Outsourcer-in-chief keeps outsourcing badly

Buried deep in the breaking news about election fraud enveloping Willard Romney and the Republican party is a nugget that could negatively impact the candidate's ability to rally his troops in advance of November 6.

The bombshell hidden behind the fraud allegations is the fact that the Romney campaign had depended on the firm behind the scandal for much of its GOTV (Get Out The Vote) efforts in some hotly-contested swing states. Willard's team outsourced this activity to the RNC, which in turn paid state parties which further paid consulting firm Strategic Allied Consulting to energize the base and ensure voters showed up to cast ballots.

The development puts the ground game advantage back into the Obama team's court.

After dumping about $3.1 million into the coffers of the Republican vendor, now under investigation for submitting 108 fraudulent voter registrations in Florida, Romney and the party pulled away from deals with the company. The GOP political teams, aware of the firm's past allegations of electoral indiscretions, agreed to embrace the business if it changed its name, so as "to not be a distraction."

Story of Mitt's very different 47-percent moocher class

"There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what ... who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it," Romney said in the fundraiser video.

Chart via Huffington Post

Forget Romney's dismissal of "dependency" of low-wage, federal income tax non-payers, his campaign apparently is rife with moochers riding the coattails of his own wealthy donors. One can hardly wait for the secret tape of him disparaging yet another group of Americans -- his own small non-donor class.

Tick tock goes the clock, Now summer's gone away?

The lyrics are from "Doctor Who"'s Night Terrors Nursery Rhyme, the horror is Willard Mitt Romney's alone, as voters start sealing the deal by casting early votes. Below is the schedule for states early voting that may well seal the lying Weathervane Willard's destiny.

Bonus entertainment round: Video of The Tick Tock Nursery Rhyme from "Doctor Who."

Science slaps Republican ignorance upside the head

Republican embrace of creation theory over empirically-determined scientific knowledge leads to serious stumbles along the campaign trail. The GOP strategy for fixing the nation's dearly beloved safety network raises voter eyebrows because their methodology defies easily verifiable biology.

Face it, people make babies, babies grow older, some take care of their parents and later some elders are cared for their kids. The Romney/Paul message to seniors is "We're cutting the social fabric down to a tiny voucher just not for you." Now that's all well and good until scientific realities remind you that many of those seniors have children for whose futures they have concerns. And then you have that moment when those children realize that Mitt's talking about them.

"Stop it, this is hard." Mitt muffs the math on healthcare.

Another area that eludes the education averse right wing is mathematics - that lynchpin of all things scientific. Seniors 65 and older comprise 17 percent of all active voters; alas, this is dwarfed by the 83 percent of the 18-64 age group. Therefore, pandering reassuringly to a smaller group of voters, while waving off younger groups with vague generalities, explains why the electorate, as it wakes with a pounding hangover after indulging too heavily in the sweet Romney party juice, is feeling morning after remorse and returning to the Obama fold.

When a campaign caricatures its Faithful

[UPDATE: 9/25/2012 Bonus video added]

A funny thing happened during Willard's black March to the White House. Somewhere along the way it stopped doing what campaigns do out of tradition -- sketch out the broad outlines of its candidate -- and bizarrely put pen to paper to draw the most farcical caricature possible of its ardent supporters.

Led by the odd choice of putting a rambling old man on stage to hold court with an empty chair, Mitt Romney's staff has stumbled into simultaneously painting the boss and his adherents as something his earlier campaign most decried: weird.

That word first spoken in a still, small voice -- describing Mitt's religion, his cardboard stiffness, his inability to relate to people -- has crescendoed into a cacophonous roar of disapproval for nearly everything he touches.

“What Romney does not get,” says Jack Blum, a veteran Washington lawyer and offshore expert, “is that this stuff is weird.” - Vanity Fair, Aug 2012

"Bill Kristol: ‘Kinda weird’ Romney pays lower tax rate than middle-class people" - Raw Story, Aug. 20, 2012

"Romney: Old Rich Weird Dude" - WRKO Boston, Aug. 28, 2012

"Romney Aides Call Eastwood Speech ‘Strange,’ ‘Weird,’ ‘Theater Of The Absurd’" - Talking Points Memo, Aug. 31, 2012

Fox, Ann Romney still whine about getting picked on

[Update: 9/23/2012] In our latest bawlfest, Miss Ann lashes out at Republicans for taking her husband to task for his “rolling calamity” of a presidential run. After breaking the "no crying in politics" rule yet again, the Romneybot's Best Asset and Woman Whisperer was yanked off the trail and relegated to scrounging for cash. Bonus "This is Hard" video courtesy of ColumnFiftyFive.

[Now back to our regularly scheduled entertainment from Fox Comedy]

Based on this interview, Fox News should immediately surrender their White House press credentials, not being members of "the media" and all. Top that with the ongoing whinging of poor, pathetic Ann Romney who's spent her life living comfortably on the backs of outsourced American jobs and off-shored American tax dollars.

Break out the hankies before viewing our aspiring First Bellyacher in her heroic campaign to stand beside our first Wimp-in-Chief. This political soap opera will just break your heart.

Been outsourced? Offshored? Thanks Mitt!

The Romney campaign's awe-inspiring response to the Washington Post grenade that blew up his "job creator" braggadocio?

"This is a fundamentally flawed story that does not differentiate between domestic outsourcing versus off-shoring"

 HAHAHAHAHA ... Comedy gold. Oh, here's one back atcha, Mr. "I'm unemployed, too".

Two unemployed #Sensata workers are sitting in a bar drowning their sorrows over losing their jobs and having to face their families with the news..

The outsourced guy turns to the other and asks, "Hey dude, were you outsourced or off-shored?"

"Off-shored," replied the second man, "yet neither of us has a job."

'Nuff said.

Butter and jam for your #Romneytoast

AmericanBridge Pac 21st Century  strikes back

GOP tax pros throw in towel on Mitt's 'middle income' plan

Suppose a group of Republican economists got together with just one purpose -- to prove "liberal bias" of a non-partisan tax policy think tank report that found their candidate's tax plan raised taxes on the middle class.

Eureka! The team declared. We discovered fire can make Romney's plan work, pronounced President Reagan's Council of Economic Advisors chief Martin Feldstein. Nip an alternative minimum tax here. Lop off the estate tax there. Slice away almost every deduction for people making $100K or more and, voilà, you got your revenue neutral tax plan that doesn't touch the middle.

Then, almost immediately after revealing their great discovery, the candidate on whose behalf they're a-cyphering decides to define "middle income" as $200,000-$250,000 or less. Being good economists, despite their conservative motives, they'd been working from a ceiling of $100,000 for their "middle class."

 In an article first published in the Wall Street Journal last month and expanded on later, Feldstein said that "it is feasible to combine tax cuts and base broadening as Gov. Romney suggests without raising the budget deficit or imposing any middle-class tax increase."

Well, then their candidate opened his mouth during a "Good Morning America" interview and changed the parameters of the calculus. "Middle income is $200,000 to $250,000 and less," Romney declared. The analysts were left gobsmacked.

Like his money and our jobs, Willard promises to off-shore foreign policy decisions on Israel

Thank goodness for phones.

Had Alexander Graham Bell never invented the telephone, a Mitt Romney presidency would be devoid of a working policy on relations with Israel and the general Middle East. In chiding Republican contender Newt Gingrich in a 2011 primary debate for calling Palestine an "invented" people, Romney made clear just who would pull the strings for his administration in all things pertaining to the Middle East.

“Before I made a statement of that nature, I’d get on the phone to my friend Bibi Netanyahu and say: ‘Would it help if I say this? What would you like me to do?“

According to a New York Times article, a United States ambassador to Israel under Clinton Martin S. Indyk, said that whether intentional or not, Mr. Romney’s statement implied that he would inappropriately “subcontract Middle East policy to Israel.” Others have warned of a shadow government that would operate with impunity within a Romney administration and cover a vast network of policy decisions.

Netanyahu has pulled Romney's governance strings since he took the reins of Massachusetts as governor back in 2003. The Times again tells us that the prime minister has advised Romney over the years in matters of politics, economics and the Middle East.

 When Mr. Romney was the governor of Massachusetts, Mr. Netanyahu offered him firsthand pointers on how to shrink the size of government. When Mr. Netanyahu wanted to encourage pension funds to divest from businesses tied to Iran, Mr. Romney counseled him on which American officials to meet with.

Adventures in Wingnutia: High Priest of The Stupid Edition

 Speaking before a conservative audience at the annual Values Voter Summit Saturday, former GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum said that conservatives “will never have the elite smart people on our side.”

“We will never have the elite smart people on our side, because they believe they should have the power to tell you what to do,” said Santorum, adding, “So our colleges and universities, they’re not going to be on our side.

Chinese formally chide Willard, outs his source of wealth

"I also want to make sure that if a nation cheats like China has cheated, we call them on the carpet and don't let it continue." - Romney at Sept. 13 campaign rally in Virginia

 Just one day after climbing atop his high horse vowing to clamp down on China, calling it a "currency manipulator" and a "cheat," Romney was toppled by a scathing swipe from one of the country's official government newspapers.

Citing the irony of America's outsourcer-in-chief bashing China's currency values after having cashed in on it to great personal advantage, the article noted Romney has damaged relations between the countries and suggested he abandon "short-sighted China-bashing tricks and adopt at least a little bit of statesmanship on China-U.S. ties."

 What is more sensational is that this millionaire GOP candidate has vowed to declare China a currency manipulator on the first day of his presidency if elected.

Yet it is rather ironic that a considerable portion of this China-battering politician's wealth was actually obtained by doing business with Chinese companies before he entered politics.

The piece contends that Romney's "blaming-China-on-everything remarks are as false as they are foolish" and went on to lay blame for U.S. economic woes at the feet of its debtor, as only a note-holder might.

When Americans fight for their lives against terrorists overseas, Romney critiques their choice of weapons

I get that political campaigns are intramural sport. Protecting American lives is not. Americans rightly expect presidential candidates to know the difference.

Hitting send on their fax machines even as American public servants overseas were being slaughtered by rocket-bearing marauders, the Romney campaign, in it's effort to cross the finish line and shout "First," proved it could not distinguish between the two.

It wasn't just about his habitually dickish shoving to get his entitled, pasty ass at the head of line (son Tagg on dinner: "Dad always goes through the line first") it was about his warped sense of "winning." Just as he did at Bain, Romney merely saw the dead and dying Americans in harm's way as nothing more than a means to furthering his personal fortunes.

Displaying the most unpatriotic, unAmerican crassness imaginable, Mitt Romney saw not dead and injured foreign service workers who could be serving him if, God or Mohammed forbid, he were president, but a commodity to be traded on the public opinion market. In that moment, the Great Mormon Hope went from auditioning for Head of State of the most powerful nation in the world to The Great American Head Case by sniping at the embassy's weapon of choice as the assault of their compound became imminent.

The bi-partisan gut reaction was swift, visceral and resoundingly negative. The moment was called Romney's "Lehman" moment, harkening back to his predecessor John McCain's campaign meltdown in the face of the financial crisis. But it was much greater than even that. And his current opponent Barack Obama didn't miss the point.

"Governor Romney seems to have a tendency to shoot first and aim later."

Look who says America's doing better four years later

via Washington Monthly's
Political Animal

 Consider this remarkable exchange between Romney and conservative radio-host Laura Ingraham late [Sept. 4, 2012]:

INGRAHAM: You’ve also noted that there are signs of improvement on the horizon in the economy. How do you answer the president’s argument that the economy is getting better in a general election campaign if you yourself are saying it’s getting better?

ROMNEY: Well, of course it’s getting better. The economy always gets better after a recession, there is always a recovery. […]

Fallon gives comedic 'tribute' to Willard and his company

After hearing James Taylor perform some of his hit songs at the Democratic National Convention, late night host Jimmy Fallon was apparently inspired to honor Mitt Romney's ability to lose his own convention to a crazy man and a chair. Fallon took the lyrics to Taylor's "Fire and Rain" mixed in comedic convention postmortems and gives us "Romney and Bain."

Lyrics below the fold ...

Crap! Even the cheerleading section is getting ticked off

Transcript below the fold ...

The GOP's ever-shrinking pup tent

Romney thinks you're stupid, you are if you invite Bush back into your home

Imagine you just hosted a big neighborhood gathering. Everybody came over, ate the food, drank the beer and left the typical big old mess. Then, on top of that, you realize that one sketchy neighbor, whom you really never trusted in the first place, got a hold of your laptop while everyone was distracted by the festivities and hacked into your bank account wiping it out.

As though the theft itself wasn't bad enough, not only could you not get law enforcement's attention but as you're falling behind in various payments and losing your home, the neighbors for some alternate reality reason all pitched in and decided to help the thieving neighbor because he'd blown through his ill-gotten and is now teetering on bankruptcy.

Now, would any right-thinking person expect you to .. or even ask you to ... invite this miserable soul to your next get-together? I'd think not. But former governor Romney thinks you should and, remarkably, that you would offer such thievery re-entry to your home. 

 In May of 2000, when George W. Bush was running for president on a platform of extravagant tax cuts for all, his campaign did something that would be considered remarkable today: it submitted his tax plan to the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, to see how much all those tax cuts would cost the Treasury.

The bipartisan committee ran through the details provided by the campaign and predicted that the tax plan would cost about $1.3 trillion over nine years, an underestimate but a clear sign of its high price tag. With the budget in surplus at the time, Mr. Bush didn’t dispute that cost, and never tried to pretend that the cuts would be free. Within a decade, in fact, they would turn out to be the biggest factor in the huge deficit he created.

Twelve years later, Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee, claims his far deeper tax cuts would have a price tag of exactly zero dollars. He has no intention of submitting his tax plan to the committee or anywhere else that might conduct a serious analysis, since he seems intent on running a campaign far more opaque than any candidate has in years.

Romney's message to voters? We decide, you abide.

Romney scores first negative bounce in poll's history

From the goldmine that is No More Mister Nice Blog:

 The question in the CNN/ORC poll (PDF) was "Does what you saw or read of the Republican National Convention in Tampa make you more likely or less likely to vote for Mitt Romney?"

More people said "less likely" than "more likely."

That's the first time a candidate has ever been underwater on that question in the history of CNN polling.

Romney campaign dishes first dose of truth

 President Barack Obama heads out of the national political conventions with a much clearer path to winning, top advisers to Mitt Romney privately concede.

FLASHBACKS

"I think we are going to get a bump; I think we have a better opportunity for the bump as a party, as a challenging party... I can't give you a scope, but I can tell you I think it's going to be real and it's going to be visible, but I don't know what it will end up being."

-- Reince Priebus (minus vowels=RNC PR BS)

Romney is going to have a great convention. It's going to be incredible. 

He should gain a 5 or 6 point lead.

-- Dick "People Are Stupid Enough to Keep Paying Me" Morris

As a result of all that positivity and the flood of coverage, Romney, like many before him (pretty much everyone other than John Kerry in 2004) will receive a post-convention bounce in the polls that will likely be short lived, but significant enough to make headlines.

-- Brian McGovern, SaveJersey.com

In case you thought this slipped our minds: #releasethereturns

'Don't serve as a high priest wearing magical underwear'

"I will not take God out of our platform," the Republican nominee [Romney] said after reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. "I will not take God off our coins, and I will not take God out of my heart."

Of course he won't .. 'cause

"When you vote for Mitt Romney, you get a Mormon president."

The Old Man and The Seat

Laughed at or with? Clint Eastwood at RNC in Tampa

I've always pretty much appreciated most of Clint Eastwood's early works but it wasn't until Gran Torino that I found him both inspired and inspiring. Then came his "Morning in America" ad, which spoke to an ailing nation looking for a ray of hope and he knocked it out of the park.

I don't much idolize actors or actresses, whether they politically agree with me or not. I recognized the absolute star power Oprah brought to a young senator's campaign in 2008 and I was excited that she lent her gravitas to the affair. I was similarly impressed to see the Hollywood lineup that stood in support of Barack Obama. Not that they swayed my thinking on the politician, it just made the campaign more fun and I do tend to gravitate toward and support like-minded individuals. Sue me, I'm human.

On the other hand, I still watch re-runs of Frasier, howbeit with fewer personal laugh lines after learning of Kelsey Grammer's support for the Tea Party. Frankly, I more hold him in contempt for being a manwhore and stinking up my TV than for his political views. He's comported himself as a relatively sane Tea Party supporter, unlike the few third string losers such as Nugent, Norris and Voight with little else to lose, and have hitched their fading stars to that mob.

So now we return to Eastwood standing on stage talking to a chair. Despite Bill Maher's  full-throated defense (which seems so desperate, one wonders where his defense of Clint's comedic efforts ends and his own begins) of the roundly mocked schtick, it did "kill," as Maher contends -- just not in the way Bill thinks.

The other attempted defense is that of "senior abuse." Read how The Examiner valiantly works to distort Rachel Maddow's critique of the farce into some horrifying form of attack on seniors:

The Lighter Side of Mittmania

Mitt's USA, Inc. was no slip but HELL YEAH it's showing

If you pay attention to nothing else uttered by Willard Romney in the course of this election season, mark his following words as those which illuminate the soul and motivations of the former governor of Massachusetts in his run for the presidency:

"We understand how Washington works. We will reach across the aisle and find good people who, like us, want to make sure this company deals with its challenges. We’ll get America on track again."

His words should terrify you.

On its face, this statement, in particular the underlined word, seems merely one of those gaffes Beltway insiders get all giggly over and regular voters, like us, just shrug off. I cannot state how strong a warning these words serve nor how devastating their impact will be for this country should Romney win this election.

If you think I've somehow set my hair on fire in hysteria, consider that similar words threw off balance a man described as "a voracious dealmaker and not a very scrupulous one." Yes, none other than Rupert Murdoch, a man in many ways now master of the Republican candidate's destiny.

"At one point, Mr. Romney declared that 'I would probably bring in McKinsey,' the management consulting firm, to help him set up his presidential cabinet, a comment that seemed to startle the editors and left Mr. Murdoch visibly taken aback."

 This consultancy gambit is the high-performance engine that drives the Romney campaign. It is a backdoor attempt to pad his personal wealth using the clan's "blind" trust (a ruse as he has called the practice in past) as his personal piggy bank. The same trust that openly enriches his family and stashes proceeds accumulated in league with Bain co-conspirators.