May 18, 2013

Saturday Open Thread: West Wing Week

April 21, 2012 by 94 Comments

Good morning Obots!

This week, the President visited one of the Sunshine State’s largest ports, attended the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia, announced new steps to strengthen oversight of energy markets, welcomed champion NASCAR drivers and the Alabama Crimson Tide football team to the White House, and traveled to Ohio to speak with unemployed workers about the importance of job training program.

Filed Under: Open Thread, West Wing Week
  • rikyrah

    Good Morning, Everyone :)

  • Admiral_Komack

    Good morning.

  • Miranda

    So why wasn’t this man and his son arrested for wielding a gun around for no reason? This is exactly what these foolish SYG laws do, make people who are already stupid, get more stupid thinking they are the judge and jury of everyone they see. What if the homeowner had moved? Was he gonna get shot?

    Couple held at gunpoint, arrested after buying home

    The Newton County Sheriff’s Office is investigating why a couple was confronted at gunpoint by neighbors and then arrested and forced to spend the night in jail when they tried to move into the home they had just purchased, Channel 2 Action News reported.

    The Kalonji family had just closed on a foreclosed home and were told by their real estate agent they should go over to the house and change the locks.

    But when Jean Kalonji and his wife, Angelica, started working at the home, an armed man and another person who appeared to be the man’s son allegedly confronted them.

    “He say to put the hands up and get out from the house, otherwise he would shoot us,” the husband told Channel 2.

    more here
    http://www.ajc.com/news/couple-held-at-gunpoint-1423138.html

    • Town

      Kalonji sounds African.

  • Miranda

    Well they’re nothing if not consistent. I knew eventually we would get the RGIII is (insert whatever derogatory stereotype of black athlete’s you want). They played it late this year. Usually these things come out a month in advance of the draft. Nevertheless, here we go with the “he’s selfish! nobody likes him!” bs. And because of this “unnamed” scout, of course espn must cover it extensively and every sports talk show devote countless segments to delve into exactly how selfish RGIII is. SMH

    Oh, look! Robert Griffin III has a selfish streak now!
    http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdown-corner/oh-look-robert-griffin-iii-selfish-streak-now-170812742.html

    • MsKitty

      Because that worked so well with Cam Newton last year…oh wait.

    • Guns3000

      This is from some anonymous scout. If really believe what you are saying PUT YOUR NAME ON IT.

    • Kennymack1971

      RG3 will be fine. This hater can have a seat. DC will love this kid(It will sicken me to see him in that burgundy and gold though)

  • dannie22

    good morning! i know some dont like Kola Boof, but i thought this was an interesting and sensitve post about genital mutilation. http://www.owlasylum.net/?p=1823

  • Miranda

    Apparently if you’re a teacher you don’t really need a cost of living increase – they should go back to the old days of the school marms that lived in boarding houses together.

    New state rule would limit cost-of-living increases for teachers

    Madison – Gov. Scott Walker used his broad new powers to reshape a rule to lower inflation-based raises that public unions can negotiate by 30% or more for teachers in public schools and technical colleges.

    The rule change would not use an individual’s actual salary as a “base salary” to calculate raises and would exclude factors such as a teacher’s higher degree.

    more here
    http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/new-state-rule-would-limit-costofliving-increases-for-unions-8153h46-148330765.html

  • Miranda

    This will be fun

    Do welfare moms work as hard as Ann Romney?

    Just when you thought the dust was settling from the recent taking-of-umbrage inspired by Democratic pundit Hilary Rosen’s “Ann Romney hasn’t worked a day in her life” comment, House Democrats have made a wry political move that is likely to stir things right back up.

    A group of politicians led by Rep. Pete Stark of California are taking Mitt Romney at his word — that “all moms are working moms” — and plan to introduce an act that would allow mothers receiving welfare support to count their childrearing duties as the required “work activity” until the child turns 4. Stark told Ryan Grim at the Huffington Post that the Women’s Option to Raise Kids Act (WORK) arises naturally from the Republican presidential candidate’s stated positions:

    “Mitt Romney was for forcing mothers into the workforce before he decided that ‘all moms are working moms,’ ” Stark told The Huffington Post. “I think we should take Mr. Romney at his most recent word and change our federal laws to recognize the importance and legitimacy of raising young children. That’s why I’m introducing the WORK Act to provide low-income parents the option of staying home to raise young children without fear of being pushed into poverty.”

    more here
    http://bangordailynews.com/2012/04/21/politics/do-welfare-moms-work-as-hard-as-ann-romney/

    • conlakappa

      Love the use of “most recent word.” Tell him, Pete, Now Johnny Orange and Eric TwoFaces will be scrambling to talk about the politicizing blah blah blah. Moosilla will try to talk about herself. Again.

  • GreenLadyHere
  • GreenLadyHere

    – - -GOOD SATURDAY MORNTIN’ ALEXANDER2 —***BIG HUG*** :>) – –

    - SO -HAPPY 2 REVIEW THIS PAST – –”WHIRLWIND WEEK” –:>) It

    SHOWS the GR8 LEADERSHIP of OUR BELOVED PRESIDENT! :>) – - -

    – - – - -Here is a REPORT on his HOSTING of the WOUNDED WARRIOR PROJECT:- – -

    – - —Wounded Warrior Project Soldier Ride – -

    – - – -President Obama speaks before the start of the Wounded Warrior Project Soldier Ride, a cycling event that raises awareness for our nation’s wounded warriors who battle the physical and psychological damages of war.

    THANK U – –MR. PRESIDENT. :>) We NEED U for – - -4 MORE YEARS! :>)

    – —THANK U 4 BRANGIN’ THIS—-ALEXANDER2. Have WONDERFUL DAY. :>) ——

  • GreenLadyHere

    ALEXANDER2 – - –Mr. President has been briefed on the Secret Service investigation:

    – - – - Obama talks with Secret Service director – - -

    – — –President Obama met with Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan on Friday afternoon, a senior White House official told POLITICO.

    “This afternoon, the President received a briefing from Director Sullivan in the Oval Office on the Secret Service’s ongoing investigation,” the official said.

  • rikyrah

    He’s Just There to Sign the Bills

    by BooMan
    Fri Apr 20th, 2012 at 04:57:51 PM

    Members of the GOP are still feeling pretty gloomy and despondent about their nominee, but they’re talking a good game:

    Some Republicans are making the best of it by noting that the party’s conservative base will keep Romney’s feet to the fire and asserting that he’s largely a vessel.

    “This is not Taft-Eisenhower or Goldwater-Rockefeller,” said anti-tax leader Grover Norquist, who said he feels better now about winning than he did a month ago. “We’re not nominating a candidate to tell the party what direction to go. All of them ran as Reagan Republicans. We know what we’re doing and who we are — we just want a guy to sign the bills.”

    Put simply, “We’re electing a coach of a team that knows the plays,” Norquist said.

    Grover is saying that Romney is more like Taft and Goldwater than he is like Eisenhower and Nelson Rockefeller. He’s not talking about President Taft. He’s talking about Robert Taft, a mid-century senator from Ohio who got shafted at the 1952 Republican National Convention.

    The fight between Taft and Eisenhower for the GOP nomination was one of the closest and most bitter in American political history. When the Republican Convention opened in Chicago in July 1952, Taft and Eisenhower were neck-and-neck in delegate votes, and the nomination was still up for grabs as neither had a majority. On the convention’s first day, Eisenhower’s managers complained that Taft’s forces had unfairly denied Eisenhower supporters delegate slots in several Southern states, including Texas, where the state chairman, Orville Bullington, was committed to Taft, and also in Georgia. The Eisenhower partisans proposed to remove pro-Taft delegates in these states and replace them with pro-Eisenhower delegates; they called their proposal “Fair Play”. Although Taft angrily denied having stolen any delegate votes, the convention voted to support Fair Play 658 to 548, and the Texans voted 33-5 for Eisenhower as a result. In addition, several uncommitted state delegations, such as Michigan and Pennsylvania, agreed to support Eisenhower. There were rumors after the convention that the chairmen of these uncommitted states, such as Arthur Summerfield of Michigan, were secretly pressured by Dewey and the GOP’s Eastern Establishment to support Eisenhower; however, these rumors were never proved. (Summerfield did become Eisenhower’s Postmaster General.)

    Eisenhower ran against Taft because Taft had opposed intervention in World War Two, had opposed the Nuremberg Trials, opposed the establishment of NATO, and didn’t see Joseph Stalin as a threat. He wasn’t exactly a Karl Rove-Republican. He probably resembles Ron Paul more than Ronald Reagan or Rick Santorum or any major modern figure in the Republican Party.

    You probably know him indirectly through the Taft-Hartley Act which greatly reduced the power of labor unions.

    In any case, Mitt Romney doesn’t resemble Taft. Nor does he remind anyone of Eisenhower or Nelson Rockefeller. He comes closest to resembling Barry Goldwater, although even that is a bit of stretch.

    The main thing is that he’s seen as a vessel. He’s just there to sign the bills that the radical modern GOP puts on his desk. He’s a weak coach who lets the star players run the team. That’s how the Republicans are consoling themselves.

    http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2012/4/20/165751/981

  • rikyrah

    Posted at 03:21 PM ET, 04/20/2012
    Left gears up for fight over student loans
    By Greg Sargent

    By all means, let’s talk about how best to create opportunity.

    For some time now, groups on the left have been pushing Democrats and the White House to pick a big fight with Republicans over the fact that student loan interest rates are set to double when a federal law expires this summer. The White House is now set to join the battle:


    President Obama begins an all-out push on Friday to get Congress to extend the low interest rate on federal student loans, White House officials said, an effort that is likely to become a heated battle along party lines. If Congress fails to act, the interest rate on the loans, which are taken out by nearly eight million students each year, will double on July 1, to 6.8 percent.

    White House officials said the president was planning a sustained effort through the spring….on Saturday in his weekly address, the president will call on Congress to pass legislation preventing the rate hike.

    Next week, Mr. Obama will again hammer the issue — during visits on Tuesday to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Colorado at Boulder, and on Wednesday at the University of Iowa.

    Republicans have argued that the extension heaps great costs on the backs of taxpayers. But a Dem points out that the cost of a one-year extension — $6 billion — is only marginally more than the annual amount that the Buffett Rule would have brought in, which Republicans argued was laughably trivial.

    There’s already an infrastructure on the left that’s primed for this fight. The group CREDO Action has been organizing on the issue and urging Dems to take it on; it has collected 230,000 signatures.

    But CREDO may not be satisfied if the Obama administration pushes for only a one-year extension. The group is set to go out with an email to supporters asking them to pressure Dems not to compromise on any one-year measure (presuming Republicans are even willing to do that).

    “If we build massive support, we can prevent an early compromise that would put off the doubling of the interest rates for only one year — a compromise that is both unnecessary and not nearly good enough,” the email says.

    That aside, the battle over student loans serves a good political purpose for Dems: It feeds into the argument between the parties over how best to create opportunity, a dispute that is central to the presidential race. Republicans and Mitt Romney argue that Obama’s call for action to combat inequality is class warfare and insist the best way to reduce it is to sweep away government, unshackle the private sector and allow it to create opportunity for everyone. Obama and Dems counter that Republicans don’t really favor any genuine effort to create opportunity and that government action is necessary to increase social mobility, and with it, shared prosperity— via funding education, for instance.

    The battle over extending student loans takes this argument out of the realm of the abstract, and places the debate over whether government should act to facilitate opportunity before the voters in concrete terms.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/left-gears-up-for-fight-over-student-loans/2012/04/20/gIQAnvR5VT_blog.html

    • conlakappa

      Hmmm, where’s the stank [literally, in this case] Occupying Wall Street crowd on this issue? Wasn’t not wanting to pay their student loans a major issue for them? CREDO is carrying the water, issuing its stock threats against the President, and wearing the mantle of “The Left?” Must be hard work.

  • GreenLadyHere

    ALEXANDER2 – - – - -”CHA-CHING!!*** – - –COUNT IT UP!! – - –Woo! Hoo! – -

    – - —Obama raises $35M in March, has more than $100M stored away – –

    – - – -President Obama’s reelection campaign brought in $35 million during March, while the Obama Victory Fund took in $18.7 million.

    The March totals for Obama’s campaign and the Victory Fund, a joint committee shared by his campaign and the Democratic National Committee, dwarfed what Republicans and Mitt Romney raised in the same month. But Obama’s campaign didn’t have the burden of an expensive primary battle, and was free to focus on storing up cash for the fall.

    Romney raised more than $12.5 million in March — his best month yet of the campaign — and the Republican National Committee raised $13.7 million.

    But Obama’s campaign entered April with $104 million in the bank — more than 10 times the $10.1 million that Romney had. His joint committee had another $37.5 million on hand.
    THERE IS MORE.

    —–NO “ENTHU$IA$M GAP” – –in the GIVING!! :>) – - -Woo! Hoo! – –

    – - —-4! – - MORE! – –YEARS!!- – - – -

    • vulcan_girl

      Have we ever been told how much was left in the war chest after 2008? I think the ads in video games were awesome, and the 30 minute ad was such an eff you to the haters.

      • GreenLadyHere

        HEEY vulcan_girl. ***BIG HUG*** :>)

        – - -I’m sorry. I ‘ON’T KNOW. :>) – - -Good question. :>)

        Good point. :>) Maybe soma them R formin’ the basis 4 those used this year [although the topics R vastly different. :>)]

        Sooo good 2 C U — vulcan_girl. :>)

  • rikyrah

    4/20/2012
    David Brooks Understands Fuck-All About Colleges:

    The Rude Pundit doesn’t spend a lot of time writing about his profession because, frankly, he just doesn’t think a lot of what we do is very interesting to most everyone everywhere. But New York Times writer David Brooks decided to shit where the Rude Pundit sleeps, and, between that and an enraging sliming in the Washington Post a couple of weeks ago, a response is more than justified.

    Today, in his “column” (if by “column,” you mean, “the pathetic pleadings of an elitist prig begging to demonstrate his regular dude street cred”), Brooks cites a few studies and books that say that students simply aren’t learning very much in their college experience in the last couple of decades. You can tell where he’s coming from by this line: “At some point, parents are going to decide that $160,000 is too high a price if all you get is an empty credential and a fancy car-window sticker.”

    Let’s unpack that for just a moment: he’s obviously talking about rich students at elite institutions, where “parents” can obviously afford $40,000 a year. Because that ain’t about kids who have to pile up student loans and get government assistance. And it ain’t about the vast majority of schools in the nation which cost far, far less. Oh, and one thing. Let’s not be naive. Of course, those parents are buying a fancy car-window sticker. And the schools know that. Grade inflation has been a far greater problem at Ivy League institutions than elsewhere. Why? Because Harvard and Columbia and Yale need to keep those cash teats good and ready for suckling.

    “One part of the solution is found in three little words,” Brooks says, and if you know anything about a conservative approach to education, you know what he’s gonna say. “Value-added assessments. Colleges have to test more to find out how they’re doing.” Yes, yes, yes, let’s test more because it’s done so very much to improve public schools in America.

    Let’s get this straight, David Brooks and every other stupid fuck on the right who wants to solve the “problem” of college education (or any education) in America, and this comes from someone who has been at this job for over twenty fucking years: You fucked it up. Back in the 1980s, you got shit-scared when multiculturalism and ethnic/gender/queer/whatever studies began to take hold in academia. You published idiot books that said that what educators wanted to do about education was wrong and that people outside of academia should actually be involved in setting standards. And then you went further. Colleges, you decided, needed to be run like businesses, blaming colleges for the ever-rising tuition rates when, in reality, the problem was worthless tax cuts, going back to Sainted Reagan, that did jackshit to help the economy but forced states to gut funding to universities, but, no, no, it really was that schools needed to be run efficiently, like businesses, and if a college is now a business, with the bottom line being the only line, and not a place where people get, you know, educated, then you have a fucking responsibility to your customers, in this case, the students, to make them happy with the business where they are spending their money. The Rude Pundit’s own institution is now in the midst of “streamlining” the general education requirements so that students can graduate more easily. It’s under the guise of “making transfer easier” or some such shit, but it’s really about getting the kids through to get more money. And let’s not even get into the evisceration of public education at the primary and secondary levels so that the students that are coming to college are starting at a point where freshman composition is now “How you write a sentence with proper grammar and punctuation because your high school teachers were forced to transform their classrooms into test prep labs so that the place where they work won’t be shut down.” And let’s not get into the over-reliance on criminally overworked and underpaid adjunct faculty to teach the vast majority of college classes, people who often work at several institutions in order to cobble together a liveable wage. And let’s not even get into an economy that has transformed technologically and socially without any concomitant investment in those things that might actually allow people to be ready for the jobs that are out there. And let’s not get into the devaluing of a broad, liberal arts education that creates thinkers and doesn’t just train people to work. Shit, what’s better to those in power? Good drones or questioning citizens?

    And you know who caused all these fucking problems? The bastards and bitches who went to the $160,000 schools who figured out a way to scam and scare everyone into “value-added assessments” as some kind of Holy Grail of education.

    Every couple of years, every department in the Rude Pundit’s college has to deal with some “assessment” organization coming in and forcing them to justify everything they do. One of the last groups made the departments create rubrics of goals and lists of assessment tools to reach those goals. It was pencil-pushing, ego-soothing nonsense. It was overlaying a factory model onto the role of colleges. But you can be sure as shit that someone made money on the whole nonsensical exercise in futility.

    But, no, really, David Brooks, by all means, let’s waste another shitload of everyone’s time and money on more worthless testing. It’s far better than just letting professors do their fucking jobs.

    http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/

  • rikyrah

    MARCO RUBIO
    Romney/Rubio? Not exactly a DREAM ticket

    With polls and anecdotal evidence suggesting Mitt Romney has all but won the Republican nomination for president, but not the hearts and minds of the party faithful, the GOP is casting about for a savior.

    And with the gender gap growing, African Americans well out of reach and young voters a distant dream, Republicans are focused on fixing what could be their most vexing long-term problem: the growth of America’s Hispanic population, and that population’s strong preference for Democrats.

    Enter Marco Rubio, the junior senator from Florida, who Republican strategists and media pundits alike dream can be the GOP’s one-stop shopping trip to acceptance from Latino voters.

    Magical Marco can fix the party’s DREAM Act problem! Republicans recoiled at the idea of immigration reform, even if it meant legalizing people who came to the country as children, and who are either in college or serving in the military. Romney declared, in his neverending quest to ingratiate himself with tea party types, that as president he would veto the DREAM. So naturally, Rubio (did I mention he’s Hispanic?) is cooking up a Republican version. Of course, in that version, the little dears can stay, but not be legalized. Because at the end of the day, Rubio is a tea party guy, too, and is also on record as opposing the DREAM Act and other versions of immigration reform.

    Despite that ideological hiccup, the notion that Rubio is “one of them, who agrees with us” is so appealing to Republicans, floating his name as a potential VP has become almost as good as his taking it. Republicans badly want the cover that Rubio’s Hispanic heritage provides for Romney, who runs with Pete Wilson, the former California governor who signed the infamous Proposition 187, which in 1994 barred undocumented immigrants from public education and healthcare, and Kansas Secretary of State Chris Kobach, the godfather of Arizona’s infamous anti-immigrant law, SB 1070, which set that state on a collision course with the federal government.

    Romney called the law — which Rubio briefly opposed, before the tea party made him walk the plank — a “model for the nation.” And he has received the endorsement of its co-author, former state Sen. Russell Pearce (since recalled by the voters).

    So naturally, the way to inoculate Romney from the opprobrium of Hispanic voters, who at this stage favor President Obama by a mile, would be to put Sen. Rubio on the ticket.

    Rubio won his Senate seat with 55 percent of the Hispanic vote in Florida, notably, losing the share of that vote located in Central Florida, where more Hispanics are of Puerto Rican descent. He’s young and telegenic, and by the way, would bolster the self-belief of white conservatives that they, too, belong to a diverse party.

    But the media fixation with Rubio, and the GOP’s attempts to drape him over their shoulders, speaks to a fundamental flaw in the Magical Minority theory.

    For one thing, Rubio is Cuban American and, as such, he represents around 5 percent of America’s Latino population, fully two thirds of which is Mexican American. The experiences of those two communities could not be more different. Republicans (and the media) may not see the geographic, ethnic and cultural distinctions, but Latinos do. And in the case of illegal immigration, there is no “wet foot, dry foot” policy for Mexican, Honduran or other economic migrants, leading to a sense among many, fair or not, that Cuban Americans are afforded an unfair advantage.

    Likewise, Cuban Americans are a predominantly conservative constituency, while the majority of Hispanics tend to be more liberal. They favor social programs, public education and healthcare reform, by wide margins.

    More fundamentally, the notion that simply dangling a person with an Hispanic surname will negate the feeling among many Hispanics, based on the coarseness of the illegal-immigration debate, that one political party doesn’t much like them, is simplistic at best, insulting at worst. It would be like saying that adding Rep. Allen West to Romney’s ticket would win over African Americans. That theory was tested in 2010, when adding Jennifer Carroll, who is black, to Rick Scott’s ticket yielded the governor exactly 3 percent of the African-American vote — the same percentage of black Floridians who were already members of the GOP.

    http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/04/18/2755926/romneyrubio-not-exactly-a-dream.html#storylink=cpy#storylink=cpy

    • nellcote

      It seems sort of racist to me in the all-Latinos-look-alike sense to not understand that Cubans are treated very differently when it comes to immigration policy.

  • rikyrah

    Friday, April 20, 2012
    The most telling poll question of all

    This week’s CNN poll contained the most telling information about this presidential election that I’ve seen.

    They asked Obama supporters whether their vote was more FOR Obama or AGAINST Romney:

    For Obama 76%
    Against Romney 23%

    Then they asked Romney supporters whether their vote was more FOR Romney or AGAINST Obama.

    For Romney 35%
    Against Obama 63%

    There’s an awful lot you can do with those results. For one thing, it could explain the problem Republicans are having with an enthusiasm gap. For another, it tells us why the Romney campaign will be more focused on making this a referendum against Obama rather than presenting a competing vision for the country.

    But the most interesting thing I see in those poll results is a pretty clear definition of the size of each party’s extremist wing. In other words, the 23% who will be voting against Romney are likely those who have spent the last 3+ years complaining about President Obama but are at least aware that he’s better than Romney (the poutragers in other words). That’s a pretty small group compared to the 63% of the right wing faction who are propelled by their Obama Derangement Syndrome – even if it means voting for Romney.

    I’m proud to be part of that 76% majority who are voting FOR Obama. That’s because I’m proud of the job he’s done…best President of my lifetime, no doubt about it. I can’t wait to see what he’ll do with 4 more years!

    Posted by Smartypants at 12:29 PM

    http://immasmartypants.blogspot.com/2012/04/most-telling-poll-question-of-all.html

  • GreenLadyHere

    ALEXANDER2 – - –GOOD ECONOMIC annnd POLL NEWS :>) — —

    – — – -Jobless rate falls in Ohio, Florida, where Obama is opening lead in polls – –

    – — -Unemployment rates in the key battleground states of Florida and Ohio have fallen sharply, according to a report released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

    Florida’s unemployment rate fell by 0.4 percent to 9 percent from February to March, according to the new report.

    In the last year, the state’s jobless rate has dropped from 10.7 percent in March 2011, the third fastest decline in the country.

    Ohio has seen a similarly drastic year-over-year drop in its unemployment rate, falling 1.3 percent in the last year to 7.5 percent, which is well below the national average, according to the new labor report.

    – - – — SKIP- – - – -

    Falling unemployment in Florida and Ohio appear to be helping President Obama’s prospects in the two states, which could decide the 2012 election. The two have a bounty of electoral votes at stake between them, and Florida famously cost Al Gore the presidency in 2000. Four years later, the election between then-President George W. Bush and Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) came down to Ohio

    According to the Real Clear Politics average of polls, Obama now leads presumed GOP nominee Mitt Romney by 4 percent in Florida. A string of polls from January showed Romney with a 3 to 5 percent advantage in the Sunshine State.

    The president has stretched his lead over Romney to nearly 7 percent in Ohio, according to the RCP average of polls.

    Falling unemployment also appears to be boosting Obama in Michigan and Wisconsin.
    THERE IS MORE. – — – Woo! Hoo! – –

  • rikyrah

    Political Animal
    Blog
    April 21, 2012 8:27 AM
    Culture Wars and the Presidential Election

    By Adele Stan

    Ever since the election of Barack Obama to the presidency, the Republican Party — now a very right-wing enterprise, indeed — has enjoyed remarkably good fortune consolidating its power in legislatures and governor’s mansions across the country. But as the presidential election approaches, writes Michael Cooper in the New York Times, G.O.P. strategists have begun to fret over chickens coming home to roost on the White House lawn.

    In 21 states, Cooper reports, Republicans control both the legislative and executive branches, and that has led to an avalanche of controversies over issues ranging from evolution to the definition of rape to mandatory invasive ultrasounds for women seeking abortions — not to mention union rights for public employees. While these issues may galvanize the G.O.P.’s right-wing base, they’re likely to alienate the swing voters Mitt Romney will need in order to win the presidency. As described in the Times:


    Tennessee enacted a law this month intended to protect teachers who question the theory of evolution. Arizona moved to ban nearly all abortions after 20 weeks, and Mississippi imposed regulations that could close the state’s only abortion clinic. Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin signed a law allowing the state’s public schools to teach about abstinence instead of contraception.

    […]

    John Weaver, a Republican strategist who worked on the presidential campaigns of Senator John McCain and Jon M. Huntsman Jr., said that the attention Republicans were paying to social issues at the state level could cost the party support from several important blocs of voters, including independents, women and young people voting for the first or second time.

    “I think it’s problematic,” he said, “not just for this national election we’re facing, but for the long-term health of the party.”

    But right wing leaders don’t seem particularly invested in winning the presidency — at least not in 2012. Mitt Romney is not their candidate, and Barack Obama is the perfect fundraising and umbrage-inducing foil for right-wing fundraising and base-building for a wide-open contest in 2016. Incumbents, even wounded ones, are notoriously difficult to defeat. Why waste the effort on a guy you don’t really want, when the real work of moving the entire party your way takes place at the state level?

    The Times piece notes Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels’ call for “a truce” on so-called social issues, and his advice for Republicans to focus solely on fiscal issues. But right-wing strategist Phyllis Schlafly, at a lecture she delivered this week in Washington, scoffed at Daniels’ suggestion:

    http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2012_04/culture_wars_and_the_president036832.php

  • rikyrah

    Obama Launches Latinos for Obama, Romney Releases Obama is Bad for Latino$ Infographic

    On Wednesday the Obama campaign announced the launch of Latinos for Obama along with increased outreach to Latino voters, including phone-banking and knocking on doors. But on Friday, GOP rival Mitt Romney released an infographic illustrating how the Obama administration has allegedly “brought hard times to Hispanics in America”

    “It’s no secret that Latinos will be a deciding factor in this election,” Obama campaign manager Jim Messina said in a statement, and the outcome will affect Latinos “for years to come.”

    Romney made similar comments earlier this week.

    A poll released by the Pew Research Center on Tuesday shows Obama beating former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney 67% to 27% among Latino voters. In 2008, Obama defeated Sen. John McCain 67% to 31% among Latinos.

    “We have to get Hispanic voters to vote for our party,” warning that recent polling showing Hispanics breaking in huge percentages for President Obama “spells doom for us,” Romney said at a campaign stop in Florida earlier this week.

    On Friday, the Romney campaign released an infographic that he hopes will get him more Latinos.

    “Under President Obama, more Hispanics have struggled to find work than at any other time on record,” Team Romney posted on the campaign site. “Hispanics account for nearly 30 percent of Americans living in poverty, an increase under Obama of 2.256 million.”

    http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/04/obama_launches_latinos_for_obama_romney_releases_obama_is_bad_for_latino_infographic.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+racewireblog+%28ColorLines%29

    • conlakappa

      In today’s “Campaign 2012″ center article in the WPost is the article “Hispanic voters start to take center stage.” Start? Um, okay. Then we see a photo of Mittens at a rally in Mesa in February. The photo editor had to work manfully to not show how sparse the crowd is. The people are shot from such a strange, upward angle that you see only their heads really. There are storm clouds a-brewing and Mittens is standing there in his white shirt and dark pants at a podium. You can see more of the sky and a 1970s era tall building than you can see his people.

  • rikyrah

    GOP Set to Double Student Loan Interest Rates

    During last week’s debate on the Buffett Rule, the GOP complained again and again that the rule was a political ploy because it would only raise a few billion dollars every year. Also it would hurt the economy and possibly turn Grover Norquist into Grover Norquist HULK who bashes Republican brains with primary challengers made of pure Rubio.

    This week the GOP is set let Stafford student loans interest rates double to 6.4% on July 1.

    Why?

    Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., and chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce said:

    “We must now choose between allowing interest rates to rise or piling billions of dollars on the backs of taxpayers.”

    The logic is simple. We can pile billions on the backs of taxpayers to help millionaires pay tax rates lower than firefighters and nurses but college graduates need to pay more now.

    We are now in the midst of a highly symbolic battle. Who will we ask to sacrifice first? Those who can afford to do so, or the 99% of us who can’t afford lobbyists to negotiate our special tax breaks. And whom do we trust to make these decisions? Mitt Romney, who merely had to sell stock to pay for college. Or Barack Obama who just in the last decade finished paying his student loans.

    (I don’t think hardship is a qualification, BTW. Yet empathy is. And shared experiences are the most expedient path to empathy.)

    This is a truly brave political statement for the GOP. They’re saying, “We stand on the side of the millionaires versus the millions who have student loans.”

    This indicates that they either think Americans buy into the supply side economics that created zero net jobs in the first decade of the 21st century. Or they assume we’re just not paying attention.

    http://eclectablog.com/2012/04/gop-set-to-double-student-loan-interest-rates.html

  • rikyrah

    Cronyism in Scottwalkerstan
    Posted on 04/20/2012 at 6:45 pm by JM Ashby

    According to a new report from The Associated Press, a bonus program resurrected by Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has doled out three quarters of a million dollars in bonuses to select state employees.

    An analysis of data The Associated Press obtained through an open records request showed Wisconsin agencies have handed out more than $765,000 in bonuses and merit raises this year to nearly 220 employees.

    The money was awarded under a program former Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle suspended but Walker reinstated last year. The money is meant to reward stellar performance, but it comes as the state faces a $143 million shortfall and after thousands of state workers took pay cuts through provisions in the collective bargaining law requiring them to contribute more to their pensions and health care. [...]

    According to the AP analysis, 218 employees across nine agencies received raises or bonuses adding up to $765,195 between Jan. 1 and Tuesday.

    The state Department of Justice, which couldn’t find enough money to fully fund services for sexual assault victims last year, was the biggest spender, giving out nearly $300,000 to 94 workers.

    Assistant Attorney General Maria Lazar, who defended Walker’s collective bargaining law in an open meetings challenge and has handled the state’s defense of Republican redistricting legislation, got a $1,000 bonus and a $1.50-an-hour raise in March, bumping her salary by more than $3,000 to $104,730.

    Deputy Attorney General Kevin St. John, who defended the collective bargaining law in front of the state Supreme Court, got a $2.51-an-hour raise in March that adds up to more than $5,000 per year and brings his pay to $134,307.

    The wages of the average state worker have either been cut or stagnated, while those at the top of the system have seen raises and bonuses. Sound familiar?

    It sounds like the state is being run “like a business.”

    To be fair, these’s aren’t mindblowing raises, however the circumstances leading up to them makes them look awfully unsavory.

    This comes after Scott Walker and his loyal henchmen cut over $800 million from the state’s education budget, amounting to $615 per student, forcing layoffs and early retirement for thousands of teachers while also increasing maximum class size to 60 students.

    It also follows over $500 million in cuts to the state Medicaid program, which resulted in the loss of another $500 million in federal matching funds.

    Meanwhile, the state Department of Justice, which tried to charge sexual assault victims for rape-kits last year, handed out the biggest bonuses.

    Despite the implementation of Scott Walker’s austerity agenda, the state is still projecting a budget shortfall of $143 million, mainly due to the new corporate tax cuts signed into law last year.

    http://bobcesca.com/blog-archives/2012/04/cronyism-in-scottwalkerstan.html

  • rikyrah

    Paul Ryan, Republican Sadist of the Future
    By Charles P. Pierce
    at 8:50AM

    They don’t see him much these days in Janesville or Kenosha, and Rob Zerban’s still hoping to get him onstage for at least one debate, but, as we see from a serious bit of beat-sweetening in Politico this morning, zombie-eyed granny-starver Paul Ryan has all the wherewithal he needs to build his national brand into something quite formidable, not bad for a guy who’s spent his whole career either in government, or in the cosseted universe of wingnut welfare, and whose budget “expertise” flows from his B.A. in Economics from Miami (Ohio), and from the mysterious fascination that Beltway media types have with bringing suffering to people earning less money than they do.

    (It is nice to know that Ryan has amassed $5 million for a re-election bid in a single district in Wisconsin, and one that doesn’t contain a single major media market. I’m sure there’s no quid pending for any of that quo.)

    Herewith:

    The upside: Ryan is universally liked and respected within his party, is a stalwart conservative, can raise serious money and is considered a policy visionary among GOP opinion makers. (Translation: He wears shoes and says “deficit” a lot.) Inside the House Republican Conference, Ryan has something of a cult following. (Is there anyone in the House Republican Caucus who doesn’t follow one cult or another? Ryan himself makes his aides read Ayn Rand.) A senior Republican aide said “everybody wants Paul Ryan on stage with them” at fundraising events in their districts. (Why? That Allen West guy is a lot more fun.)

    The talk then turns to the vice-presidency, which Ryan would be something of an idiot to accept. Right now, he’s as important a figure as there is in Republican politics. He’s driving almost their entire economic agenda and, as the piece points out, he’s in line to bring zombie-eyed granny-starving to a whole new level if he winds up as chairman of Ways and Means. (Surely, it also means something that he apparently didn’t even sniff at the open Senate seat in Wisconsin this year. Being the junior senator from Wisconsin isn’t quite as powerless a job as is the vice-presidency, but it’s close.) He’s already in the mix for 2016 no matter what he does this year. Of course, Scott Walker thinks he’d be great for the job, zombie-eyed granny-starving being fundamentally simpatico with goggle-eyed homunculating. More:

    “If you want to make the Ryan budget the absolute centerpiece of the election, he’s obviously the guy because nobody else will argue it better,” said Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), who said he’s a big fan of Ryan. “Second, he’s from a swing state of Wisconsin, but I think people would look and see what happened [in Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's recall election]. There’s a generational match that’s right. And there’s no question that the conservative movement, intelligentsia to tea party, all really admire and idealize this guy.” Walker, who knows Ryan well, took to The Weekly Standard on Thursday to suggest that Romney select the seven-term congressman.

    Yes, and given the Standard’s track record on recommending vice-presidents — Bill (Wrong) Kristol began crushing on Governor Palin in those very pages long before Rich Lowry began to sparkle in the National Review — why wouldn’t we take their word on things like this? The fact is that, given the fact that, god knoweth how, Ryan is considered the leader of the conservative economic intelligentsia even by some people who ought to know better, why would the party want to stick him in a ceremonial position behind Willard Romney, even if Ryan’s budget notions were popular generally in the country, which they’re not?

    Right now, there’s nobody more comfortable in the catbird seat than Paul Ryan. He’s beloved on the right, not ridiculed half as much as he deserves to be on the left, and he’s got a PAC that can raise three million bucks in a single month, more than enough wherewithal to hide behind as he continues to decline bravely to specify exactly how he’s going to go about making the lives of the moochers miserable. He’s a powerful little sadist just as he stands today. He’s the face of casual cruelty, and that’s exactly the place for a Republican with plans for the future.

    Read more: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/The_Ryan_Boomlet_Again#ixzz1sgOYjkdT

  • rikyrah

    Paul Ryan, Republican Sadist of the Future
    By Charles P. Pierce
    at 8:50AM

    They don’t see him much these days in Janesville or Kenosha, and Rob Zerban’s still hoping to get him onstage for at least one debate, but, as we see from a serious bit of beat-sweetening in Politico this morning, zombie-eyed granny-starver Paul Ryan has all the wherewithal he needs to build his national brand into something quite formidable, not bad for a guy who’s spent his whole career either in government, or in the cosseted universe of wingnut welfare, and whose budget “expertise” flows from his B.A. in Economics from Miami (Ohio), and from the mysterious fascination that Beltway media types have with bringing suffering to people earning less money than they do.

    (It is nice to know that Ryan has amassed $5 million for a re-election bid in a single district in Wisconsin, and one that doesn’t contain a single major media market. I’m sure there’s no quid pending for any of that quo.)

    Herewith:

    The upside: Ryan is universally liked and respected within his party, is a stalwart conservative, can raise serious money and is considered a policy visionary among GOP opinion makers. (Translation: He wears shoes and says “deficit” a lot.) Inside the House Republican Conference, Ryan has something of a cult following. (Is there anyone in the House Republican Caucus who doesn’t follow one cult or another? Ryan himself makes his aides read Ayn Rand.) A senior Republican aide said “everybody wants Paul Ryan on stage with them” at fundraising events in their districts. (Why? That Allen West guy is a lot more fun.)

    The talk then turns to the vice-presidency, which Ryan would be something of an idiot to accept. Right now, he’s as important a figure as there is in Republican politics. He’s driving almost their entire economic agenda and, as the piece points out, he’s in line to bring zombie-eyed granny-starving to a whole new level if he winds up as chairman of Ways and Means. (Surely, it also means something that he apparently didn’t even sniff at the open Senate seat in Wisconsin this year. Being the junior senator from Wisconsin isn’t quite as powerless a job as is the vice-presidency, but it’s close.) He’s already in the mix for 2016 no matter what he does this year. Of course, Scott Walker thinks he’d be great for the job, zombie-eyed granny-starving being fundamentally simpatico with goggle-eyed homunculating. More:

    “If you want to make the Ryan budget the absolute centerpiece of the election, he’s obviously the guy because nobody else will argue it better,” said Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), who said he’s a big fan of Ryan. “Second, he’s from a swing state of Wisconsin, but I think people would look and see what happened [in Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's recall election]. There’s a generational match that’s right. And there’s no question that the conservative movement, intelligentsia to tea party, all really admire and idealize this guy.” Walker, who knows Ryan well, took to The Weekly Standard on Thursday to suggest that Romney select the seven-term congressman.

    Yes, and given the Standard’s track record on recommending vice-presidents — Bill (Wrong) Kristol began crushing on Governor Palin in those very pages long before Rich Lowry began to sparkle in the National Review — why wouldn’t we take their word on things like this? The fact is that, given the fact that, god knoweth how, Ryan is considered the leader of the conservative economic intelligentsia even by some people who ought to know better, why would the party want to stick him in a ceremonial position behind Willard Romney, even if Ryan’s budget notions were popular generally in the country, which they’re not?

    Right now, there’s nobody more comfortable in the catbird seat than Paul Ryan. He’s beloved on the right, not ridiculed half as much as he deserves to be on the left, and he’s got a PAC that can raise three million bucks in a single month, more than enough wherewithal to hide behind as he continues to decline bravely to specify exactly how he’s going to go about making the lives of the moochers miserable. He’s a powerful little sadist just as he stands today. He’s the face of casual cruelty, and that’s exactly the place for a Republican with plans for the future.

    Read more: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/The_Ryan_Boomlet_Again#ixzz1sgOYjkdT

  • rikyrah

    Things in Politico That Make Me Want to Guzzle Antifreeze. A Two-Fer!
    By Charles P. Pierce
    at 5:05PM

    I value the craft of journalism, and I respect enormously those people who do it well. Unfortunately for all of us, sometimes I feel that much of our elite political press corps could not be trusted to cover a one-car fatal on Rte. 128 in the middle of the night.

    Here is what has happened over the past couple of weeks. Some GSA employees got caught having happy time in Vegas. Some Secret Service guys got caught trying to pull the ol’ screw-and-screw on their sexytime in Colombia. Leon Panetta took a helicopter ride. Some soldiers took some inhuman liberties with the body parts of dead Afghans. In other words, four things happened in two weeks involving people with some connection to the Executive Branch. Each of them is sort of interesting. But the fact that four things happened in two weeks is not in and of itself newsworthy.

    Except of course… narrative! Herewith:

    Democrats doubt the scandals will have a lasting impact on their 2012 chances, but presidential campaigns are all about atmospherics and these are lousy. Just as Obama’s operatives seize on anything that makes Romney look like a hopelessly out-of-touch rich guy, Republicans hope that the shadow of scandal obscures Obama’s larger message, as it did in Colombia. That would be a particular problem for a president whose chief selling point is no-drama competence and ethical purity.

    If there were any more fudge in that paragraph, you’d have to brush after reading it. You’ve got the consultant-speak about “atmospherics” and the false equivalence drawn between Willard Romney’s Thurston Howell problem and stuff that happened in and around the Executive Branch of government, none of which has anything to do with Barack Obama, who nonetheless could have a “particular problem” with his “chief selling point.” And there’s more!

    “Being an incumbent president running for re-election means you get surprises on your watch almost every day. I remember when Abu Ghraib broke. I thought we were finished,” said Mark McKinnon, one of George W. Bush’s top advisers in 2004. “But voters understand that a president can’t control everything and expect that all administrations are going to have their share of bad news. The key is to manage the crises well and insure that the problems aren’t systemic or repeated.”

    Gee, Mark McKinnon, continuing to try to ooze under respectability’s door after having helped inflict C-Plus Augustus on the Republic, tells us that the abuse of prisoners in Iraq that was a direct result of the policies implemented by the president is pretty much the same electorally as some Secret Service agents running out on their hooker bills. More:

    But privately, administration officials have been in damage control mode, working reporters and editors who want to bundle disparate events into a single unflattering Obama scandal narrative.

    The rest of the piece is a nightmare that treats what the demonstrably truthless Romney campaign “wants to do” as though it had anything to do with the facts of anything. It quotes Lanny Davis, which is a real giveaway, and Paul Begala, who really should have known better. But, speaking only as somebody who does makes his living at this craft, any reporter or editor who bundles these “disparate events into a single unflattering Obama scandal narrative” is committing an act of fabulism no less destructive to actual journalism than anything done by Stephen Glass or Jayson Blair.

    Read more: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/Building_The_Bad_Narrative#ixzz1sgPAMQF6

    • conlakappa

      Gosh, who knew the Executive Office had such privileges and day-to-day jobs. Feels like the media got a little too accustomed to the control freaketry of the previous Imperial Presidency, doesn’t it? /eyeroll to the point of risk of injury

  • rikyrah

    Things in Politico That Make Me Want to Guzzle Antifreeze. A Two-Fer!
    By Charles P. Pierce
    at 5:05PM

    I value the craft of journalism, and I respect enormously those people who do it well. Unfortunately for all of us, sometimes I feel that much of our elite political press corps could not be trusted to cover a one-car fatal on Rte. 128 in the middle of the night.

    Here is what has happened over the past couple of weeks. Some GSA employees got caught having happy time in Vegas. Some Secret Service guys got caught trying to pull the ol’ screw-and-screw on their sexytime in Colombia. Leon Panetta took a helicopter ride. Some soldiers took some inhuman liberties with the body parts of dead Afghans. In other words, four things happened in two weeks involving people with some connection to the Executive Branch. Each of them is sort of interesting. But the fact that four things happened in two weeks is not in and of itself newsworthy.

    Except of course… narrative! Herewith:

    Democrats doubt the scandals will have a lasting impact on their 2012 chances, but presidential campaigns are all about atmospherics and these are lousy. Just as Obama’s operatives seize on anything that makes Romney look like a hopelessly out-of-touch rich guy, Republicans hope that the shadow of scandal obscures Obama’s larger message, as it did in Colombia. That would be a particular problem for a president whose chief selling point is no-drama competence and ethical purity.

    If there were any more fudge in that paragraph, you’d have to brush after reading it. You’ve got the consultant-speak about “atmospherics” and the false equivalence drawn between Willard Romney’s Thurston Howell problem and stuff that happened in and around the Executive Branch of government, none of which has anything to do with Barack Obama, who nonetheless could have a “particular problem” with his “chief selling point.” And there’s more!

    “Being an incumbent president running for re-election means you get surprises on your watch almost every day. I remember when Abu Ghraib broke. I thought we were finished,” said Mark McKinnon, one of George W. Bush’s top advisers in 2004. “But voters understand that a president can’t control everything and expect that all administrations are going to have their share of bad news. The key is to manage the crises well and insure that the problems aren’t systemic or repeated.”

    Gee, Mark McKinnon, continuing to try to ooze under respectability’s door after having helped inflict C-Plus Augustus on the Republic, tells us that the abuse of prisoners in Iraq that was a direct result of the policies implemented by the president is pretty much the same electorally as some Secret Service agents running out on their hooker bills. More:

    But privately, administration officials have been in damage control mode, working reporters and editors who want to bundle disparate events into a single unflattering Obama scandal narrative.

    The rest of the piece is a nightmare that treats what the demonstrably truthless Romney campaign “wants to do” as though it had anything to do with the facts of anything. It quotes Lanny Davis, which is a real giveaway, and Paul Begala, who really should have known better. But, speaking only as somebody who does makes his living at this craft, any reporter or editor who bundles these “disparate events into a single unflattering Obama scandal narrative” is committing an act of fabulism no less destructive to actual journalism than anything done by Stephen Glass or Jayson Blair.

    Read more: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/Building_The_Bad_Narrative#ixzz1sgPAMQF6

  • GreenLadyHere

    ALEXANDER2 – - — -”CHA CHING – –#2!” – —This report has a HIGHER FIGURE 4 MARCH FUND-RAISING – - –

    – - – -Obama raised $46M in March – —

    – - – - -President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign in March raised $46.4 million and spent $37.7 million — not including money raised with the Democratic National Committee, new federal campaign finance filings indicate.

    That easily exceeded what presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney generated for March — $12.6 million — while still facing a stiff primary challenge from Rick Santorum, who’s since dropped out.

    – –Meanwhile, the Democratic National Committee raised $7.3 million in March, not including Obama committee-related transfers. The DNC, which operated a joint fundraising committee with the Obama campaign, may use the money it raises to benefit Obama and other Democrats.

    The costs of fundraising — particularly text messages to supporters, direct mail, telemarketing and credit card fees — remain high for Obama-affiliated committees, as they spent nearly $3 million on such services in March.

    Another $1.3 million was spent on catering, renting facilities, audio-visual equipment and other costs usually associated with fundraisers and campaign sponsored rallies.

    The Obama campaign spent more than $6.7 million on online ads in March and another $366,000 on media consulting and production expenses, likely used for television and radio ads.
    THERE IS MORE. – - – –Woo! Hoo! :>)

    Annnd it is – -WISELY SPENT!! — –4! – –MORE! – –YEARS!! – - -

  • rikyrah

    Priorities USA: Romney has something to hide on taxes

    By ALEXANDER BURNS |
    4/21/12 8:48 AM EDT

    The fact that Mitt Romney has declined to release more than one year of tax returns amounts to proof that he’s hiding something politically damaging, the pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA Action argues in a memo set for release this weekend.

    Authored by former White House spokesman and Priorities USA strategist Bill Burton, the document aims to keep the pressure on Romney over his decision to make public only his 2010 and as-yet-uncompleted 2011 returns to the public.

    Burton outlines why the tax issue is a lose-lose for Romney, arguing that the Republican “could decide to face months of bipartisan criticism for a failure to release his tax returns or he could confirm damaging information including further tax avoidance, new offshore accounts, and an even lower tax rate in previous years.”

    “If there were nothing damaging in his tax returns, Romney would have already released them,” Burton writes in the memo shared with POLITICO. “Instead, Romney appears to have decided that the information in his returns is so problematic that he will endure criticism from the right and left for his refusal to follow a well-established standard of transparency for Presidential candidates.”

    Because Romney hasn’t released his returns, it’s an exercise in speculation to hint at what might be in his private financial records. But Burton’s memo signals that Democrats are prepared to go in that direction: pointing out to the voters a range of things that Romney might not be letting them see.

    Among the possibilities, according to Priorities USA:

    http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/04/priorities-usa-romney-has-something-to-hide-on-taxes-121227.html

    • Admiral_Komack

      Willard hides his taxes in Bane.

      • conlakappa

        You’d think his “unemployed” ass would have time to, you know, talk to his accountant about getting papers filed on time. Or is that more attempt at regular-guy-ness: asking for an extension? Imagine if someone working mother exercised that right?

  • GreenLadyHere

    ALEXANDER2 – - – –GOOD POLL/ELECTION NEWS -The LATINO VOTE on the INCREASE — —

    – —Texas Growing Brown Turns It Blue – –

    — – - -Ask the Texas Democratic Party and, as far as they’re concerned, there has never been a Latino party chair. This is partly due to party structure. But, it’s also the historical exclusion of Latinos from power in Texas.

    Whatever the case, that’s all about to change.

    One way or another, in a few short months, a Latino will be the public face of the Democratic Party in Texas. Currently, the only three candidates are Gilberto Hinojosa of Brownsville, Fidel Acevedo of Austin, and Rachel Barrios-Van Os of San Antonio. Changes have been taking place within the party in the past few years, such as the recently launched Promesa Project meant to bring Latinos into the political fold. As a result, it seems that the Democratic Party is run increasingly by, and marketing itself to, Latinos.

    In June, at the party’s convention in Houston, delegates will have to choose between Latino candidates to replace current chair, Boyd Richie, who has held the position since 2005. While Latinos are pushing population growth in Texas, Latino politicians are an ever larger part of the Democratic delegation, and would-be Latino voters hold the key to power in the Lone Star State.

    – –And last but not least, Latinos are increasingly the backbone of the Democratic party, specifically: in 2005, Ruben Hernandez became executive director; in 2009 Anthony Gutierrez became the deputy executive director; in 2006 the first Spanish speaking spokesperson was hired; and last year Rebecca Acuña was brought on to serve as the deputy political director for base outreach, as well as being the director of communications.

    On the elected side, about half of the Democrats in the state house are Latinos, as are 56% of Democratic state senators in a state with 3.8 million eligible Latino voters. By 2033, Latinos will be the dominant voting age population in Texas.
    THERE IS MORE.

    NOTE: My sista in Texas says that she is —”feelin’ THIS.” – as she does her campaigning. :>)

    • conlakappa

      I cannot recall if it was an AP article or one that came from the WPost directly but there was a reference to Mittens “trailing” the President with latinos. Um, 40% freakin’ points is trailing? Understatement, meet one of your fathers…

      • GreenLadyHere

        HEEY conlakappa. ***BIG HUG*** :>)

        U GOT IT!! :>) ***fist bump”- –

        Luvin; THIS:- – -Understatement, meet one of your fathers…- -LOL.

        - —FOUND THIS:- -Obama launches appeal to Pennsylvania Latinos
        DNC official says Voter ID laws help motivate Latino voters.        - — -

        - – - -SKIP- —

        - – — – - – A recent poll conducted by Fox News Latino showed Romney trailing Obama by more than 40 points among Latino voters. Latinos make up only 5.7 percent of the Pennsylvania residents, but more than 15 percent of the population of the Lehigh Valley.

        The HATAS CAIN’T seem 2 find the WORD-

        —L-O-S-I-N-G!!- –4 that- – –LOSER!!!!!- -HAH!

        We sooo KNOW. :>) Good 2 C U- -conlakappa. :>)

  • GreenLadyHere

    ALEXANDER2 – — -LOL – —THIS is soooo PITIFUL!! – - – -Teh WILLARD – –the –DICTATOR!! —-LOL – –

    – - –Romney Makes Delegates Sign Loyalty Pledge – — -

    – - -At a party meeting in Arizona, RNC members and state GOP chairmen were welcomed into a private reception with Mitt Romney “only after signing a form pledging to support Romney as a delegate to the national convention in Tampa,” CNN reports.

    — “All three members of Iowa’s conservative RNC delegation… attempted to enter the reception but were rebuffed after refusing to sign the delegate pledge. The dispute became heated in the hallway outside, with the Iowans demanding to know why they had to sign a form to get their picture taken with the former Massachusetts governor.”

    — -Said one: “The don’t trust us. I have said I will support the nominee when we have a nominee, no ifs, ands or buts.”

    – - – –SANG YER SONG – —WILLARD!! LOL. – - –

    ***shakin’ my head*** – - – -LOL.

  • lamh35

    Morning POU.

    I’m at work, but hope everyone has a great day.

  • GN

    Church:

    Zimmerman’s statement of “apology” to Trayvon Martin’s family is one of the most honest and pronounced distillations of the White Gaze and its debased view of black humanity which we as a country have witnessed in many years. If one ever wondered about the existential dilemma faced by black masculinity in American society, or was searching for an object lesson in how black folks are “niggerized,” look no farther than George Zimmerman’s “apology” for committing murder.

    Zimmerman can assault police, batter his wife, ignore police directives, stalk innocent people, carry a weapon in violation of his vaunted “black watch” rules, and shoot unarmed people without doubt or worry. Moreover, it takes a national uproar to even have him properly investigated and eventually arrested on suspicion of committing murder. Let a black man do the same and see what happens. It does not take a leap of faith, or radical act of imagination, to understand how divergent the outcome would be.

    http://wearerespectablenegroes.blogspot.com/2012/04/george-zimmermans-non-apology-to.html

    ****************

    The entire piece is excellent, and explains why us unruly negroes cannot join the horrendous media in its acceptance of Zimmerman’s self-serving, disrespectful, sociopathic and racist “apology.”

    • conlakappa

      Right? The expectation is that we should always be content to feast upon crumbs ’cause, like, you know, we truly live at their pleasure.

      • GN

        Exactly! Sitting in front of the parents of the kid you murdered then had media surrogates falsely depict as a thug only to say “uh, sorry for your loss” would be enough to make most parents homicidal. That the media expected them to accept that as an apology just goes to show how utterly out to lunch some of those people are, and how unsympathetic they view black people, period.

        • BoomerGal

          “some?” The majority.

        • Camille

          Thank you!

    • rikyrah

      so much truth

    • GreenLadyHere

      HEEY GN. ***BIG HUG**- —:>)

      - -FAUXpology- –of the FIRST ORDER.! Annnd it was soooo REHEARSED!!- – –

      - – - -He SPOKE in BULLET POINTS!!!– –Annnd I saw that attorney “move into position” —4 his NEXT ACT- – -as soon as “Z” spoke his 4th LINE!!- – -

      THIS is PROFOUND!!= – — — >was searching for an object lesson in how black folks are “niggerized,” look no farther than George Zimmerman’s “apology” for committing murder.- —BRUTAL!!

      Thank U 4 this- – GN. Good 2 C U. :>)

      • GN

        He really wrote the truth with that piece. I have been utterly dismayed watching the Zimmerman PR tour traffic stereotypes of black youths and notions of collective punishment (as if there’s anything reasonable about harrassing Trayvon b/c of petty thefts done by others). The media just reports this garbage as truth, debates hatred (“is Trayvon’s hoodie a thug unigform”) and black America has been taking a hit and growing more enraged by the day. Glad to see someone so eloquent write what so many of us have been feeling for weeks.

    • Camille

      Excellent!

  • GreenLadyHere

    ALEXANDER2 – — – Geesh! U REALLY GOTTA WATCH THESE RE-THUGS!! – — –[Anti-ABORTION - --by ANOTHER NAME??] – - -

    – –Tennessee House Passes Bill To Allow Criminal Prosecution For Harming Embryos – –

    – - – - Tennessee has long had a law that allowed prosecutors to charge someone for harming a “viable fetus” — defined as about the 32nd week after conception — when someone kills or assaults a pregnant woman. Last year, lawmakers expanded that definition to apply to any fetus.

    Now, they’re looking to criminalize harm to embryos, the cells that are formed before a fetus develops eight weeks after conception. Proponents of the bill say it would clarify last year’s expanded fetal harm bill, but critics say it will be difficult to prosecute because some pregnancies end naturally at that stage. They argue this is simply a fight over abortion:

    [I]t will be difficult for prosecutors to prove that an embryo miscarried because of someone else’s action and not from natural causes, predicted Rep. Jeanne Richardson, D-Memphis. [...] “I think your original bill may have been OK and we voted for that. I think extending that would be iffy.”

    Opponents gradually linked the measure to the abortion debate.

    Rep. Johnnie Turner, D-Memphis, said the measure would give “veiled support” to the anti-abortion movement by establishing that embryos can be crime victims. Once that principle had been accepted, embryos could be recognized as persons under other aspects of the law.
    THERE IS MORE.

    – –SNEAKY! – - –SLIMEY! — -Trynta B SLICK!! — –

  • lamh35

    Man, reading some of the comments on my daily Obama-centric blogs, I am seriously not sure how some people get through their day if they are as neurotic in person as they are online. Woo, I understand this election is high stakes, some people need a breather. Every little meme is a high alert meme!!!
    I’ve always believed that you can’t worry about what the other do, sometimes you just gotta be you. You fight back, you do your over-best, but you do not let the other side get in your head with minds games. If you are always worried about the what the other side is doing, then you are always reacting instead of acting, and I’m glad that it seems like the Obama campaign apparatus knows that and are focused on yes beating GOP, but also doing the damn best they can do!

    Anyway:
    Do We Dare Fight Back?

    I can’t understand the mentality of people who worry about the “taint” that comes from standing up for yourself, all while the Obama brand is being subject to a daily river of shit being forced into the media by the Republicans and the Romney campaign.

    Also, too: my inbox is full of mail from an Obama operative assigned specifically to pick and package items for bloggers, and she’s very good. While the Republicans have been tearing themselves apart, Obama’s been building a top-notch, professional campaign.

    • Worldwatcher7

      Very well said. I believe staying cool and calm is the best strategy for fighting back. If you lose control of yourself you lose control of the battle. See Muhammad Ali for a great example, as well as Pres. Obama. The prez takes their attacks head on with a cool demeanor, calm responses and a great sense of humor. Then he smiles real big and drives the haters crazy.

    • MsKitty

      I’ve been scaling back for that reason, lest I start cussing folk out. Some of the more neurotic comments I’ve been seeing are lifted straight from 2008.

      Also, I don’t understand why we need to wait for Axelrod, Plouffe, et. al. to respond when there’s some really foul stuff going on from the opposition (“what’s taking them so long to respond? Romney made this accusation a half hour ago. Team Obama is just too slow.”) Most of us have twitter, facebook, comment pages at our disposal, so what’s stopping us from doing some push back?

      I’ll stop now because I feel an epic rant coming on.

      • lamh35

        I’m always telling people that they should get on twitter. It’s amazing how many tweets I’ve gotten from national news figures and random celebrities who monitor thir own twitter feeds.

        Instead of ranting about the media and their bias, I tweet the hell out of them. I don’t have a million followers, but damn if I don’t tweet random notes, political tweet and anything I can.

        I go straight to the source.

        I’ve def scaled back too.

      • Camille

        Thank you!

  • GreenLadyHere

    POU FAM – - -GOTTA “bounce” – - – -VOTER REGISTRATION. Woo! Hoo!

    I’ll tryta post. MISSIN’ U/CARRYIN’ U —In MY ♥ – –FIRED UP! – –READY 2 – -GOTV –2012!! – –:>)

  • http://pragmaticobotsunite.blogspot.com/ Sepia

    Mornin’ POU!

    Some of the quotes in this article about the newest WH social secretary pretty much proves what POUers said a long time ago: The D.C. Elite and former WH social secretaries HATED Desiree Rogers because she’s Black, wealthy, glamorous and wouldn’t kiss their ass.

    Known for his affable social skills, particularly among the tight sorority of former White House social secretaries that has embraced him — “He fits in beautifully,” said Amy Zantzinger, a social secretary in the George W. Bush White House

    “I adore him,” Ms. [Gahl] Burt [social secretary in the Reagan White House] said. “He seems totally to get it.”

    “My own personal viewpoint is that those dinners for 500 people in a tent are for the birds,” Mrs. [Letitia] Baldrige [social secretary of the Kennedy administration] told Vanity Fair for an article about Ms. Rogers and White House state dinners in 2010.

    Nonetheless, Mrs. Baldrige proclaimed herself pleased with her successor, and still pleased Mr. Bernard paid a call.

    “I was so eager to help him, and he was so eager to receive my help,” she said. Then she added quickly: “Although, of course, he didn’t need it.”

    White Gloves Not Needed: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/style/jeremy-bernard-white-house-social-secretary-makes-his-mark.html?_r=1&ref=style&&pagewanted=all

    And it’s funny how this article applauds Jeremy Bernard for the Easter Egg Roll and for opening up the WH to everyone, when all of that started under Desiree Rogers’ term as social secretary — and lest not forget she was criticized for it.

    • Miranda

      They are who we thought they were. Desiree was above their pasty azzes and they knew it.

      • itgurl_29

        Yup.

      • conlakappa

        Indeed. They are more comfortable dealing with a gay man, who still might not want their approval so much, than a black woman who’s not working for them. Sorority, eh? So what would that make him?

    • nellcote

      I thought Rogers was fabulous. I was sorry to see her go.

    • Town

      I still have the side-eye on Desiree Rogers (something about her doesn’t sit right with me & I can’t pinpoint it) but girlfriend knew how to throw a fabulous party and she needs to write a book about it.

      • goldenstar

        … (something about her doesn’t sit right with me & I can’t pinpoint it)…

        Privilege. the Black kind.

        just sayin’…

    • GreenLadyHere

      Sepia – —How QUICKLY they 4-got!!! Hmmmm. . . .

      IMHO – - –She SERVED with–STYLE- – FLAIR- — annnd CLASS. :>)

    • rikyrah

      no shock in the least.

    • dannie22

      Team Desiree!!!!

    • Camille

      Of course the former white social secretaries prefer the white guy. No surprise here.

      The Bush and Clinton ones are pretty much interchangeable – they are all part of the PUMA/no-labels “anti-Obama” movement.

      Miserable and self-important like that shriveled up piece of shit racist Letitia Baldridge and her alcoholic daughter and sorry son in law George Stephanopoulos.

      Having said that, I never liked or trusted Desiree Rogers. Sorry.

      This was and always has been a BEHIND THE SCENES role!!

      And so the woman who claimed to be savvy and smart but failed to convince with her inability to understand much called for discretion in this role – could have played it cool and garnered respect as an enigmatic and formidable behind the scenes powerhouse in the White House, and later become a much sought after whatever the heck she wanted to be sought out for-

      But, no! It was far more important to be front and center, desperately grabbing every bit of tacky headline and publicity wherever she could find it, while dispatching her equally tacky and silly friends to tell everyone who cared to listen, how she was a mover and shaker in Chicago and belonged in a higher social strata than the Obamas.

      I was certainly not sorry to see Desiree go especially with her little petty antics afterwards to try to stick it to the Obamas.

      Like immediately showing up at an event on the arms of that vocal anti-Obama asshole Oscar de la Renta and other very questionable dalliances with other equally anti-Obama types. I suspect that she is probably rooting against the Obamas even though she swears she’s still “friends” with them.

      Sorry, but with Desiree Rogers it seemed to be always all about her. Her vanity, posturing and very public and premature moves to prioritize her future advantages and exploit whatever access and connections she could acquire as a result of this role, did much damage. And not just to her.

      Sometimes it is obvious that even that person who once presented herself as savvy and all that isn’t quite all they are cracked up to be.

      No different really from the well-dressed seemingly well-heeled lady at the upscale brunch who regales you with tales of their posh life, poo poos the gourmet selection at the buffet table, but stuffs her hermes crocodile purse with as much food as she can take from the table when no one is looking.

  • http://pragmaticobotsunite.blogspot.com/ Sepia

    Grassley tries to tie the WH to the Secret Service sex scandal. Greasy mofo!

    Sen. Grassley inquires if White House staff involved in prostitution scandal

    By Leigh Ann Caldwell

    (CBS News) Senator Charles Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to the head of the Secret Service Friday evening asking if White House staff are also subjects of the investigation into the Colombian prostitution scandal.

    Grassley is questioning the “possible involvement of staff from the White House Communications Agency and the White House Office of Advance,” spokesperson Beth Levine wrote in a statement.

    *snip*

    In his letter, Grassley asked for questions to be answered, including whether the Secret Service reserved or shared rooms at Hotel Caribe (the hotel in Cartagena, Colombia where Secret Service personnel were staying) for staff members of the White House Communications Agency or the White House Office of Advance. If so, Grassley asked if the log of visiting guests was obtained and examined – and if not, why not?

    “It is my understanding that ordinarily the Secret Service advance team works closely with the White House Communications Agency,” Grassley wrote.

    MORE: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57418362-503544/sen-grassley-inquires-if-white-house-staff-involved-in-prostitution-scandal/

    • Miranda

      And there’s your RWNJ talking point

    • Guns3000

      He looks more desperate than a broke man in a whorehouse.

      • GreenLadyHere

        BWAHAHAHA – -Guns3000. ***BIG HUG*** :>)

        Seeeeee, , , , LOL. – — Do U KNOW yur WAY 2 the – - -“BAD CHAIR”? – - -LOL

        Annnd what kind of “snacks” do U want? – - -:>)

        Good 2 C U – - -Guns3000. :>)

    • MsKitty

      He mad because David Axelrod smacked him down last week about his juvenile tweets.

  • GreenLadyHere

    ALEXANDER2- – —Is THIS HEADLINE- —LEANIN’ SOMEWHAT??- —
    WHO R these- – -so-called- –EXPERTS??- –”WHYCOME” the OTHER SIDE was NOT axed???- -humph!!

    - – - -Trayvon Martin case: Experts say Zimmerman attorney made smart move- -

    - — -By questioning a state investigator on the witness stand during a routine bail hearing, George Zimmerman’s defense attorney showed some of the weaknesses in prosecutors’ claims that the neighborhood watch volunteer committed second-degree murder, legal experts say.

    A judge ruled Friday that Zimmerman can be released on $150,000 bail while he awaits trial on murdering 17-year-old Trayvon Martin during a Feb. 26 confrontation in a Sanford, Fla. gated community.
    - – - -SKIP- –
    The apology came after Zimmerman’s defense attorney, Mark O’Mara, questioned an investigator for the special prosecutor, sentence by sentence, about a probable cause affidavit the investigator signed outlining certain facts in the case.

    - — Investigator Dale Gilbreath testified that he does not know whether Martin or Zimmerman threw the first punch and that there is no evidence to disprove Zimmerman’s contention he was walking back to his vehicle when confronted by Martin. The affidavit says “Zimmerman confronted Martin and a struggle ensued.”

    - -But Gilbreath also said Zimmerman’s claim that Martin was slamming his head against the sidewalk just before he shot the teenager was “not consistent with the evidence we found.” He gave no details.

    Legal observers said the questioning of Gilbreath was strategically smart for O’Mara since the investigator’s statements can be used at a later date to either contradict other testimony or be used to decide how to question other witnesses.

    - — -SKIP- —

    “There are many miles left in this case but I think O’Mara helped the defense by eliciting those responses,” Coffey said. “He is going to look for the chance to cross-examine that same investigator and ask him the same questions. If the investigator changes his story, he is going to lose credibility with the jury.”

    - –Prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda dismissed any notion that the investigator’s testimony chipped away at their case.

    “You have not heard all of the evidence,” de la Rionda said after the hearing. “Please be patient and wait for the trial.”

    - – -I was disappointed in the – –”trial-like” atmosphere that the DEFENSE tried 2 create. Annnd by his body language[he moved 2 speak when "Z"

    got 2 his last statement!!!]- — -HE PLANNED that- PITIFUL –FAUX-pology!!

    • nellcote

      –”trial-like” atmosphere that the DEFENSE tried 2 create
      ===

      I’ve never seen anything like it at a bail hearing.

      • Admiral_Komack

        “I am sorry for the loss of your son,” said Zimmerman, marking the first time he has spoken in public about the confrontation with the unarmed black teen. “I did not know how old he was. I thought he was a little bit younger than I am. I did not know if he was armed or not.”

        -If you did not know whether Mr. Martin was armed or not, why did you shoot him?

        • Admiral_Komack

          AKA “I thought the nigger had a gun” defense.

      • GreenLadyHere

        HEEY nellcote; ***BIG HUG*** :>)

        - — I KNOW RIGHT. LOL- – — I kept sayin’ NO he di-ent!!- –

        That’s “WHYCOME” – -I was happy 2 C the prosecutin’ attorney – - -tryta – — JUMP on — -”Z”.- –

        Annnd he was able 2 get a CONTRADICTING set of statements – –from him!! YES!! :>)

        Good 2 C U- -nellcote. :>)

  • GreenLadyHere

    ALEXANDEER2- – - -THIS is an EXCELLENT —HISTORICALLY EDUCATIONAL PROJECT:- —

    - – - Black Invention And Technology Institute Inspires, Informs- – -

    — – -It is widely known that African Americans have contributed a variety of innovations that span everything from early dry-cleaning processes to groundbreaking surgical procedures in eye health. For centuries, Black people have changed the American landscape with ingenuity and inventiveness, leading the charge for future pioneers to help add to that great legacy. For the Institute of Black Invention and Technology, their mission is to make certain that college students and young people of color are aware of the past and help continue to shape the future.

    Founded by husband and wife Carroll and Sandra Lamb (both pictured), the Institute is essentially a travelling museum, taking their show on the road and visiting a variety of college campuses and school districts across the country. While the Institute is settled in Kansas City for a few weeks, NewsOne spoke with Mr. Carroll Lamb about the impetus of the Institute and its future goals.

    THANK U – —4 this INSTITUTE. Soo VERY VALUABLE!! :>)

  • rikyrah

    Do We Dare Fight Back?
    By mistermix April 21st, 2012

    Noam Scheiber at TNR (of course) files a pearl-clutcher about the Obama campaign:

    Some of the anxiety centers around Cutter, who oversees the daily combat operation in Chicago and is legendary in Democratic circles for her Dresden-esque tactics. Whereas the communications apparatus for the Romney campaign, like Obama’s in 2008, must simultaneously sell policies, craft speeches, and win each news cycle, Cutter has the advantage of commanding a deep bench of operatives whose only focus is the latter. “The point is, that’s all they’re doing,” says the strategist close to the White House, noting that the West Wing shoulders the rest of the workload. This creates a major resource asymmetry, which Cutter has exploited with brutal efficiency. Chicago’s preferred formulations—on everything from the “Ryan-Romney budget” to Romney’s penchant for “hiding” the truth—reliably find their way into leading news outlets.*

    While such tactics can be highly effective in any given moment, the risk is that they ultimately taint the Obama brand. (In 2008, the campaign considered it undignified to spar with the RNC, as it did during the great caterpillar controversy.) Still, a spokesman says the Obama organization is very pleased with Cutter’s work. [...]

    I can’t understand the mentality of people who worry about the “taint” that comes from standing up for yourself, all while the Obama brand is being subject to a daily river of shit being forced into the media by the Republicans and the Romney campaign.

    Also, too: my inbox is full of mail from an Obama operative assigned specifically to pick and package items for bloggers, and she’s very good. While the Republicans have been tearing themselves apart, Obama’s been building a top-notch, professional campaign.

    http://www.balloon-juice.com/2012/04/21/do-we-dare-fight-back/

  • rikyrah

    found this comment over at Balloon Juice:

    Kane Says:

    @Schlemizel:

    I have noticed the media running a lot of “Obama has this problem or that problem” stories…

    The Problem with Obama

    Obama is too black
    Obama is too white
    Obama is not black enough
    Obama’s lack of Washington experience problem
    Obama’s Hispanic problem
    Obama’s Asian problem
    Obama’s Jewish problem
    Obama’s Catholic problem
    Obama’s Black voter problem
    Obama’s White voter problem
    Obama’s elderly problem
    Obama’s women problem
    Obama’s white elderly women voter problem
    Obama’s reliance on young people problem
    Obama’s white collar voter problem
    Obama’s blue collar voter problem
    Obama’s Reverend Wright problem
    Obama’s problem with not being vetted
    Obama’s Muslim perception problem
    Obama’s elitist perception problem
    Obama’s aloofness problem
    Obama’s big state problem
    Obama’s small state problem
    Obama’s problem with the Right
    Obama’s problem with the Left
    Obama’s Hillary Clinton problem
    Obama’s Bill Clinton problem
    Obama’s Ronald Reagan problem
    Obama’s Jesse Jackson problem
    Obama’s Michelle Obama problem
    Obama’s bowling problem
    Obama’s lapel pin problem
    Obama’s problem with Hillary voters
    Obama’s Pledge of Allegiance problem
    Obama’s Populist message problem
    Obama’s problem with speaking against Iraq invasion
    Obama’s 50 State problem
    Obama’s gun problem
    Obama’s abortion problem
    Obama’s Foreign policy problem
    Obama’s Domestic policy problem
    Obama’s surrogate problem
    Obama’s Appalachian problem
    Obama’s Israel problem
    Obama’s Pakistan problem
    Obama’s Iran problem
    Obama’s Cuba problem
    Obama’s Florida problem
    Obama’s popularity problem
    Obama’s problem with living abroad
    Obama’s problem with not traveling abroad
    Obama’s problem with traveling abroad
    Obama’s patriotism problem
    Obama’s endorsement problem
    Obama’s Union problem
    Obama’s Business problem
    Obama’s working class problem
    Obama’s Internet whisper problem
    Obama’s small donor problem
    Obama’s big donor problem
    Obama’s Liberal voting record problem
    Obama’s stadium convention problem
    Obama’s problem with leading McCain in the polls
    Obama’s Bubba Gap problem
    Obama’s arugula problem
    Obama’s orange juice problem
    Obama’s fundraising problem
    Obama’s media attention problem
    Obama’s problem with problems

    Just a short list of the “problems” the media said that Barack Obama had during the 2008 campaign. Never in all my years did I see a candidate saddled with so many so called problems. So now that the 2012 general election is officially underway, it’s a bit of a deja vu moment to read that President Obama now has a fighting back problem.

  • rikyrah

    Dressage
    By Kay April 21st, 2012

    Republican strategists have grown weary of attacking sluts while defending mandated vaginal probes:


    Fiscal issues and union rights were front and center in many Republican-controlled legislatures last year. But this year, with the nation heading into the heart of a presidential race and voters consumed by the country’s economic woes, much of the debate in statehouses has centered on social issues. The recent flurry of socially conservative legislation, on issues ranging from expanding gun rights to placing new restrictions on abortion, comes as Republicans at the national level are eager to refocus attention on economic issues. Some Republican strategists and officials, reluctant to be identified because they do not want to antagonize the party’s base, fear that the attention these divisive social issues are receiving at the state level could harm the party’s chances in November, when its hopes of winning back the White House will most likely rest with independent voters in a handful of swing states.

    Pivoting back to economic issues when campaigning in individual states, where Mitt Romney will be expected to answer specific questions (unlike at the national level, where he answers no questions) may not be the winner Mitt Romney thinks it is. Republicans at the state level are batshit crazy on economic issues, too. Mitt Romney has shown absolutely no interest in distinguishing himself on state-specific or regional economic issues. He can’t. He keeps running from Grover Norquist’s lash. I’ve written about this before, but we’ll revisit, because it gets more and more bizarre with each passing week.

    The issue:

    If you’ve been following politics in Michigan, you probably know that one of the governor’s top priorities is a new bridge over the Detroit River, the New International Trade Crossing. Nearly the entire corporate and business community want this bridge. But the governor hasn’t even been able to get a vote on it in the legislature, where many of the members have taken campaign donations from Matty Moroun, owner of the rival Ambassador Bridge. Moroun doesn’t want any competition, and so far, has managed to frustrate the governor and get his way.

    This is not purely a local issue; this is America’s most economically important border crossing. Billions in heavy freight cross the Ambassador Bridge every month. Getting a new bridge is a top economic priority for Canada, our nation’s biggest trading partner. So, how does Mitt Romney stand on the question of whether we should build a new international bridge? The answer seems to be that he doesn’t. He is apparently refusing to take a position on it.

    I left messages with a number of aides for both Governor Snyder and the Romney campaign. They didn’t return my calls. Yesterday, Tom Troy, the politics writer for The Blade, asked Romney about the bridge during a photo opportunity. “He wouldn’t answer,“ the reporter said. “He just kept posing and smiling.” Clearly, he knew the issue was controversial. That could mean more than two billion dollars in road money for our state. Mitt Romney wants a job which is all about making bold and controversial decisions. Playing “Detroit River duck” isn’t the way to show that he is up to the job.

    When the dancing Austrian warmblood touches down in Detroit or Toledo again he’s likely to be confronted with yet another “tough question” on this bridge, because the issue isn’t going away:


    The owners of the Ambassador Bridge say they are backing a statewide ballot proposal that would prohibit Michigan from developing a new U.S.-to-Canada bridge or tunnel unless voters approve. The Detroit International Bridge Co. said Friday it is undertaking a drive for a statewide referendum in November that would require Michigan voters to approve any new bridge or tunnel to Canada.

    500 million in trade is being held up by three rich people, one unelected libertarian lobbyist, and a completely corrupt and captured state legislature. Mitt Romney’s position on an international border crossing that Canada supports, the US supports, and the Governor of Michigan supports is “PANIC! Actual leadership-type question! Substantive answer required!”. Maybe it’s a blessing the social conservative lunatics are providing cover for the fiscal conservative lunatics.

    http://www.balloon-juice.com/2012/04/21/dressage/

  • http://pragmaticobotsunite.blogspot.com/ Sepia

    Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch forced into primary fight

    By JOSH LOFTIN, Associated Press – 12 minutes ago

    SANDY, Utah (AP) — Utah Republicans denied U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch a clear path to a seventh and final term Saturday, forcing the 78-year-old lawmaker into a June primary with 37-year-old former state Sen. Dan Liljenquist. Hatch fell short of the nomination by fewer than 50 votes from the nearly 4,000 delegates at the party convention.

    Despite the setback, Hatch holds a significant fundraising edge in what has become the stiffest challenge since his election to the Senate in 1976. The eventual Republican nominee will be the heavy favorite in November because of the GOP dominance in Utah.

    Hatch urged that delegates endorse him so he can help repeal President Barack Obama’s health care law and potentially lead the powerful Senate Finance Committee if Republicans regain control of the chamber in the November vote.

    MORE: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jlpCd3dLrTKVq9ZYGZIwE9c3veLA?docId=b7563711979240c2ba10d90b7613fa22

    • rikyrah

      hee hee hee

  • dannie22
  • Admiral_Komack

    -I guess Orrin got teabagged.

    Orrin Hatch To Face Primary In June — Fails To Clinch GOP Nod At Convention

    Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) will now face a Republican primary in his bid for a seventh term, following a vote of delegates at the state GOP convention, after having received a majority that fell just short of the 60 percent needed to win his nomination outright.

    http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/04/orrin-hatch-to-face-primary-in-june—-fails-to-clinch-gop-nod-at-convention.php?m=1

    • rikyrah

      hee hee hee

  • Miranda

    Has somebody in the White House been reading POU? LMAO, look at the title of the blog for west wing week

    http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/04/20/weekly-wrap-all-we-have-each-other

  • Miranda

    Evening thread is up!

  • GreenLadyHere

    ALEXANDER2 – - – -SAD NEWS – - -

    – — – -Watergate figure Charles Colson has died at 80 – –

    – —He was described as the “evil genius” of the Nixon administration, and spent the better part of a year in prison for a Watergate-related conviction. His proclamations following his release that he was a new man, redeemed by his religious faith, were met with more than skepticism by those angered at the abuses he had perpetrated as one of Nixon’s hatchet men.

    But Charles “Chuck” Colson spent the next 35 years steadfast in his efforts to evangelize to a part of society scorned just as he was. And he became known perhaps just as much for his efforts to minister to prison inmates as for his infamy with Watergate.

    Colson died Saturday at age 80. His death was confirmed by Jim Liske, chief executive of the Lansdowne, Va.-based Prison Fellowship Ministries that Colson founded. Liske said the preliminary cause of death was complications from brain surgery Colson had at the end of March. He underwent the surgery to remove a clot after becoming ill March 30 while speaking at a conference.

    Colson once famously said he’d walk over his grandmother to get the president elected to a second term. In 1972 The Washington Post called him “one of the most powerful presidential aides, variously described as a troubleshooter and as a ‘master of dirty tricks.’”

    – – - -SKIP – - -

    – - -But it was actions that preceded the actual Watergate break-in that resulted in Colson’s criminal conviction. Colson pleaded guilty to efforts to discredit Pentagon analyst Daniel Ellsberg. It was Ellsberg who had leaked the secret Defense Department study of Vietnam that became known as the Pentagon Papers.

    – –WATERGATE: – - -THIS CRIME, including THAT of president Nixon – –was the most TWISTED —case in that recent history. WHEW LAWD.

    – - – -CONDOLENCES 2 his FAMILY. – –