Rand Paul:
Call me cynical, but I didn’t think his [Obama's] views on marriage could get any gayer.
We won't call Rand cynical. Ignorant, bigoted asshole is more fitting. An adult using ...
Happy Friday.
The best from Political Humor‘s collection of the week’s late night political humor.
"President Obama came out with approval of same-sex marriage. He said that over the years, he has ...
I've never understood Log Cabin Republicans - gay conservatives who give their support to a homophobic political party that derides their sexuality and refuses to grant them equal rights under ...
Finally.
“I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own ...
Election roundup:
Indiana.
As polls forecast, the Tea Party's efforts to cleanse the GOP of any impure conservatives has Dick Lugar out and teabagger Richard Mourdock in. Mourdock is the new Republican ...
There are lies...and then there are lies.
My own view, by the way, was that the auto companies needed to go through bankruptcy before government help. And frankly, that’s finally what ...
From the papers captured last year at Osama bin Laden's Pakistani hideout comes this.
Like any public figures, bin Laden and his advisers were mindful of the media. Adam Gadahn, one ...
The best from Political Humor‘s collection of the week’s late night political humor. Happy Friday.
"Today Mitt Romney visited a firehouse here in New York City. Of course, he was disappointed ...
It happened to Kerry. Can it happen to Obama? Nope says Margaret Carlson.
Obama’s belief system -- in that hopey-changey business and the post-partisanship thing -- has been altered by reality. ...
Sullivan:
What do Republicans call a gay man with neoconservative passion, a committed relationship and personal courage?
A faggot.
Exactly right, but then could one expect anything different from a political party that ...
And they claim that atheists are immoral?
The ugly side of religion shows its face once again. The words below were spoken at a Sunday sermon by Sean Harris, a pastor ...
It's been fun watching conservatives and Romney twist themselves into pretzels trying to undo Mitt's past words on GM and bin Laden.
Romney, April 2007:
It’s not worth moving heaven and earth ...
In an op-ed piece in the Washington Post, a couple of scholars from liberal and conservative think tanks, discuss the state of American politics.
We have been studying Washington politics and ...
Romney's VP-in-waiting, Marco Rubio, is perfecting the conservative sleaze play.
He has proposed his version of the Dream Act in which people who entered the country illegally as children will be ...
Beyond the rhetoric, the political BS, the lies - that is, the concerted effort by the right-wing noise machine to distort and misinform at every opportunity - is the very ...
It was never a matter of 'if'...only of 'when'.
Two constituencies that President Obama is holding onto about as strongly now as he did four years ago are voters under 30 ...
I'm not sure what one does with information of this sort but I thought it important you know. From Alex Pareene's new ebook, The Rude Guide To Mitt.
Every good Romney ...
Guess whose illustration made the May cover of a national magazine? Mine!
I'm quite sure there isn't much Stephen Moore/Newsmax and I share in common as far as politics goes but ...
Jesus (c. 30 CE):
Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's.
Bishop Daniel R. Jenky of the Catholic diocese of Peoria, Illinois (2012 ...
“I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together, when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married.”
There will no doubt be a freakout on the right (big surprise – yawn) as well as by a few liberals with deep religious beliefs but the latest poll indicates that 57 percent of independents (50 percent overall, 65 percent Dems, 22 percent Republicans) are in favor of same-sex marriage. So, as with most issues, Obama is on the right side of this one so let the homophobes and bigots scream and yell to their hate-filled, ugly, little heart’s content. Screw ‘em.
Numbers and politics aside, the President has shown that he possesses the courage of his convictions and a willingness to do or say the right thing. And endorsing same sex-marriage and equality for all regardless of sexual orientation is, without a doubt, the right thing to do.
Having the President endorse same-sex marriage does not end the battle but it does carry the struggle to another level and that is a good thing.
A good day for freedom-loving, fair-minded Americans. A bad day for every other type of American.
It happened to Kerry. Can it happen to Obama? Nope says Margaret Carlson.
Obama’s belief system — in that hopey-changey business and the post-partisanship thing — has been altered by reality. He doesn’t seem as inclined to turn the other cheek, as he did in the debate about the debt ceiling.
Bring it on, as Bush would say. In an ad for the Obama campaign, Bill Clinton makes the strongest case for the “decider-in-chief,” who would be dog meat if the mission had failed. “Suppose the Navy SEALs had gone in there, and it hadn’t been bin Laden. Suppose they’d been captured or killed. The downside would have been horrible for him.”
Kerry may have been Swift-Boated, but Obama is not going to be SEALed. Republicans are used to calling Democrats cowards and worse. Not this time. Republicans have the squishy, soft, cosseted, consensus-building candidate, while Democrats have the fighter. Finally.
This is true. As Carlson points out in her piece (and David Corn outlined in his book Showdown), Biden and Defense Secretary Robert Gates were both skeptical about the bin Laden kill mission succeeding. Jimmy Carter’s failed 1980 Iran rescue as well as the Black Hawk Down 1993 disaster in Somalia were worrisome reminders of what could go wrong. Despite the skepticism, Obama issued the kill order. It’s not too hard to imagine how a failed mission would have played out in the conservative media.
Given what Romney has already said about his reluctance to go into Pakistan to take down bin Laden, imagine the same scenario with Romney at the helm. There is no way Romney would have risked his good name and gone against the wishes of his Defense Secretary and VP. After checking in with his attorney and stockbroker to determine his personal liability, the mission would have been called off.
But here’s the thing…who gives a damn what Romney would or would not do? The Commander-in-Chief is a guy named Obama and he’s already shown what he’s made of. Let the right throw all the crap they want at him. If ever there was a Democrat prepared to deal with the next six months of lies, innuendo and misinformation, it’s this guy. And if there’s any good that’s come out of three years of Republican bullshit politics, it’s that they’ve toughened up this President to the point where there is virtually nothing more they can say or do which can possibly be worse than what they’ve already said or done.
Let the games begin.
___
( The Obama source photograph is a public domain image. The Romney source photograph is a Creative Commons licensed image from photographer Gage Skidmore.)
It’s not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person. [...] the country would be safer by only ‘a small percentage’ and would see ‘a very insignificant increase in safety’ if al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was caught because another terrorist would rise to power.
Of course I would have ordered the taking out of Osama bin Laden. Of course. This is a person who had done terrible harm to America and who represented a continuing threat to civilized people throughout the world. If I had been president of the United States, I would have made the same decision the president made, which was to remove him.
IF General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye. It won’t go overnight, but its demise will be virtually ]guaranteed.
Romney chief strategist, Eric Fehrnstrom, April 2012:
His [Romney's] position on the bailout was exactly what President Obama followed. He said, ‘If you want to save the auto industry, just don’t write them a check. That will seal their doom. What they need to do is go through a managed bankruptcy process.’
Consider that the crown jewel. The only economic success that President Obama has had is because he followed Mitt Romney’s advice.
Mitt Romney – a living, breathing cartoon if ever there was one.
Beyond the rhetoric, the political BS, the lies – that is, the concerted effort by the right-wing noise machine to distort and misinform at every opportunity – is the very real progress made by the Obama administration.
You might want to send the following video to every conservative on your email list. It probably won’t change their minds but it will give you the opportunity to rub the truth in their faces while having them jump through hoops trying to explain why none of it is true.
Send it to every lib on your email list too. Three and a half years of dirt from the right can play havoc with one’s recollection of this guy’s accomplishments.
Here’s the package Mitt Romney and his cohorts on the right are trying to sell to swing voters. Jonathan Bernstein views it as a strategy likely doomed for failure.
Want to see a great example of the closed GOP information feedback loop, and why it may prove dangerous for the Republican candidates?
Think about the two Barack Obamas that Republicans are running against. One of them is basically a fraud; he’s never held a job before he somehow wound up the Democratic nominee in 2008. Or, as Mitt Romney asserted today: “It’s hard to create a job if you never had one.” Oh, and he’s entirely dependent on a teleprompter.
The other Obama is the scheming, nefarious, stealth left-winger who any day now is going to unleash his radical socialist agenda. This Obama requires Republicans and conservative to chase down every radical “association” and every allegedly radical thing he’s ever said, no matter how mild.
As many have noted, these two Obamas are somewhat at odds with each other. But the more important point is that neither version builds a convincing case against supporting Obama in 2012. No one is going to buy that Obama is too inexperienced to be president; no one is going to buy that he has some secret agenda that remained secret during four years in the White House.
No one is going to buy it aside from hardcore conservatives who “live in the world where reality is defined by Fox News and Rush Limbaugh.” Facts and truth are never going to get through the impenetrable bubble in which these people exist.
All that said, it bears repeating that once Republicans choose their nominee Romney, they will unfailingly coalesce around him and proclaim Mitt Romney to be the One who will save a country and its people from the evil clutches of Obama. With Obama Derangement Syndrome solidly entrenched, confronting the avalanche of lies and misinformation coming in from the right is going to be a battle all the way to November.
The left’s response to all this? No surrender, I hope.
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