The danger of nodding off after elections

Following the bruising President Barack Obama put on Willard Romney and his GOP minions, I was determined to not replicate my mistakes in 2008. Yes, he won that time, too, but I, like so far too many other supporters kicked back to take a break after our well-earned victory. That was a major mistake. Our President had no visible backing either from his liberal base or the ConservaDem wing of the Democratic caucus.

The rest of us got caught napping when CNBC financial analyst Rick Santelli set off a Tea Party explosion, exploited by big money backers, that set hard-working Americans into an anti-healthcare reform frenzy that masked an ugly, racially-tinged underbelly. The entire episode put these citizens on the wrong side of their own best interests and amplified the nature of their darkest angels.

It was against this tide that I found my voice, no longer willing to simply wave off the virulence as merely crazy talk. Turns out, my countrymen aren't as discerning as I'd assumed. In fact, they're not just ignorant, they wish to become moreso -- railing against education and, in my home state of Texas, slipping into their Republican platform a plank denouncing the teaching of critical reasoning.

The remaining thinking class woke up one day after a 2010 Tea Party rout horrified at what had happened to our country and determined to take back OUR country. To change our tone, our rhetoric, our patriotism. Someone was surrounded alright, as Glenn Beck posited back in 2009, but unfortunately it turned out to be us -- the sober, the sane, the REAL Americans.

I can't speak for anyone else but I can no longer afford my traditional post-electoral Tryptophan-esque stupor. There's work to be done and I've got to wake up and get to it. I will ask for help but if others around me don't feel the same urgency, fine. I'll do it myself. Don't want to, not my personality, but I will go it alone. I'll register voters. I'll start petitions. I'll educate my neighbors. I'll fight draconian Republican measures. Whatever means necessary.

It's time to get busy and move #Forward. I am.

Mittens, gay Latina? Oh, dear!

The raid Romney dreams of commanding

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.

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.

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:

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.

Thank you for the job, Mitt Romney

Hey, hey, over there!
It's Job Creator Extraordinaire.
Willard! Outsourced jobs buy fancy hair!

In the video below Willard Romney is thanked by the workers who owe their employment to Mitt's Bain adventures. Of course, every one of the grateful folks are sending those thanks from a variety of countries ... none of which is the United States.

Ryan: Let them eat corn!!

Unless you're someone who makes the state fair circuit a regular pastime, news that Iowa State Fair's giant pumpkin competition took a huge hit this year is barely a blip on your radar.

Due to a persistent drought and the hottest July in the recorded history of Julys, this year's weigh-in for the behemoth gourds showed significant weight reduction among its top giants. For the first time in years, the winner clocked in at under 1,000 pounds.

As though to soften the competitive blow, farmer Dan Carlson, half of the winning Peterson-Carlson team for the past three years, pointed to farmers facing fates worse than their own, asking, "Have you seen the corn crop lately?”

It was among all this talk of less than super-sized pumpkins and drought and devastated corn crops that Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan came to stump for votes.

Pilgrim Willard crashes campaign into a Plymouth Rock

 OMG.This might just be the moment Mitt Romney lost the election.Wow. politico.com/news/stories/0…
— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) August 8, 2012

What mind-blowingly awesome utterance could Willard's brilliant team have issued that sent arch Conservative Erick son of Erick of Redstate into such a twitter? Oh, this:

 Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul, responding to a harsh new super PAC ad featuring a man who blames Bain Capital for his uninsured wife’s death, broke new ground for the campaign by praising Romney’s health insurance mandate.

 As word spread throughout the Wingnutia blogosphere that Romeny spokeswoman Andrea Saul dared speak these words, "To that point, if people had been in Massachusetts, under Gov. Romney’s health care plan, they would have had health care." Ears of the Republican's base perked up on hearing the attack command.

Huge signs appear at Romney rally in Poland ...

... supporting Ron Paul

..

"Under the headline 'Governor Romney won’t like this' we saw a big sign in the crowd for Rep Ron Paul." - Greta Van Susteren, FOX reporter

Romney bores a friend in Poland

At long last! After making a shambles of his first two stops on his foreign policy junket and angering any number of dignitaries along the way, Willard Romney met with one leader, well a former leader, who gladly handed the Republican presumptive nominee his unofficial endorsement.

Nobel Peace Prize recipient Lech Walesa, once known as a formidable pro-union activist, praised Romney effusively -- using four variations of the word "success" but not really saying much else.

Then, following his half hour encounter with the nominee, Walesa turned to Polish news to declare that Charisma is something Mr. Romney "doesn't really yet have," suggesting he needs to do "some rallying," according to a Wall Street Journal report.

Romney falling star made Atlas weep

I just have to ask: What the hell is the deal with Republicans and their 15-minute Hall of Famers who embody the opposite of the snake oil they're trying to sell?
 
Last election cycle, the GOP candidates spammed us with Joe "Not a Licensed Plumber and Whose Name Isn't Even Joe" Wurzelbacher and anticipated that rational Americans would buy his schtick. He was crafted into a Conservative icon based on the fact that he was able to wake up one morning, walk his neighborhood and form a cogent (if fact-free) question.

Willard should retroactively cancel foreign excursion

How could a trip so tailor made for "a guy from Great Britain" who enjoys such a "special relationship" with his "Anglo-Saxon" forebears go so horribly wrong in one day? That answer might just stem from a condescension-laden, misinformed description of the host country on the first leg of his three-country tour that can be found in his fantasy novel, No Apology..

England [sic] is just a small island. Its roads and houses are small. With few exceptions, it doesn't make things that people in the rest of the world want to buy. And if it hadn't been separated from the continent by water, it almost certainly would have been lost to Hitler's ambitions.

Mitt's gaffe-a-thon skips Israel to chafe Poland's neighbor

As Mitt Romney prepares to take his horse and flee London searching for friendlier venues in Israel and Poland, at least one of those countries' allies is already miffed about his foreign policy agenda.

According to the uber-conservative Wall Street Journal, Slovak Foreign Minister isn't waiting for the Conservative Cavalcade of Clowns to descend on his country before taking Romney to task for his words to the Veterans of Foreign Wars this past Tuesday.

Now running for "Most Likely to be Dumped at the Convention," the alleged Republican nominee attacked President Obama's administration for "abandoning Poland and the Czech Republic by altering plans for an American missile defense system in Europe," the WSJ reports.

But, according to Miroslav Lajcak, in Washington this week for meetings with U.S. officials, Europe has embraced the Obama approach to missile defense and Romney was dredging up settled debates.

“People have moved on,” said Lajcak the minister of foreign affairs and deputy prime minister, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “We are in a different situation now. We are discussing a different project. I see no reason to revisit discussions from three years back.”

Seems Romney's just skipping past Days 3, 4 and 5 to rock the diplomatic boat for his Day 6 host. And lest we forget how exciting this leg of the trip might be, please let's review Day 1's highlights stemming from his "special relationship" with the Anglo-Saxons of "shared heritage."

#Romneyshambles - Mitt' gets "special relationship" from "Anglo-Saxon" press

Mittens' camp plunges into racism Hell

Photo via ConservatismLives

And now we have it. A desperate Romney campaign, unable to produce its candidate's tax returns, Bain Capital or 2002 Olympic records, a scorable budget plan, details on immigration or, really, much of anything concrete, trotted out the now-familiar Tea Party racism card.

Aside from the candidate himself attempting to paint President Obama as "extraordinarily foreign," his campaign sent a senior foreign policy advisor to talk to an overseas news outlet with the outcome of bringing shame to America and its citizens.

“We are part of an Anglo-Saxon heritage, and he feels that the special relationship is special,” the adviser said of Mr Romney, adding: “The White House didn’t fully appreciate the shared history we have.”

'Balanced between fear and greed'

Image via VeracityStew.com

Following his daddy's advice to " never get involved in politics if you have to win election to pay a mortgage" Willard Romney knowingly entered the dark, shadowy underworld of financial criminality and "junk" bonds in the mid-80s and never looked back.

Looking for easy money and a big payoff to fuel his insatiable political ambition and greed, Romney decided in 1988 to brush up against one of the most prolific financial criminals, in the middle of an intensive Securities and Exchange investigations.

"What transpired," writes Boston Globe staff, "would become not just one of the most profitable leveraged buyouts of the era, but also one of the most revealing stories of Romney’s Bain Capital career."

Romney's unbridled greed led him to hook his fortunes to now-convicted felon Michael Milken, known in financial circles as "The Junk Bond King."