Last Call

As many people suspected, Tagg Romney's comments to the President after Monday's debate (you know, where his dad got his ass handed to him) were in fact an apology for last week's little petulant joke about taking a swing at POTUS.

Tagg Romney, Mitt Romney's oldest son, apologized to President Barack Obama Monday for saying he wanted to "take a swing" at him during contentious presidential debates.

Obama and Tagg Romney were seen speaking on the stage after Monday's final presidential debate, held at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida. Two Obama aides said the conversation included an apology for the remark, made last week during a radio interview.

How magnanimous of him.

Asked about the original comments on Thursday, Romney campaign spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg said Tagg Romney was "joking about how frustrating this process can be for family."

It's hard being the Romneys, you know.  Ridiculously rich and entitled to the point of nobility. So difficult to control their barely veiled contempt at the man currently in the office their father is clearly entitled to by dint of being Mitt Romney.

So very difficult indeed.

Feature, Not A Bug

Good news ladies, yet another Republican senate candidate here in the Midwest wants you to know that should you get raped and conceive your rapist's baby, God meant for that to happen.

The latest entrant into the Republican rape insensitivity bake-off is Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock, who said tonight that “even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.” He, of course, joins fellow Senate candidate Todd Akin, with his now-canonical “legitimate rape” comment, and Rep. Joe Walsh, running for election in Illinois, who claimed there was no reason a woman would ever need an abortion to save her life or preserve her health. The trailblazer was Tea Party candidate Sharron Angle, who failed to unseat Harry Reid in Nevada two years ago, and famously said that if a hypothetical teenager was raped and impregnated by her father, it was an opportunity to turn “a lemon situation into lemonade.”

Of course now Mourdock is trying to weasel out of it, just like Todd Akin.

“I spoke from my heart. For speaking from my heart, for speaking from the deepest level of my faith, I cannot apologize,” he said. “I would be less than faithful to my faith if I said anything other than life is precious, I believe it is a gift from God. I believe that God would never want anyone harmed, sexually abused, raped. I believe it’s wrong when people want to take what I said and twist it. And if in any way people came away with the wrong meaning, then for that I do apologize.”

One reporter asked Mourdock to clarify that he wasn’t apologizing for the remarks themselves but instead expressing regret for how they were heard.

“That’s correct,” Mourdock said.

I apologize you stupid libtards misheard me. It's a gift from God, because shut up and stop having sex, you filthy libtard hussy.

By the way, Mitt Romney refuses to withdraw his endorsement of this assclown.  That should tell you everything you need to know about Romney as President, right?

Trumped-Up Tyrant

The Donald's big "announcement":  He'll write a $5 million check to the charity of President Obama's choice if POTUS releases his college transcripts and passport info, both of which are somehow supposed to prove that the President is not really a US citizen or something.

"I have a deal for the president, a deal that I don't believe he can refuse, and I hope he doesn't. If Barack Obama opens up and gives his college records and applications and if he gives his passport applications and records, I will give to a charity of his choice - inner city children in Chicago, American Cancer Society, AIDS research, anything he wants–a check immediately for $5 million," Trump said.

He added that the check will be written "within one hour" of the documents' release and set a deadline of 5 p.m. on October 31, one week before Election Day…and also right as children are heading out the door to begin trick or treating on Halloween.

"Frankly it's a check that I very much want to write," he said. "I absolutely would be the most happy of all if I did in fact make this contribution through the president to the charities."

Uh-huh.  Nice little piece of extortion right before the election when the President tells Trump to eff off.  Gosh, what is he hiding, don't the American people deserve to know, blah blah blah.

In other words, Trump has nothing and never did.  Surprise, right?

Do You Want Fries With That Stupidity?

FAIRBORN — An assistant manager at an Arby’s, who slipped out of a drive-thru window to get away from an armed robber who invaded the store early Friday, has been fired.

Mary Archer learned of her fate less than 24 hours after a man with a knife slipped into the business, 1130 E. Dayton Yellow Springs Road, at about 12:45 a.m.

She signed the paperwork her supervisor gave her, which stated that she had broken the corporation’s safety and security policy because she was alone in the fast food business when it was robbed.

Archer says she had worked for Arby's for twenty-two years, and would not be interested in having her job back.  After all of those years, to be fired for closing and escaping a robber is insane.  That two decades of service isn't factored in shows what happens when businesses use zero tolerance policies to absolve them of the responsibility of thinking.

Bigger Stupidity In Texas

SAN ANTONIO -- A San Antonio woman is facing charges after police say she faked her own kidnapping to get a day off from work.

An officer on patrol went to check out a car parked near Ray Ellison and Five Palms around 6:30 p.m. on October 10th. When the officer looked inside the car, he spotted 48-year-old Sheila Bailey Eubank bound with rope.

An arrest warrant affidavit states Eubank told police a man jumped into her car around 6:15 a.m. while she was at a Security Service Federal Credit Union ATM near Loop 1604 and Bandera Road. Eubank said the man held her an knife point and forced her to drive him to various locations for what she believed were drug deals. She told officers he then assaulted her, tried to choke her with a rope, and then tied her up and left her in her car.

However, officers discovered a lottery ticket in Eubank's purse that was purchased that day during the hours she claimed she was being held. Investigators reviewed surveillance video from the store where the lottery ticket was purchased and found out she had entered the store by herself and appeared "healthy, unhurried, and pleasant with the clerk."

This is what sick days are for.  What bothers me about this is idiots like this woman are loose everyday, among the rest of us.  You never know when they will reach their potential for stupidity, but rest assured those around them are at risk.

Apology Not Accepted

When you get called out by MSNBC's resident Village grande dame Andrea Mitchell of all people for lying in the last two weeks of the campaign, you know you've told something that not even she can spin in your favor.  GOP talking head Jim Talent found this out the fun way.

“He goes and does an apology tour,” the former senator continued. “And then last night he denies it was an apology tour.”

“Excuse me, Senator,” Mitchell interrupted. “I have fact checked the so-called ‘apology tour’ and it just didn’t happen.”

“Yeah, he went to four different cities, said America had dictated,” Talent insisted, before pivoting to say that the president had “resisted sanctions against Iran.”

“I’ve been covering the Iran sanctions at the U.N. in the P5-plus-1,” Mitchell noted. “After that initial attempt… to reach out and give Iran a chance to try to have an engagement — after that initial attempt, there was nothing but a move at the United Nations by Secretary [Hillary] Clinton to try to bring all of the allies aboard. The allies were demanding, ‘Make an overture, then we’ll be with you.’ And they ended up with the toughest sanctions ever.”

Oops. It seems Mrs. Alan Greenspan actually has her limits on the lies she's willing to tolerate by the GOP.  Who knew such a thing was even possible?

Gaffe Control To Major Mitt

Take your press blackout pills and put your helmet on.  If Miitt doesn't have to answer questions for the last two weeks of the campaign, he can't screw it up, can he?

The Romney campaign is not committing to granting any network interviews in the final two weeks of the campaign.

Kevin Madden walked to the back of Romney’s plane Tuesday afternoon on the flight from Palm Beach to Las Vegas to talk about the debate. A television correspondent noted that President Barack Obama is sitting down with Brian Williams and Jay Leno this week and wondered if the Republican nominee will give an interview to a network.

“Look, one of the great things about the debates were we got a chance to talk directly to the American people about the issues that they care about. Over the next 14 days, Gov. Romney is looking forward to meeting with as many voters in these critical swing states and delivering them his closing argument about why he would be a better president. I don’t have anything for you on scheduling yet, but I’ll let you know as we update it.”

It may be the smartest tactical move the Romney squad has made in the campaign, frankly.  If he doesn't open his mouth, his silver foot can't be inserted into it.

But of course, the larger question is why Mitt's so afraid of that happening...and why the press is letting him get away with it.

StupidiNews!

• The Dow took a 240-point nosedive on Tuesday as a series of major corporate earnings misses for the third quarter deflated the markets.
• House Democrats are calling on the Department of Justice to investigate possible GOP voter registration fraud in Virginia.
• Penn State climate scientist Michael Mann is suing conservative magazine National Review and a sponsored think tank for defamation.
• Apple unveiled the much anticipated iPad Mini to consumers on Tuesday, trying to compete with the Google Nexus 7 and Amazon Kindle Fire HD.
• A new study in the journal Nature indicates pesticides can have far-reaching detrimental effects on bee colonies.

Last Call

Nate Silver believes there’s a 50/50 chance that Ohio is decisive.

Strap in, folks.  I’ve been saying for a while now that as goes Ohio, so goes the nation in this election, and two weeks out Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com finds the math is shaking out to match that exact scenario.

We are now running about 40,000 Electoral College simulations each day. In the simulations that we ran on Monday, the candidate who won Ohio won the election roughly 38,000 times, or in about 95 percent of the cases. (Mr. Romney won in about 1,400 simulations despite losing Ohio, while Mr. Obama did so roughly 550 times.)

Whether you call Ohio a “must-win” is a matter of semantics, but its essential role in the Electoral College should not be hard to grasp.

I’ll go one step further.  If Ohio will decide this election, then the Cincinnati metro area (Hamilton, Butler and Warren counties) will decide Ohio.  If the urban turnout in Hamilton County and Cincinnati proper is good like it was last year (sweeping into power a nearly all Democratic City Council), Obama will win.  If it gets buried like it did in 2010 by Boehner country in the Warren and Butler County suburbs north of the city, say hello to President Romney.

That’s how important I think southwest Ohio will be to the state and the nation in the next two weeks.  The recent early voting victory for the Democrats here is going to make all the difference I believe, and I see the President pulling it out here by a couple of points as a result.

If you’re in Ohio, GET TO THE POLLS.  You can still vote early all the way through until Election Day, including next weekend and the weekend before Election Day.  Your vote matter no matter where you are, but your vote will absolutely matter in the Buckeye State.

Get out there.  Help others get out there.  Help get Souls to the Polls in Ohio.  Please.

The Changing Face Of Climate Change

BREAKING NEWS:  The Vice-Presidential candidates for both parties not only mentioned that climate change was real, but both candidates pledged to do something about it as David Roberts points out at the Grist.

The questioner doesn’t mamby-pamby around with he-said she-said, he states flatly that “most scientists” agree and that future generations are at risk.

And neither candidate bothers with dissembling or dodging. Both acknowledge the problem and promise to address it.

Of course the catch is that the year is 1988 -- 24 years ago -- and that the candidates were Lloyd Bentsen and Dan Quayle:



So, Roberts asks rightfully, what the hell happened?  Corporate America happened, of course.

Now, what happened in 2008 that might have turned conservatives against climate? Hm … thinking … wait, wasn’t there an election that year? Why yes, I believe there was. Black Democrat took office, as I recall.

The sharp conservative turn against climate was part and parcel of the Tea Party phenomenon. When Obama and congressional Democrats championed legislation to address climate change — legislation not that different from what McCain championed in 2008 — the right immediately aligned against it, like a school of fish. Once cap-and-trade failed spectacularly, the issue went underground. The right is united in implacable opposition to all solutions. Burdened with so many coal states, the Dem coalition doesn’t have the votes to overcome the right’s opposition. So there’s just nothing to say. There’s no margin in talking about it. It doesn’t get Dems any votes they don’t already have. It doesn’t — despite the festival of self-delusion going on lately — move any independent or undecided votes. And it activates furious right-wing activism. So … who has incentive to talk about it? No one. As [Chris] Hayes says, Obama can’t single-handedly change this dynamic, no matter how many times he says the words “climate change.”

And so nothing will happen because the right will forever oppose anything a Democrat wants to see passed.   This goes times ten for Barack Obama.  The Earth will burn because of petulant children and corporate greed.

But of course, that's just humanity reverting to form.

Why Would Republicans Investigate Voter Registration Fraud By Republicans?

Seems like an obvious question with an even more obvious answer, but not one Republican will say anything about the continuing problems with the firms the GOP has outsourced they registration to.

The Virginia State Board of Elections announced Friday that it will not ask the state’s attorney general to investigate the Republican operative accused of tossing out eight completed voter registration forms, rejecting Democratic-led efforts at a full investigation into the alleged tampering.

State Senator and chairman of the Senate Democratic Caucus Donald McEachin had called for a complete investigation of the incident, in which 31-year-old Colin Small is accused of deliberately discarding valid voter registration forms. 

“This is simply too serious an issue,” McEachin said in a statement. “Voting is the bedrock of our democracy and we, as Virginians, deserve to know exactly what happened, how widespread the abuse and under whose orders, if any, the individual in question acted.”

Yet the board decided not to request a formal investigation by Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, leaving the matter up to local authorities. A spokesman for Cuccinelli’s office told the Washington Post that the attorney general could only review the case if the State Board of Elections asked him to do so.

There's no fraud here, because ACORN and New Black Panthers.  Please ignore our actual, documented voter registration fraud while we continue to push laws making it harder for Democrats to vote and we buy voting machine companies with questionable software security, all while blaming Democrats.

Boston Buzzing Over Vibrator Giveaway

Condom maker Trojan, which gave away 10,000 vibrators in the streets of New York City in August, is having trouble bringing the same promotion to Boston.

The company had requested a permit for a giveaway in Boston’s City Hall Plaza. But the mayor’s office sent Trojan a letter, asking it to find an “alternative site.”

Michael Galvin, the chief of property management in the Mayor Tom Menino’s office, wrote, ”I am told the public nature of the plaza affords you legal protection to distribute these products should you insist against our objections, but I would tell you in the strongest terms allowable that I feel this is an inappropriate and irresponsible use for the plaza.”

The mayor’s office did not immediately return a request for comment.

Bruce Weiss, vice president of marketing for Trojan Sexual Health, said, the company will continue to work with the city to find the right location to host the Trojan vibrator giveaway.

So Trojan showed class and is working with the city.  They have the legal upper hand in every regard, but are at least exploring options that will work for everyone.  Meanwhile, the mayor's office has made a mountain out of a molehill.

The Importance Of Voting

(CNN) - A photo of World War II veteran Frank Tanabe casting what will likely be his final ballot in a presidential election has gone viral –and captured the hearts of thousands.

Tanabe, 93, is in the final stages of inoperable liver cancer and is currently at home receiving hospice care, surrounded by his wife and children in Honolulu.

He has always been a true patriot, his daughters said. In 2010 he was among a group of Japanese-Americans who were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal as part of the Military Intelligence Service Unit during World War II.

According to his daughters, Frank has never missed a presidential election, and wasn't about to let his illness deter him from voting this time around.

When his absentee ballot arrived on Wednesday, his daughter, Barbara, sat at his bedside and read aloud the candidates and issues.

"I helped him. He either nodded 'yes' or shook his head 'no'," Barbara said. "He didn't always vote for my candidate."

Nonetheless, she followed his directions and mailed in the completed form. He hasn't been able to speak since.

When you face death, every  moment is precious.  This is important enough to spend his time on, to use his last words for.  He held on to make sure his vote was counted, and if that doesn't make you appreciate our right to be heard, nothing will.

Debate Deblogging

The round up of analysis from last night's debate shows a pretty clear win for President Obama, and a near Palin-like indifference to foreign policy on the part of Mitt Romney. My scoring is here, as I thought it was a clear blowout for the President last night.  Pretty much the rest of the pundit class either agreed, or was more likely dumbfounded by just how simply impossible it was to ignore just how awful Romney was last night.

The collected wisdom of the Village, as it is, after the jump.

The Donald's Game Changer?

Donald Trump has a "big announcement" about President Obama.  I wonder if he's donating his hairpiece to science.

Conservative reality star and business mogul Donald Trump appeared on Fox & Friends this morning to hype what he’s calling a “big announcement” about President Barack Obama.

The Romney backer says intends to share his revelation on Wednesday, the same day the president will be appearing on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

“Will it change the election?” asked Fox host Gretchen Carlson.

“Possibly,” Trump replied.

“Is it personal, or is it how he governs?” co-host Brian Kilmeade asked.

“It’s all in one,” said Trump. “Everything. It’s very big. Bigger than anybody would know.”

Oh please let this be such a tinfoil pile of overtly racist stupid that The Donald is run out of town finally.  Please, please, please.