved backing Romney whether the rank and file want to or not, but part of the responsibility of management appears to have extra financial incentive tied into it.

The accounts of two sources who have worked in managerial positions at the firm, and a review of letters and memos to Murray employees, suggest that coercion may also explain Murray staffers’ financial support for Romney. Murray, it turns out, has for years pressured salaried employees to give to the Murray Energy political action committee (PAC) and to Republican candidates chosen by the company. Internal documents show that company officials track who is and is not giving. The sources say that those who do not give are at risk of being demoted or missing out on bonuses, claims Murray denies.

The Murray sources, who requested anonymity for fear of retribution, came forward separately. But they painted similar pictures of the fund-raising operation. “There’s a lot of coercion,” says one of them. “I just wanted to work, but you feel this constant pressure that, if you don’t contribute, your job’s at stake. You’re compelled to do this whether you want to or not.” Says the second: “They will give you a call if you’re not giving. . . . It’s expected you give Mr. Murray what he asks for.”

Hey, after all, he signs your checks, right?  You're employed because of him, you owe him everything as an employee, including your political fealty as well.

But of course, these are the people also telling you that President Obama is a fascist who will take your rights and smash your freedoms.  Funny how that works.

Robot/Zombie '12 Gets That Poll-Asked Look

That faint, thin, near-Biblical keening you were hearing all day at the upper registers of your detection?  The Romney campaign reading today's swing state numbers from a new OH/PA/FL poll from Quinnipiac University, commissioned by CBS News and the NY Times.  It's not just bad news for Robot/Zombie, it's pretty much a death blow.

President Barack Obama is over the magic 50 percent mark and tops Gov. Mitt Romney among likely voters by 9 to 12 percentage points in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, according to a Quinnipiac University/ CBS News/New York Times Swing State Poll released today.

Voters in each state see President Obama as better than Gov. Romney to handle the economy, health care, Medicare, national security, an international crisis and immigration. Romney ties or inches ahead of the president on handling the budget deficit. 

Yeah.  That's how bad it got after the 47% remarks.  President Obama is up 9 in Florida, 10 in Ohio, and 12 in Pennsylvania.  And the crosstabs are unrelentingly brutal for Romney.

Obama leads 60 - 35 percent among Ohio women likely voters, while men support Romney 52 - 44 percent. White voters back Romney by a narrow 49 - 46 percent, while 98 percent of black voters back the president. Independent voters are split with 47 percent for Romney and 46 percent for Obama. 

POTUS up 25 points among women, and Romney's lead among white voters is down to 3?  Night, folks.   It's just as bad in Florida...

Women likely voters back Obama 58 - 39 percent while men are divided with 50 percent for Romney and 47 percent for Obama. Hispanic voters go Democratic 55 - 41 percent while independent voters are split with 49 percent for Romney and 46 percent for Obama.

The economy is the most important issue for 47 percent of Florida voters, while 20 percent list health care; 10 percent list the budget deficit and 8 percent list national security.

The president would do a better job on health care, voters say 54 - 41 percent and do a better job on Medicare, voters say 55 - 40 percent. Voters over 55 say Obama would do a better job on Medicare 52 - 42 percent and back the president 53 - 45 percent.

So Romney's done in Ohio without a big advantage among white voters, and he's absolutely done in Florida if he's losing the Senior vote.  And in Pennsylvania?

Pennsylvania women likely voters back Obama 58 - 37 percent, while men split with 49 percent for Romney and 48 percent for the president. Independent voters are split 48 - 48 percent.

The economy is the most important issue for 48 percent of Pennsylvania voters, while 20 percent list health care; 11 percent list the budget deficit and 7 percent list national security.

The president would do a better job on health care, voters say 54 - 41 percent and do a better job on Medicare, voters say 55 - 39 percent. Voters over 55 say Obama would do a better job on Medicare 52 - 43 percent and back the president 50 - 46 percent.

Romney can only manage a split among men and independents, he's losing seniors, and Obama is winning women by 21.  Done.

Romney is done.   Now all we have to do is vote.

We'll be covering this in tonight's Podcast Vs the Stupid.

Number Crunching, September Edition

With 6 weeks to go until Election Day, Nate Silver runs the numbers on September poll leads and finds with the exceptions of "Dewey beats Truman!" and the Supremes screwing over Al Gore, the poll average leader at the 45 day mark went on to win 17 of the last 19 Presidential races.

Our polling database contains surveys going back to 1936. The data is quite thin (essentially just the Gallup national poll and nothing else) through about 1968, but it’s nevertheless worth a look.

In the table below, I’ve averaged the polls that were conducted 40 to 50 days before the election in each year — the time period that we find ourselves in now. (In years when there were no polls in this precise time window, I used the nearest available survey.)

The table considers the race from the standpoint of the incumbent party (designated with the color purple) and the challenging party (wearing the orange jerseys), without worrying about whether they were Democrats or Republicans. Mr. Obama’s position, for instance, is probably more analogous to that of the Republican incumbent George W. Bush in 2004 than it is to the candidate from his own party that year, John Kerry.


 

As you can see, President Obama's nearly 4 point lead is a larger one than he had in 2008.  It is however the smallest of the incumbent leads of a winner since FDR in 1944.  Six weeks is still enough to win, but by this point, the race appears to be very much decided.

At this point serious attention needs to be paid to shoring up the down ballot races as motivation to get people to the polls.  We'll see what happens.

You People Have Done It Again

Well now You People have done it.  Queen Anne Romney doesn't want to talk to You People anymore because You People hurt her feelings.  Don't you know how hard it is to have $250,000,000 and multiple homes across the country?  You People are heartless.

In Omaha for a closed to the press fundraiser for her husband Friday, Mrs. Romney was supposed to give interviews to several reporters but canceled due to the controversy over her blow up at Republicans on a radio interview, in which she ordered Mitt’s Republican critics to “stop it.”

Omaha.com reported:

She had scheduled interviews with The World-Herald and other reporters but canceled after controversy erupted this week over her comments to a public radio station in Iowa about her husband’s Republican critics.

She appeared at the luncheon, $250-per-plate fundraiser at the Embassy Suites and La Vista Conference Center. The event was closed to reporters.

Looks like Ann is being taken off the shelf.  America's no longer in love with Her Imperial Highness, it seems.  Can you imagine how Michelle Obama would be treated if she made those statements and later canceled a presser with reporters?

Sorry Ann.  You chose to play this game.  Hire a body double or something.  You have the money.

Not As Seismic As You Think

On 60 Minutes last night, President Obama admitted that while gridlock and obstruction by the GOP has harmed the country, the voters rightfully believe that he ultimately "bears responsibility" for the government.

President Barack Obama discussed his frustration with gridlock in Washington, saying his "biggest disappointment" in his nearly four years in office has been the failure to oversee change in the nation's political climate.

"My biggest disappointment is that we haven't changed the tone in Washington as much as I would have liked," Obama said in a CBS News interview that aired Sunday.

Difficult when Republican leaders were meeting during the day of the President's inauguration to try to figure out how to completely oppose him and shut the country down for the four years.

Asked if he bears any blame for the stalemate, Obama said the buck stops at his desk.

"I think that, you know, as president I bear responsibility for everything, to some degree," he said on CBS' "60 Minutes."

That's a pretty bold statement, but he's said it before that the President bears responsibility, especially during an election year.  It's what a President and a leader should say.  Compare that to Mitt Romney, avoiding responsibility for MassCare when he was governor, and refusing to give specifics of his austerity plan now.

Smart move.  Republicans had better be careful pursuing this as an attack...it's an obvious rope-a-dope, but then again the Romney camp hasn't shown the strategic intelligence to not take Obama's bait every single time.

I doubt this time will be different.

Last Call

And it's today's new and improved one hour Podcast Vs. The Stupid!  Click to Embiggen!

Listen to internet radio with Zandar Versus The Stupid on Blog Talk Radio

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.

Right click to download the mp3 here or subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, or check out the episode archive page here.  And if you like what you hear, drop a couple bucks in the PayPal jar.

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.

Last Call

Funny thing about policy specifics.  It turns out that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan do give them out from time to time if you listen and do a little digging.  They're pretty well hidden, as this week indicates.  And Mitt Romney isn't the only one with policy proposals that look pretty awful under the sunlight.

Paul Ryan gave away the current GOP game back in 2005, for instance, at arguably the most important and telling speech of his political career:  the Atlas Society’s “Celebration of Ayn Rand.”  The audio of the speech is still up at the Atlas Society's website.

But when you look at the fight that we’re in here in Capital Hill, it’s a tough fight. It’s a very important fight. But we need more people on our side to fight this fight. That is why there is no more fight that is more obvious between the differences of these two conflicts than Social Security.  Social Security right now is a collectivist system, it’s a welfare transfer system…..

And what’s important is if we actually accomplish this goal of personalizing social security … [Ryan laughs. Ed Hudgins overheard “personalizing”] personalizing social security … [laughter, applause] think of what we will accomplish. Every worker, every laborer in America will not only be a laborer but a capitalist. They will be an owner of society, they will be an owner and a participant of our free enterprise system, of our capitalist system. I would like to have more people on our team who are owners and believers in the individualist capitalist system than on the other side, and if every worker in this country becomes an owner of real wealth, of seeing the fruits of their labor come and materialize for their benefit, then that’s that many more people in America who are not going to listen to likes of Dick Gephardt and Nancy Pelosi, Ted Kennedy, the collectivist, class warfare-breathing demagogues.  

Now let's pause for a second here.  Ryan is saying that by privatizing...I mean, "personalizing" Social Security...by putting it in the hands of corporate America, American workers will then work harder because they are an "owner of society" at that point.  Social Security is a collectivist, welfare transfer system.

And here's the thing:  If what Ryan was actually proposing was that the American worker received the benefits of corporate ownership commensurate to the risk they are taking by handing over the equivalent of 15 or 20% of their current gross for 50 years to a company to invest, that would be great.  There's no way this happens, of course.  The opposite is true:  corporations see the benefits and profits, while individuals assume most of the risk.  See the current paycheck of any CEO compared to their lowest paid worker.  He continues:

So you have to understand that all they have to do is stop us from succeeding.  Autopilot will get them where they want to go. Autopilot will bring more government, more collectivism, more centralized government.  If we do not succeed in switching these programs, in reforming these programs from what some people call a defined benefit system, to a defined contribution system– from switching these programs—and this is where I’m talking about health care, as well—from a third party or socialist based system to an individually owned, individually prefunded, individually directed system.

We can do this. We are on offence on a lot of these ideas.  I was the principle author of the Health Savings Account law, which was an amendment I brought to the floor and passed in the Medicare bill in the last session of congress. Health Savings Accounts, personal accounts for Social Securities, these are the things that put us on offence, that get the– the individual back in the game and break the back of this collectivist philosophy that really pervades, you know, ninety percent of the thinking around here in this town.

In other words, health care, Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare?  They have to be run like a business, in order to make a profit, not to provide care.  That's what "defined benefit system to a defined contribution system"  means.  You are not guaranteed benefits.  You will however, be guaranteed to have to pay into the system.

This is why running these programs like a business is a horrible idea.

Businesses fail.  It happens all the time.  Oh well.  So much for your retirement.  You get nothing.

This is Paul Ryan's America.  And in it, somebody has to lose.

Big Not Rock Candy Mountain

Jon Stewart wins all the things.


This may be the most biting takedown of Romney's 47% video yet. (OK, video's odd, just click here for it.)

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.

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.

What Mitt Really Thinks About Americans

The rich really aren't like you and me, frankly.  And when you're talking about Mitt Romney at a private fundraiser with a bunch of other rich folks, well, the truth about what they think of American voters comes out.  David Corn:

During a private fundraiser earlier this year, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney told a small group of wealthy contributors what he truly thinks of all the voters who support President Barack Obama. He dismissed these Americans as freeloaders who pay no taxes, who don't assume responsibility for their lives, and who think government should take care of them. Fielding a question from a donor about how he could triumph in November, Romney replied:

There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax.

Romney went on: "[M]y job is is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."

So as far as Mitt's concerned, anyone who votes for Obama is a shiftless, lazy welfare moocher who doesn't pay income taxes and demands free health care, food, and housing from the government.  Every.  Single.  Obama supporter.

We're nothing but welfare queens and strapping young bucks on the stoop drinking 40's to Mitt.  We're parasites.  We're nothing.  And Mitt doesn't even care, doesn't even "worry about those people", because he'll get the 53% of right thinking Americans to vote for him, and then they can collectively punish the other 47%.

We're not voters to Mitt.  We're not worth worrying about.  Our concerns, our hope and dreams, our struggles and our ideas to help the country?  Doesn't matter.  We're just those people to him.  Some what, 150 million of us are just faceless drains on the economy, and Mitt Romney is just going to cut us off and give more money to the top 1%.  Charles Pierce nails Mitt to the wall:

To this moment, I guarantee you, Romney is probably astonished at what all the fuss is about. This is simply the way the world is. There is himself, Willard Romney, and his perfect family, and his perfect life, and there is The Help, and The Help gets drunk on the job, and prunes the shrubbery badly, and pockets the silverware, and makes off with the odd can of salmon out of the pantry. He is who he is today because his breeding and his genes and his god have arranged him to be through a serious of immutable laws against which only a fool or The Help would presume to argue. He is what his golden life has made him to be, and his golden life was only the bare minimum of that to which god and nature entitled him. To ask him to doubt any of this is to ask him to doubt gravity or the movement of the tides.

And it's okay, because Mitt's already justified doing this to tens of millions of Americans, because we're just those people to him. We don't matter.  Mitt will simply give the other 53% what they want and he wins.

We are coming rapidly toward a devastating confluence of two colliding panics. The Romney campaign is panicking about itself, and the Republicans are panicking about the Romney campaign. He cannot come back from this, honestly. This is who he is. This is what he believes the world to be. Half the electorate already thinks he's a fake, which means he's not a very good one. There's really only one campaign left to him now.

Unfortunately for American politics, that means only one thing. It's going to get extraordinarily dirty extraordinarily fast. There is going to be pale birtherism and barely covert racism. The body of Ambassador Christopher Stevens is going to be exhumed and used as a bludgeon. There is going to be poor-baiting, and gay-baiting, and ladyparts-baiting, and probably baiting of things I haven't thought of yet. The polite part of the campaign is going to be Romney's effort to convince You that he was really talking about Them when he was calling people moochers and sneak thieves. He wasn't talking about Your Medicare or Your Social Security. Naw, he was talking about Their greed for what You have. That's going to be the polite part of the rest of the campaign, reinforced in the lower registers by a few million in ads to make sure You remember who They are.

Now here's the question, folks.  If you're not in the top 1%, and you're not in the bottom 47%, do you think Mitt still gives a good goddamn about you?  Of course not.  But the only way his wins now is otherism on an unprecedented scale.  And it will come in a fecal landslide that only billions can buy.