Pot to kettle

Mitt Romney has some concerns about the upcoming debate with President Obama.

"I think the challenge that I'll have in the debate is that the president tends to, how shall I say it, to say things that aren't true," Romney said.

This from the candidate who is "not going to let [his] campaign be dictated by fact-checkers."

Considering how Mittens and Paul Ryan were lambasted for lying their asses off in their convention speeches, I would expect they would be a little more careful when taking liberties with facts. But after Romney accused the president of the United States of sympathizing with the scum who attacked the U.S. consulate in Libya, he clearly will say anything to win, regardless of the truth, regardless of decency.

I suspect that Mittens' real concern about the upcoming debate is his campaign's -- and, by extension, his -- total lack of substance. But that's just a guess. A guess based on paying attention, listening to the candidates and reading the news, but still just a guess.

UPDATE: So who, how shall I say it, said things that aren't true in the debate?

“No. 1,” declared Mitt Romney in Wednesday’s debate, “pre-existing conditions are covered under my plan.” No, they aren’t — as Mr. Romney’s own advisers have conceded in the past, and did again after the debate.

Wow, did Romney's own campaign really admit that he lied during the debate, and admit it immediately after the debate? Yes, it did.

After the first presidential debate at the University of Denver in Colorado on Wednesday night, one of Mitt Romney’s top advisers acknowledged that, as a result Romney’s plan to repeal Obamacare, people with pre-existing medical conditions would likely be unable to purchase insurance.

The admission directly contradicts the GOP candidate’s claim during the debate that “pre-existing conditions are covered under my plan” — a contention Romney has repeated on the trail and that his campaign has repeatedly walked back.

“With respect to pre-existing conditions, what Governor Romney has said is for those with continuous coverage, he would continue to make sure that they receive their coverage,” said Eric Fehrnstrom, referring to existing laws which require insurance companies to sell coverage to people who already have insurance, or within 90 days of losing their employer coverage.

Pressed by TPM’s Evan McMorris-Santoro, Fehrnstrom said those who currently lack coverage because they have pre-existing conditions would need their states to implement their own laws — like Romney’s own Massachusetts health care law — that ban insurance company from discriminating against sick people.

So what exactly does Mittens propose regarding people with pre-existing medical conditions?

What Mr. Romney actually proposes is that Americans with pre-existing conditions who already have health coverage be allowed to keep that coverage even if they lose their job — as long as they keep paying the premiums. As it happens, this is already the law of the land. But it’s not what anyone in real life means by having a health plan that covers pre-existing conditions, because it applies only to those who manage to land a job with health insurance in the first place (and are able to maintain their payments despite losing that job). Did I mention that the number of jobs that come with health insurance has been steadily declining over the past decade?

In other words, nothing.

The bottom line is that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are lying their asses off, on the campaign trail and, as we will soon see from Ryan, in the debates. That's because they can't very well come out and say, "We are going to return this country to the failed policies of George W. Bush," which is exactly what they intend to do, and expect to win the election. For all the agreement that George Bush was the worst president in history, and for all the Republicans' efforts to pretend he never existed, the fact is that Bush wasn't a terrible president because he rejected conservative dogma and failed horribly as a result. He was a terrible president because he embraced conservative dogma and failed horribly as a result. And I would like even one Republican, even one conservative, to explain to me how Mitt Romney differs from George W. Bush. Explain to me how a Romney administration would be any different than the stain on world history that was the Bush administration.

But that's not going to happen. Because Republicans would first have to acknowledge that Bush even existed, which also isn't going to happen.

Just wondering

What are Mitt Romney's qualifications for the presidency? Is it just that he looks like a guy sent by Central Casting to play the role of president and has a shitload of money?

Please tell me his biggest qualification isn't a full head of hair.

Here's an interesting piece of Redsoxville trivia: The search term that drives the most traffic from search engines to this blog: "Mitt Romney is an asshole." This post is what attracts the people who type that into search engines. The individual pictured above is what motivates them to do so.

We don’t need no stinkin’ principles

I think pieces like this, which analyze the incoherent, inconsistent public positions of candidates, in this case Newt Gingrich (with an honorable mention to Mitt Romney's "ever-changing stripes"), while valuable in calling bullshit in very specific terms on bullshit artists masquerading as public servants, miss the larger point.

If politicians' words and deeds seem to be connected more to the prevailing political winds than to the deeply held beliefs of the speaker, maybe there's a reason for that. Maybe it's time to abandon the notion that these politicians apply their deeply held principles and values to their public utterances and policy positions, or that such deeply held principles and values even exist. Rather than respond with shock and outrage every time a politician does or says something that contradicts what they have done and said in the past, we should look for a metric that more consistently explains (and could predict) what we see. Maybe the only underlying political philosophy at work here is winning, and the only relevant deeply held values are those of the wealthy individuals and institutions that can make or break the political ambitions of these aspiring lapdogs.

If the trainwreck George W. Bush administration was good for anything, it was for the development of a powerful sense of political cynicism. That administration's polices were widely criticized as being dumb because they did nothing to help the vast majority of Americans (99 percent, according to some estimates), let alone mankind. But those policies appear dumb only if one assumes they are actually designed to help the vast majority of Americans and/or mankind. If one assumes that those same policies were designed to move vast amounts of money into the hands of the wealthiest humans on earth, then one can't possibly argue with the ruthless effectiveness of those policies.

Here's a handy rule of thumb: If politicians have to stop to think before discussing one of their "deeply held values," it ain't all that deeply held. Peoples' principles don't have to be written on note cards (or their palms) to be remembered. And unless you are very rich, stop assuming that politicians care about you. Their individual utterances might change, but the class of people that benefits from their actions doesn't.

And those stories that call bullshit would be more valuable if they focused less on the bullshit and more on who benefits.

Cross-posted at Suburban Guerilla.

The 14th Amendment

I don't do this often, but I think I might agree with morons (or whores, depending on your view of the sincerity of their publicly proclaimed positions). Maybe Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham and Jon Kyl and so many other conservative dumbasses and lunatics are right: Maybe it is time to review the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In fact, quit pussy-footing around the issue, bitches. Quit your cowardly floating of trial ballons and checking of polls. Let's repeal the fucker.

After all, why should U.S. citizenship be accorded to just anyone? To people who, through no effort or accomplishment of their own, just happen to be born within the borders of the United States? Since when do we just give away shit for free in this country? Citizenship isn't a right, it's a privilege. It's a responsibility that requires knowledge of our history and hard work to stay informed about issues affecting this great nation today. How could an uninformed citizenry possibly be effective stewards of our democracy? How could an ignorant, disinterested electorate keep its leadership honest and strike fear into a corrupt government? How could a lazy, apathetic public be anything more than a punch line, allowing thieving criminals with their hands on the levers of power to begin their lies with the phrase, "The American people ..."?

Citizenship is a serious responsibility that shouldn't be trusted to just anyone. If you can't be bothered to stay informed about the issues facing this country and protect it from those who would do it harm for personal gain; if you are too busy to learn the history of the nation you purport to love; if you are here just to take what you can from this country for yourself with no regard for it or anyone else who lives here; if you can't name the three branches of our government; if you couldn't pass what amounts to a high school civics pop quiz; then please explain to me why you deserve citizenship.

And don't hand me any of that shit about "my parents were here legally." This isn't about their citizenship, it's about yours. So what have you done to deserve to be an American citizen? And remember, if we repeal the 14th Amendment, being born here ain't gonna cut it no more.

If the extent of your commitment to this country is to fly American flags on your vehicle, find somewhere else to live. If you think patriotism is a weapon for divisiveness in a country founded on the virtue of tolerance by people fleeing persecution, if you think loving your country means hating others, get the fuck out of my country. You're too fucking stupid to live here.

No more free rides and no more getting credit for your parents' circumstances. If you want to be an American citizen, earn it. It's the American way.

Their real goal

with programs like NCLB, "issues" like gay marriage, networks like Fox News and amendments like this is to try to keep us ignorant. The less informed and more distracted from the real issues we are, the more crimes they can get away with.

Palin punts

Sarah Palin has decided to mark the Independence Day weekend by reducing the amount of ignorant public officials concerned more about special interests and their own net worth and electability than the welfare of their constituents. She accomplished this by resigning as governor of Alaska.

I imagine this is a dark day for stand-up comics everywhere.

But seriously folks, the speculation that she's resigning in order to run for president in 2012 doesn't hold water. She ran for VP last year while being governor. And the senior citizen she ran with last year kept his day job while running for president (granted he neglected the shit out of said day job), so why couldn't she? Why wouldn't a candidate want to bring the prestige of a governorship to a presidential campaign? I have to think some serious shit is about to hit the fan. Her complaint about investigations of “all sorts of frivolous ethics violations” is telling. Maybe the latest ethics violation isn't so frivolous (Perhaps she meant to say that the investigations, not the ethics violations, were frivolous, but perhaps not).

It's not easy for a governor and former vice presidential candidate's sudden resignation under mysterious circumstances to fly "under the radar," but Palin's announcement at the beginning of a three-day weekend marking a national holiday looks like that's what she was trying to do. Between the long weekend and the memorial service for Michael Jackson, the media may never get around to this story.

And while she is probably pissed off about the recent Vanity Fair article about her and her conduct during the 2008 presidential campaign, it's unlikely she would resign over something like that. You don't emerge from a vice presidential campaign with such thin skin.

The bottom line is that the American people are better off without a public official who apparently considers some ethics violations frivolous. And we are better off without an ignorant blank slate who will say anything, and support anything, to get elected.

UPDATE: The "frivolous" ethics violation in question.

Outgoing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is facing yet another ethics complaint — the 18th against her and the very thing that helped to prompt her resignation.

The latest complaint alleges she abused her office by accepting a salary and using state staff while campaigning outside Alaska for the vice presidency. It's the third complaint filed against the Republican since she announced July 3 that she was stepping down.

Time's Up

(click image to enlarge)
It's a long time until the next presidential election, and I doubt that Sarah Palin will be able to maintain the fallacy that she's relevant for that long. But let's hope so -- what better insurance could there be for a second Obama term than "Palin 2012?"

Frankly, I'd vote for Michael Palin before Sarah Palin. He seems to have a better understanding of government.

Personnel board?

You mean the personnel board that Palin had been trying for months to get to investigate the "troopergate" matter while refusing to cooperate with the state legislature's investigation, even going so far as to file an ethics complaint against herself, thus giving her the ability to end the investigation by withdrawing the complaint or simply refusing to cooperate? That personnel board?

Big fucking deal.

Voter fraud

For those Republicans looking for cases of voter fraud in battleground states, the chairman of the Penn Hills (Pa.) School Board believes he has found one.

Former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum's right to vote in Penn Hills has been challenged -- and election officials will not count his absentee ballot (or that of his wife) until the matter is resolved, Allegheny County Elections Department director Mark Wolosik confirmed.

Erin Vecchio, chairman of the Penn Hills School Board and chair of the Penn Hills Democratic Party, says she challenged the Santorums' right to vote in Pennsylvania this morning because they really live in Virginia.

Vecchio, who has had a long-running dispute with Santorum over his residency, says the former senator and his family live in "an undisclosed location" in northern Virginia and that his attempt to vote here is "voter fraud."

This stems from a dispute over whether the Penn Hills School District should foot the bill for Santorum's children to attend a cyber charter school while the family lived in Virginia. Read all about it, and about Ricky's efforts to mischaracterize the controversy in the run-up to the ass kicking he took in the '06 election, here.

Stop

If you have not voted yet, stop reading and go vote. Now.

Don't know where your polling place is? Click here.

For additional voting information, click here.

My new favorite WR

Ocho Cinco.

We’re told that Bengals receiver Chad Johnson a/k/a Chad Javon Ochocinco had a special touchdown celebration planned for Sunday’s game at Houston, if he had actually managed to, you know, score a touchdown.

Per a league source, Johnson had a Barack Obama banner stashed in each end zone, which he planned to retrieve and unfurl if he had scored.

Too bad the Bengals get into the end zone about as often as Sarah Palin holds a press conference.

Taking their integrity and going home

Things just keep getting better for the McCain campaign.

Some three dozen workers at a telemarketing call center in Indiana walked off the job rather than read an incendiary McCain campaign script attacking Barack Obama, according to two workers at the center and one of their parents.

Nina Williams, a stay-at-home mom in Lake County, Indiana, tells us that her daughter recently called her from her job at the center, upset that she had been asked to read a script attacking Obama for being "dangerously weak on crime," "coddling criminals," and for voting against "protecting children from danger."

Williams' daughter told her that up to 40 of her co-workers had refused to read the script, and had left the call center after supervisors told them that they would have to either read the call or leave, Williams says. The call center is called Americall, and it's located in Hobart, IN.

"They walked out," Williams says of her daughter and her co-workers, adding that they weren't fired but willingly sacrificed pay rather than read the lines. "They were told [by supervisors], `If you all leave, you're not gonna get paid for the rest of the day."

The daughter, who wanted her name withheld fearing retribution from her employer, confirmed the story to us. "It was like at least 40 people," the daughter said. "People thought the script was nasty and they didn't wanna read it."

This must have suprised the McCain camp, as unaccustomed as they are to encountering people with integrity who aren't willing to say just anything in exchange for money. Where are Nancy Pfotenhauer, Tucker Bounds and Sean Hannity when you need them?

Enemies of democracy

The people responsible for this, and the people who benefit from it.

A phony State Board of Elections flier advising Republicans to vote on Nov. 4 and Democrats on Nov. 5 is being circulated in several Hampton Roads localities, according to state elections officials.

In fact, Election Day, for voters of all political stripes, remains Nov. 4.

The somewhat official-looking flier - it features the state board logo and the state seal - is dated Oct. 24 and indicates that "an emergency session of the General Assembly has adopted the follwing (sic) emergency regulations to ease the load on local electorial (sic) precincts and ensure a fair electorial process."

The four-paragraph flier concludes with: "We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause but felt this was the only way to ensure fairness to the complete electorial process."

No emergency action has been taken by the General Assembly. It is not in session and lacks the authority to change the date of a federal election.

State Board of Election officials today said they are aware of the flier but disavowed any connection to it.

"It's not even on our letterhead; they just copied the logo from our Web site," said agency staffer Ryan Enright, noting the flier has been forwarded to State Police for investigation as a possible incident of voter intimidation.

This tactic isn't new, but every time it happens, it reveals Republicans as the enemies of Democracy that they are. Republicans do things like this for the same reason they vilify organizations like ACORN: They have no interest in the will of the people or in seeing that all Americans have a voice in the democratic process. They would rather suppress the voices of people who don't support them in order to protect their own positions of wealth, power and privilege.

And that folks, is fascism.

Oops

McCain responds to John Murtha's "There's no question Western Pennsylvania is a racist area" gaffe with a gaffe of his own.



Something tells me that the campaign's attempt to stick Murtha's comment to Obama will be less than successful.

Having a marble-mouthed idiot in the White House for the last eight years makes me less than enthusiastic about a candidate who makes mistakes like this.

Well, that and the foreign policy. And the tax proposal. And the healthcare proposal. And the race-baiting on the campaign trail. And the VP nominee.

The truth about ACORN

Here are a couple of facts that Republicans leave out of their smears of ACORN:

Most states require voter-registration organizations to submit every registration form they collect, even ones that bear the name Mickey Mouse. To not do so could constitute voter suppression.

Two weeks ago, ACORN explained in a statement, "As part of our nonpartisan voter registration program, we have reviewed all the applications submitted by our canvassers. When we have identified suspicious applications, we have separated them out and flagged them for election officials. We have zero tolerance for fraudulent registrations. We immediately dismiss employees we suspect of submitting fraudulent registrations."

Organizations that are trying to commit fraud usually don't tip off investigators. ACORN tries to help out local officials by identifying for them registrations that the organization considers suspicious, and Republicans twist that into "ACORN is trying to commit voter fraud!"

While we're talking about voter fraud, the Republican talking point that ACORN is responsible for voter fraud because a few of the people the group hired to help register voters submitted a few fake registrations is typical GOP bullshit, because voter fraud doesn't happen until someone actually shows up at the polls and tries to cast a fraudulent vote. And that, of course, hasn't happened.

The truth is that conservatives don't like groups like ACORN because these groups help minorities and poor people register to vote. And minorities and the poor generally do not vote for conservative candidates because conservatives don't represent their interests. So, essentially, conservatives have no interest in strengthening the backbone of democracy: improving efforts to register Americans to vote. Talk about having anti-American views--another bullshit charge that Republicans, including the McCain campaign, are leveling at their opponents. And so much for that "country first" lie.

UPDATE: Speaking of voter registration fraud...

John McCain paid $175,000 of campaign money to a Republican operative accused of massive voter registration fraud in several states, it has emerged.

As the McCain camp attempts to tie Barack Obama to claims of registration irregularities by the activist group ACORN, campaign finance records detailing the payment to the firm of Nathan Sproul, investigated several times for fraud, threatens to derail that argument.

The documents show that a joint committee of the McCain-Palin campaign, the Republican National Committee and the California Republican Party, made the payment to Lincoln Strategy, of which Mr Sproul is the managing partner, for the purposes of “voter registration”.

Mr Sproul has been investigated on numerous occasions for preventing Democrats from voting, destroying registration forms and leading efforts to get Ralph Nader on ballots to leach the Democratic vote.

In October last year, the House Judiciary Committee wrote to the Attorney General requesting answers regarding a number of allegations against Mr Sproul’s firm, then known as Sproul and Associates. It referred to evidence that ahead of the 2004 national elections, the firm trained staff only to register Republican voters and destroyed any other registration cards, citing affidavits from former staff members and investigations by television news programmes.

One former worker testified that “fooling people was key to the job” and that “canvassers were told to act as if they were non-partisan, to hide that they were working for the RNC, especially if approached by the media,” according to the committee’s letter.

A useful rule of thumb is that if Republicans are accusing others of something, there's a very good chance that they are doing that very thing themselves. Right Newt?

Tax calculator

Click here to calculate how the Obama/Biden tax plan will affect you. The calculator also allows you to compare the results with those of the McCain/Palin tax plan.

Or you could just take John McCain’s word for it when he claims “that one” wants to raise your taxes.

This calculator is a good idea, and just might sway a few undecideds when they see the numbers for themselves.

While we’re having such a friendly chat about taxes, I’m so sick of politicians treating taxes like they are the greatest evil ever to darken the planet. Do you like competent teachers? A fully staffed and equipped police force? Fire department? Roads in good repair? Bridges that don’t collapse? A safety net for workers who lose their jobs (which is especially useful these days)? Then you don’t exactly hate taxes.

But what else besides the Frankenstein view of “taxes bad” does the Republican party have to run on? It’s spiel about deregulation isn’t very convincing these days, and the party’s domestic and foreign policy records speak for themselves.

Hokey mom

Philadelphia Flyers fans give Sarah Palin the reception she deserves for spewing so much hatred on the campaign trail.



Even the blaring of inspiring, quasi-patriotic music couldn’t drown out the disdain.

One would think that such a reception would be expected in a heavily Democratic town like Philly. But the Flyers are not an inexpensive ticket, and a typical Flyers crowd comprises many more well-heeled suburbanites from Montgomery and (the aptly named) Bucks counties than city-dwelling Joe Sixpacks.

So this reception is not good news for McCain/Palin in Pennsylvania, which is considered a key battleground state, even though Barak Obama is opening up a healthy lead there. Flyers owner Ed Snider did the GOP no favors last night.

On a personal note, this fills this Philly boy’s heart with civic pride.

And, while we’re on the subject, it appears entirely possible, if not likely, that the Phillies and the Red Sox will meet in the World Series. For the record, if that happens, I am rooting for the Phillies. The Red Sox have won two of the last four World Series, and the Phillies have won a total of one in 125 years. I’m sympathetic to Cubs fans, but quit your whining: The Cubs have been to twice as many Series as the Phils, and have twice as many titles. Two may not be many, but they’re more.

WTF?

John McCain, on the rescue bailout bill he voted for.



Is McCain actually taking on his own position on the bailout?

What a maverick.

Seriously, he votes for a bill and then criticizes it? Why did he vote for it? Is McCain even coherent anymore?

Compare and contrast

A taste of what to expect in tonight’s must-see tee-vee.



And props to Katie Couric, who has been criticized in this space before. Sure, the MSM’s apparent decision that Palin will be tried as an adult makes it easier to challenge her with questions that for anyone else would be softballs, but Couric asked them — and, more importantly, followed up when Palin offered nonanswers. The Palin interview, while giving the nation some good laughs along with the fear that this empty vessel could become president, gave Couric the gravitas she’s been lacking. Nice job.

Supreme ignorance

Palin’s inability to identify a Supreme Court decision she disagrees with in the clip above makes you wonder how heartfelt her comments were in the clip below. The following clip is Palin’s alleged reaction to the Supremes’ ruling lowering punitive damages in the Valdez case, which was just over three months ago.



But I’m sure her handlers have reminded her of this decision after the Couric trainwreck, so that when she’s asked about this tonight, she can briefly imitate an informed person.