Pot, Meet Kettle

Mitt Romney's son Josh has a few words for the President, and none of them are kind.

Josh Romney, one of Mitt Romney's sons, told a pointed joke Tuesday about President Obama's debate performance, while warming up the crowd for his father at a campaign rally in Van Meter, Iowa.

"I don't know if you guys saw the debate last week," Josh Romney said, as the crowd cheered and applauded. "I take a lot of pride in that, because — I don't know if you noticed, but I was — me and my brothers were responsible for my dad doing so well. We were the ones, as kids, that kept saying the same thing over and over. And we'd say the same lie over and over. And my dad learned then, not to believe it. While we didn't go to any of the formal debate preparation, we did the real hard stuff.

"So as a father, he learned how to debate an obstinate child. We had a lot of fun, we had a lot of fun watching the debate."

That's some funny stuff.  Team Romney certainly is feeling their oats this week.   Perhaps one should best avoid referring to the President as a child, just a parenting tip there.  Imani over at ABLC has some words for Josh, too.

None of them are kind, either.

Hey Josh — Your dear pappy’s own party knows that he’s lying and flip flopping all over the place like a fish out of water, so you might want to stop cracking stupid ass jokes and tell your dad to find a position and stick with it.

Like I said, the sense of entitlement coming off the entire Romney clan, the feeling of "Why haven't you yokels awarded us the White House already?" is pretty nauseating.  And yet, this is what Mitt the father has taught Josh the son.

Mitt will make a heck of a President, right?

Campus Fatality May Have Been Avoidable

Classmates and friends are questioning why a police officer fatally shot a University of South Alabama freshman who was naked and had been banging on a window at police headquarters.

Campus officials didn't give any indication that Gil Collar, 18, of Wetumpka had a weapon when he was shot. A university spokesman said he was fatally wounded about 1:30 a.m. Saturday after an officer heard a bang on a window and went outside to investigate.

A statement issued by university spokesman Keith Ayers said Collar, who wrestled at Wetumpka High School before enrolling at South Alabama, assumed a "fighting stance" and chased an officer before being shot. The officer tried to retreat numerous times to defuse the situation before opening fire, the school said.

But sophomore Tyler Kendrick said campus authorities haven't provided any satisfying answers about why Collar was killed.

"Really, it just upsets me that there's no other way to apprehend an unarmed student rather than shooting him. I don't understand that," Kendrick said.

I don't understand, either.  Police are resorting to kill shots before trying non-lethal measures.  In this case I do understand why it was unnerving for the officer.  But before he went outside, one would think a trained officer would have armed himself with a variety of tools.

This kid could have been on bath salts, or he may have just gotten really drunk for the first time.  It's hard to know until the autopsy report is complete, but it doesn't look like anything besides retreating was done before killing a young man.

Expect updates as they come. There is plenty of room for us to learn what caused this tragedy and maybe how to avoid future ones.

Color Me Skeptical

Whitney Houston's mother Cissy is deathly afraid Bobbi Kristina will die like just the singer -- in a haze of drugs and other bad influences -- which is why she wants to withhold Bobbi's multi-million-dollar inheritance, sources tell TMZ.

Sources close to Cissy tell us, Cissy feels Bobbi is currently surrounded by numerous negative influences -- including her boyfriend Nick Gordon and father Bobby Brown -- who will drain Bobbi's fortune given half the chance.

We're told Cissy also feels 19-year-old Bobbi is still extremely impressionable right now -- and if left unchecked with millions of dollars, Bobbi could end up going off the rails ... eventually dying just like Whitney.

According to sources, Cissy wants to wait until Bobbi has matured significantly more before she gets her money ... an estate estimated at $20 million ... though it's unclear how long she wants her to wait.

As for allegations Cissy is trying to withhold Bobbi's fortune to hoard the money for herself -- Cissy is telling friends that's total BS ... that's it's about protecting her family.

It makes sense to worry about Bobbi Kristina's mental health.  She should be in counseling (I only assume she is) and I can even see the court asking for an independent assessment to make sure she is capable of handling the facts of her mother's death and making reasonable choices.  But in the end, this was Whitney's final wishes and they should be carried out.  There's barely a point in making a will or end of life decision now, as families seem to enjoy dragging out in court what has been legally signed, sealed and approved.

As for withholding it to keep her control of both Bobbi Kristina and the money being purely for the family good... yeah, right.  Pardon me if I seem skeptical, but I've seen this play out several times in this crazy world and that has never been true yet.

Lyin Ryan, Cryin' Foul

Can you imagine the crapstorm President Obama would get if he walked out of an interview like Paul Ryan did on Monday?

Ryan spokesman Brendan Buck tells BuzzFeed: “The reporter knew he was already well over the allotted time for the interview when he decided to ask a weird question relating gun violence to tax cuts. Ryan responded as anyone would in such a strange situation. When you do nearly 200 interviews in a couple months, eventually you’re going to see a local reporter embarrass himself.” 

Sure.  And if Paul Ryan can't handle a local reporter, how can he handle Joe Biden on Thursday, or the job of Vice-President?

Once again, if President Obama had done this, it would be over for the Obama campaign.  "Thin-skinned.  Arrogant.  Uppity.  Ni-CLANG."

But it's perfectly okay for Paul Ryan to do it.

Best Possible Romney Scenario Is Still Tied

It looks like Monday's Pew Research poll was conducted at just the right time to maximize Mitt Romney's debate bounce, and it puts him in a statistically significant lead over President Obama.

Republican nominee Mitt Romney leads President Barack Obama by 4 percentage points among likely voters in a Pew Research Center poll that shows the Republican challenger getting a bounce from last week’s debate.

The survey taken Oct. 4-7, following the Oct. 3 presidential debate in Denver, gave the former Massachusetts governor 49 percent among likely voters and Obama 45 percent. Among registered voters, 66 percent said Romney won the debate and 20 percent said Obama did.

A Pew poll of likely voters taken Sept. 12-16 gave Obama a 51 percent to 43 percent lead, the widest margin of any nominee since Bill Clinton in 1996.

The latest Pew poll showed Romney even with Obama among women likely voters at 47 percent apiece, while leading among men, 51 percent to 43 percent. Last month, Obama held an 18- point edge among women, 56 percent to 38 percent, and trailed by 2 points among men, with 48 percent backing Romney and 46 supporting the president. Independent likely voters backed Romney, 46 percent to 42 percent; they split 45 percent to 44 percent for Obama in September. 

The crosstabs -- especially Mitt Romney erasing the President's lead among women -- is pretty sobering news.  Pew is not Rasmussen or a GOP outfit.  The poll also shows a big jump in Republicans among survey participants:

Among the likely voters, 36 percent identified as Republican, 31 percent as Democratic and 30 percent as independent. The September poll was 39 percent Democratic and 29 percent Republican. 

And finally, the crosstabs show that Romney now has higher favorability numbers than the President.

The edge in favorability ratings that Barack Obama had enjoyed throughout the campaign has now been erased, as voters’ impressions of Romney have continued to improve while Obama’s ratings have returned to levels seen earlier in the summer. Currently, voters are about evenly divided in their overall opinions of both Obama (49% favorable, 48% unfavorable) and Romney (50% favorable, 46% unfavorable).

So it depends on what you think of Pew's likely voter model.  It's one that heavily favors the GOP in turnout, and gives Romney the win at the national level, at least this week.  It's not something that should be ignored.  It's also not something I completely buy, but we'll see what all of the other polls say.

I'd like to see how the state polls are shaking out however.  A 12 point turnaround, if lasting and stable, will very quickly be reflected in equally big swings in the state polling.  So far that's not happening yet.

Here's the thing however.  Look deeper into the crosstabs.



Two-thirds of the people Pew surveyed were over 50.   A third were over 65, and they favor Romney by 17 points.

If you believe that two-thirds of voters will be over 50, then yes, Romney will win easily.  I don't think that will be the case.

Also, check out the racial makeup.



Seems Latino voters were left out of the poll entirely.  Sure, that's representative of the population.  No Latino voters actually vote, you know.

It's up to the President to make the most of these last four weeks...and up to us to vote.

StupidiNews!

• Mexican officials say that arrested Zetas cartel leader Salvador "The Squirrel" Martinzez is also a suspect in the 2010 killing of a US tourist at Falcon Lake.
• The International Monetary Fund is warning that the "fiscal cliff" US lawmakers face after the election could trigger a global recession if not resolved.
• President Obama was on hand to dedicate a California memorial to labor leader Cesar Chavez in Keene, where Chavez spent the last two decades of his life as an activist.
• Networking giant Cisco has ended its partnership with Chinese firm ZTE after allegations the foreign firm sold technology to Iranian sources.
• This weekend's smooth SpaceX Dragon capsule launch?  One of the rocket's engines came apart.

Last Call

As you probably expected, Mitt Romney's "big foreign policy speech" turned into something Romney probably wishes he had a time machine to correct.

Mitt Romney’s foreign policy speech Monday was filled with tough talk and slams of President Barack Obama’s leadership — but little of the clarity Romney has vowed to bring to the Oval Office.

Analysts reviewing what the Republican nominee said in what his campaign billed as a major foreign policy address weren’t impressed. The speech, they say, was much like Romney’s previous swings at laying out a foreign policy: couched in broad ideology and big ambitions and lacking the specifics for how he’d bring any of them about.

Shocking!  A Romney position speech that lack practical specifics!  Gosh, that never happens.

So while Romney was using the speech to capitalize on the momentum he had from his strong debate performance and the Obama administration’s vulnerabilities on the Libya attacks, foreign policy experts say the speech was vague at best, and reflected some confusion of ideas.

“There’s absolutely nothing in this speech. This is a repackaging of language that has been a staple of Romney’s campaign since he threw his hat in the ring,” said James Lindsay of the Council on Foreign Relations. “If Romney has a foreign policy strategy, he still has not told us what it is. The governor is very fond of saying hope is not a strategy, but that cuts both ways. He didn’t answer two key questions: what he would do differently and why we should expect what he would to work.”

The one thing Romney would do differently according to the speech is most likely start a war with Iran (after putting troops in Syria first) and as to how it would work, well...it wouldn't work.  But of course, Mitt can't actually say that.  If you thought the Romney budget was going to be a disaster before, throw another trillion dollar plus war or three into the mix and see what happens to our debt.

Mitt may have won last week, but this one's already shaping up to be a disaster as usual.

Toddler Buried By Parents, Never Reported Missing

This breaks my heart.  If called to check on the welfare of another child, one has a pretty good idea of what happened here.  The boy was never reported, which likely means either his death was suspicious or the family was in some other sort of trouble that prevented reaching out to authorities.

FARMINGDALE, N.Y. — A routine child welfare investigation led to the discovery Saturday of a toddler's corpse, buried in the backyard of a Long Island home.

State police unearthed the remains in the dead of night at a tidy house in Farmingdale after being told by the boy's mother that he died two years ago. The circumstances of his death remained unclear Saturday.

The boy, Justin Kowalczik, was about 17-months-old when he died in the summer of 2010, police said. Authorities said the family never reported the child's death.

"It is absolutely a suspicious death and it is being investigated as such," said State Police Major Patrick Regan. "We don't have a cause of death, and to our knowledge, there was never a report made of the child being missing."

Investigators were trying to determine how the child died and why the family kept it a secret.

Officials with Suffolk County's Child Protective Services agency initially went to the home Wednesday to check on the health of one of the woman's three children. They grew concerned when the family couldn't account for the whereabouts of a child born in 2009.

Steve Martin Gets Political

I'm not often called upon to comment on it, but I loooooooove Steve Martin.  Loooooooove.  He is a funny, smart and kind-hearted man, and a brilliant musician.  And now, I can love him even more.

(Reuters) - Steve Martin has released an off-beat ad endorsing Bob Kerrey's candidacy in Nebraska's U.S. Senate race, in which the actor and comedian demonstrates how to build a wad of paper while cue cards offering praise for Kerrey are displayed on the screen.

Martin, playing the role of "home crafts expert," mangles a blank single sheet of white paper with paper clips, scissors, staples, chewing gum and a hammer, while a hand emerges from off screen offering typed messages in praise of Kerrey.

"He is a principled man whom I have known and respected for many years," reads one.

"But most of all... He is sane. And his ideas are workable," reads another.

Kerrey, a Democrat, represented Nebraska in the U.S. Senate from 1989 to 2001, when he moved to New York City to lead The New School university. He returned to Omaha this year to seek the seat of retiring U.S. Senator Ben Nelson, a Democrat. Kerrey, who faces Republican State Senator Deb Fischer in the November 6 election, has trailed in polls.

Terminally Ill Woman Forced To Suffer

There should be no question that your life is yours and yours alone to do with as you wish.  This case terrifies me, because as long as a person is competent to make medical decisions (as she is in this case) the wishes of parents are trumping the medical rights of a 28-year-old woman.

She is paralyzed from the neck down, tethered to breathing and feeding tubes — but Manhattan bank manager Grace Sung Eun Lee still managed to mouth four words Wednesday. 

“I want to die.” 

Doctors are trying to honor Lee’s wish, but her devout parents believe that removing the tubes is suicide — a sin that would condemn the 28-year-old to hell. 

They’ve gone to court to keep the terminally ill brain-cancer patient on life support, turning a heartbreaking family tragedy into a right-to-die legal battle.

Her future is determined.  She is not going to overcome this, nor is she going to pull through.  She does not want to prolong her pain, and I do not blame her.

When I went through my medical training, we were drilled on the importance of one of the least taught aspects of our medical rights: we can refuse treatment.  This is for a host of reasons, from experimentation to personal choices to one-off situations.  But the bottom line is we can refuse treatment, and should be able to in order to have freedom over our very lives.

In this case, Lee's parents are being selfish and making their daughter pay the price.  As long as they appeal and stall she will be forced to dwindle and suffer for their hollow victory.  Nobody wins, and this case plays out over and over, all around the country.

The right to die is one we should allow and protect.  The feelings of one person should not be able to override the medical rights of another.  We need to learn our place and let freedom of choice empower people to do what they feel is right.  It's their own life, after all.

Bonus Mitt Romney Stupidity (Special Edition)

TMZ is getting in the politics game, throwing this nice little zinger at Mitt Romney:

President Obama's peeps say Mitt Romney is gonna be sorry for blowing off a bunch of kids who participated in the Nickelodeon show, "Kids Pick the President."

The premise of the show -- kids submit questions to each candidate and based on the answers they make their pick for leader of the free world.  

Obama answered the kids' questions, but Romney said he didn't have the time.

Deputy National Press Secretary Adam Fetcher tells TMZ, "It's no surprise Romney decided to play hookey.  Kids demand details, and I'm sure they want some answers on why Romney could increase their class sizes, eliminate their teacher's jobs, raise taxes on their families and slash funding for Big Bird."

They don't stay neutral, they just don't go out of their way to go after either candidate.  At least, until handed pure gold like this.  It really does say a lot, and I'm glad Obama answered their questions.  Then again, he doesn't have a reason to be ashamed of himself, and Romney does.

Just a little bonus awesomeness from ZVTS, pleas e enjoy the rest of your day!

Man's Best Friend

Zander, a white samoyed-husky mix, navigated two miles of tricky neighborhoods and across a busy highway to find his owner who was in the hospital, and now he's not leaving his side.

As John Dolan lay in his hospital bed at the Good Samaritan Medical Center in Islip, N.Y., Sept. 27, he got a phone call from a hospital employee that he had to come get his dog. One problem, Dolan was inside the hospital and his wife, Priscilla, was asleep at home.

When Zander and Dolan were finally reunited, they couldn't be happier.

"He's my boy. He's been glued to me ever since," Dolan told "Good Morning America" today.

Dolan called his wife last Thursday to tell her to come get Zander outside the hospital. She didn't know he was missing until she got the call.

While Dolan was in the hospital he was very sad and moping around the house, Priscilla Dolan said. He was missing his best friend.

"He sleeps right next to John and John walks him a lot," Priscilla Dolan said.

It's a surprising story but not unheard of for an animal to track his owner.  Still, John Dolan is a lucky fellow, and I hope that Zander gets to go home with his friend.

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.

We Don't Know What We're Doing, Frankly

CNN profiles the mythical "undecided voters" in America's swing states, and it paints a depressing portrait of people who basically blame Obama for not fixing things without mentioning that little problem with GOP obstruction at every turn.  Four of the six voted for him in 2008, and five of the six think the problem is with him.  At no point do Republicans get the blame, other than a general distrust of Romney (all six don't trust the GOP candidate.)

The profile of single female voter Laura Palmer is typical:

Picture a presidential race in which the candidates ditch the insults. Visualize campaigns that inspire with positivity. Believe that you don't have to cut through the noise to figure out who these two men are, and what their leadership would look like in the years ahead, because they will tell you.

President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, his Republican challenger, can let go of their fears and rise above the negativity. They can stop talking about the other guy, get in touch with their own hearts and simply speak their truth to the American people.

Sound hokey or ridiculous? It might. But if you're Laura Palmer, a former Washington insider, a shift like this -- by either candidate -- would snag her vote.

Palmer, 36, represents one of the fastest-growing demographics in the country: unmarried women. They account for a quarter of America's voting population. And in 2008, women in general voted at a higher rate -- casting 10 million more ballots than men.

In Palmer's adopted hometown of Alexandria, a disproportionate number of women are unmarried compared to the rest of the country. And in a swing state like Virginia, where every vote counts, Palmer matters.

But until she sees which man is better able to step outside himself and above the polarity, she will remain undecided.

WHY IS OBAMA SO MEAN!   Why can't he just fix Washington, that's why I voted for him!  It gives me a headache.  Here's a voter who simply doesn't understand that for Democrats and Republicans to get along in Washington, one side wants to, and the other side will simply wreck the country until they get what they want.  It's not polarizing, partisan opinion, it's actual fact as stated by my own senator, Mitch McConnell:  "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president".

Such denial is depressing, and yet these are the voters that both sides will need in order to win. Educating these folks, if you know them, should be a goal of yours.  Talk to them if you can.

You need to.

StupidiNews!

• Hugo Chavez has won re-election in Venezuela with 54% of the vote, earning another six year term.
• Student, parents and faculty at the University of South Alabama are asking questions about the shooting death of a naked freshman by campus police.
• Turkish PM Recep Erdogan is warning that Syria risks open war with Turkey if the neighboring al-Assad regime does not stop shelling border positions.
• Yet another meeting of EU finance ministers today will address Spain, Cyprus, and Greece as the Eurozone turmoil continues.
• The launch of private space company SpaceX's Dragon capsule has gone off without a hitch as the unmanned cargo capsule launched Sunday and has docked to resupply the ISS.