Posts Tagged mitt romney

There Was An Election?

Posted by Matt on Tuesday, November 13th, 2012

A week has passed and everything has changed.  Congratulations to all the liberal, gay potheads out there.  You are the big winners.  Love you guys.  Also, math.

That’s my primary take-away. Here are some other thoughts.

1.  When the Bangkok Post broke Tammy Duckworth’s victory, I took a moment to be happy. Not gloating. Not relieved. Just happy.  Most election days are debaucherous emotional rollercoasters. Yes, it’s nice when your candidate wins – but usually because the other guy (or girl, but usually guy) lost.    Politicians are almost universally compromised, so the black lining of the silver cloud always remains.

Duckworth/Walsh could possibly fit this mold. In my opinion, Joe Walsh is Washington’s most despicable elected official, though that’s a trough that runs wide and sinks deep.  Yes, it’s great that the millions of outside dollars that supported the flame throwing deadbeat birther were wasted.  It’s great that his attacks on her military service were not rewarded.  It’s great that voters possibly had some buyer’s remorse….And they should’ve been embarrassed, like the family whose relative goes on Price Is Right and accidentally says something anti-semitic.

But in that moment it wasn’t about Walsh.  Politicians universally disappoint and Duckworth might do the same. Is it possible there’s a skeleton in her closet?  Of course. Most of us have at least one, but baseless speculation is a waste of energy.

I’ve followed Duckworth since her narrow ’06 loss to Peter Roskam in a historically “red” district.  I knocked on some doors and made some calls on her behalf during that campaign, so I’m not unbiased.  However, her record as a Veterans’ Advocate speaks for itself.  An area the Bush administration effectively ignored, on a state and national level she has been a central part of the effort to address veterans’ issues such as employment, health care and education.  While the unemployment rate for veterans has dropped dramatically over the last 3 years, in some states (like Michigan), veterans’ unemployment is well over 10%, so there’s a long way to go.  Veterans will need advocates like Duckworth on Capitol Hill – real advocates and not merely some Suits who invoke them for political gain.

While she certainly touts her military experience, it’s not exploitative.  She shows strength.  A vote for her should not be a pity-vote for a veteran amputee, as Walsh would have you believe. She wouldn’t want that and that’s no reason to give anyone your vote.

Duckworth is not the most eloquent or dynamic speaker. She’s not the wonkiest person in the room. She’s not an old, rich, white man.  However, in a body bereft of grace, honor and intelligence, I’m confident she will bring those much-needed qualities.  I wish her well.  Congrats Tammy!

2.  OK, now back to your regularly scheduled idiocy…

History will note that the current GOP is one of the most obstructionist opposition parties in a century.  For 4 years, they collectively placed political power ahead of governing. How’d you do, buddy?

3.  Can’t believe I’m doing this, but I would like to compliment CNN on their relatively reserved election night coverage.  With previous panels bursting out of the studio, I thought they were escalating towards a Hollywood Square-type set-up with Dana Loesch in the center square.

I’ll take Ali Velshi for the block!

I was also lucky enough to tune in for the Fox News Meltdown, featuring Karl Rove and narrated by Megyn “of the Pod” Kelly.  That was epic.  Fox + CNN = big winners.  There’s a first time for everything.

4.  Rudy Giuliani – go away.

5.  One week later and no reports concerning the results of Sergeant Nicholas Brody’s election.

6.  DANGER!!! Voter fraud is such a huge problem that suppressing millions of voters with limited early voting, long lines, caging and confusing ID requirements failed to deter bipartisan arrests that numbered in the High Single Digits.  Fainting couches for some!  (Poll taxes for others.)

7.  It was a bad election cycle to be a dude with weird-ass theories about rape.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

So, Congratulations President Obama – while you had your missteps, you managed to save the american auto industry from liquidation, effectively end the Iraq War, turn the tide for gay marriage and repeal DADT, pass a comprehensive health care bill + CHIP, increase veteran support, begin Afghanistan drawdown, kill Bin Laden, codify equal pay for women, and squeeze through enough stimulus and financial control to extinguish an economy that was on fire in ’08 and facilitate incremental recovery in a time when much of the industrialized world continues to flounder.  This was virtually all without the assistance of congressional republicans.

To wit, thank God the Dow hit 14,000! Remember when that was a key indicator of presidential accomplishment?  Harumph.  Also, if the worst “dirt” Darrell Issa and co. could fling at the administration over the course of 4 years was Solyndra and Fast & Furious, that’s one term void of a serious scandal.

A well-deserved reelection.  Good luck.  Fortunately, I expect a lot more cooperation from Republicans. Heyo!

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Picture Of The Week

Posted by Matt on Wednesday, October 3rd, 2012

Republican nominee Mitt Romney trying to get that helpful Latino moxie.

- “Young man, what are those shiny metal discs that just fell out of your computer??”

- Those are called ‘coins’ sir.

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What Does That Look Like To You? Is the Speech…? Is The Guy…?

Posted by Matt on Thursday, August 30th, 2012

TELEPROMPTER!

Big speech tonight folks. Big speech.  I can’t believe it will be all for naught.  As conservatives always say, using teleprompters to convey what you want to say makes you a Reagan unpresidential dumbass.

TAMPA, Fla. — Mitt Romney stood on stage at the Tampa Bay Times Forum for several minutes Thursday afternoon while his teleprompters were adjusted ahead of his big address to delegates later in the evening.

Every speech on stage at the RNC has been run through prompters, save for Condoleeza Rice’s address, which she read from notes. Conservatives — including Paul Ryan, who also used a teleprompter in his convention speech — have long mocked President Obama’s use of the devices. Romney was one of the few Republicans to defend the practice and he appeared to take pains to make sure his prompters were just right.

Another TOTUS apologist.  Sheesh.  Next thing you know, Conservatives will be derisively whispering about how his dad was born in some country like Mexico.

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Clint Eastwood Wants To Vote For Mitt Romney, Possibly Hold Him Close

Posted by Matt on Saturday, August 4th, 2012

I see you, Clint. I see you standing over the bed of another handsome president. Reading a story.

As a continuation of the vast Super Bowl Commercial conspiracy to install Obama as exalted Leader, Clint Eastwood showed up at a Romney fundraiser in Sun City, Idaho.  This is what he said:

He told the crowd that in the early 2000s, he was making the film ‘Mystic River’ in Romney’s home state of Massachusetts.

“At that time, Gov. Romney was running for governor,” Eastwood said. “I said, ‘God, this guy is too handsome to be governor, but he does look like he could be president.’ As the years have gone by, I’m beginning to think even more so that. He’s going to restore a decent tax system that we need badly so that there is a fairness and people are not pitted against one another of whose paying taxes and who isn’t.”

Great point!

But all I wanted was $7.50 back for having to sit through Mystic River.  Never forget.

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REPOST!!! I Might Look Like A Robert Ford, But I Feel Just Like A Jesse James

Posted by Matt on Saturday, August 4th, 2012

Ribbit

Anyone remember Kevin Hassert?  Mitt Romney does.  Romney has tabbed the “economist” as front man to support the campaign’s forecast of a magical ‘Romney Economic Boom’ that’s going to be lowered on us upon Mitt’s election.

The discussion shook out something like this:

Mitt:  ”So our current proposals are going to raise taxes on 95% of Americans. How are we going to sell this and keep the huge tax cuts for our friends?”

Hassert:  ”If we keep it vague, I think we can assure huge job increases that will offset the huge losses in revenue.”

Mitt: “No problem there.”

Hassert:  ”I’m thinking we can project the addition of 6 million jobs as a result of some sort of ‘Boom.’”

Mitt: “Gee-Willikers…we can do that?”

Kassert:  ”That’s the great thing. We don’t need anything to back it up.  We just say a number, something something Reagan, and we’re good. Heck Mitt, why not 12 millions? yes. Let’s guarantee 12 million jobs.”

Mitt: “Fantastic. How ’bout a glass of milk?”

(Originally posted 9/9/10)

Kevin Hassett is best known for his spectacular failure as co-author of Dow 36,000: The New Strategy for Profiting from the Coming Rise in the Stock Market. Evidently, that’s enough to be considered an economics’ expert at the American Enterprise Institute.

Back when the AEI was cheering on the Bush Admin as they made up their nuclear-unicorns-of-mass-destruction evidence for invading Iraq, they had no problem sacrificing the children of the lower and middle-class in the fight for their right to think tank. Some things never change.

Now Kevin Hassert is back with some economics lessons in an article entitled “Your Fat Paycheck Keeps Your Neighbor Unemployed.” And listen up because he’s got some news for you selfish bastards. I’m talking to you – family of four with a $50,000 household income.

So here comes the leap into ice-cold water: The biggest problem with the labor market right now is that wages are too high. As Washington again turns to government spending as a cure for unemployment, some against-the-grain thinking is in order.

Economics teaches that full employment would be reached if wages adjust downward, to a level that better reflects current circumstances. At lower wages, employers would desire more workers. Labor markets generate persistent unemployment only if wages are sticky, failing to fall as demand declines.

Of course. It’s not like wages haven’t already been slashed, pensions renegotiated and  early retirements forced. Hassert then goes on to blame the rise in minimum wage and all those greedy siphons pulling in $7.25 an hour before unloading this little gem:

Third, the natural reluctance of workers to accept lower pay is amplified by how their wage helps define their identity. A $60,000-a-year office worker might have an extra-hard time coming to terms with becoming a $40,000-a-year worker.

See? It’s a status thing! You office workers are just imbued with too much pride. It’s not about the actual money. Or the actual bills. Or the actual education of your actual children. It’s about coming to terms with your new class in America’s 21st Century caste system.

While I certainly don’t want Hassert to take a pay cut so that  the AEI dunces start multiplying, someone may be missing something…

[T]he top executives of the 50 firms with the most layoffs since the economic crisis started have taken home almost half again as much as the typical S&P 500 chieftain. The layoff crowd took home $12 million on average last year, the IPS said, compared with $8.4 million for the typical blue-chip company.“CEOs are clearly not hurting,” IPS researchers led by Sarah Anderson write in the institute’s 17th annual executive pay survey. “But they are, as we detail in these pages, causing others to needlessly hurt — by cutting jobs to feather their own already comfortable executive nests.”

The damage done by these champions of the cutback is enormous, the institute contends.  The companies in the top 50 layoff crowd cut 531,000 jobs between November 2008 and April 2010, accounting for three-quarters of layoffs at the biggest 500 U.S. companies.

IPS takes issue with headlines that hold CEOs have taken a paycut in recent years. It says the bigger problem by far is that while the average worker’s real wages — that is, adjusted for inflation — have been stagnant since the 1970s, executive pay has continued to rise at a rapid clip.

“After adjusting for inflation, CEO pay in 2009 more than doubled the CEO pay average for the decade of the 1990s, more than quadrupled the CEO pay average for the 1980s, and ran approximately eight times the CEO average for all the decades of the mid-20th century,” IPS writes.

The IPS study also names the 10 most heartless CEOs – those receiving the biggest 2009 paychecks while announcing the biggest layoffs over the crisis period.

Topping the list is former Schering-Plough chief Fred Hassan, who took home $49.7 million after selling the drugmaker to Merck (MRK) in a deal that led to 16,000 job cuts.

Trickle-Drown?

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GOP: Wrapping Tax Cuts For The Wealthy With A Small Business Ribbon

Posted by Matt on Thursday, July 26th, 2012

For 30 years, the top 1% has banked at an exponential rate. Corporate Profits are at an all-time high. Everyone else?

In 2010, average real income per family grew by 2.3% but the gains were very  uneven. [In 2010] Top 1% incomes grew by 11.6% while bottom 99% incomes grew only by 0.2%.  Hence, the top 1% captured 93% of the income gains in the first year of  recovery.

So as wealth cascades up and coalesces in a cacophony of Beltway Bunga bunga parties, the deficit increases and Washington is set to play around with the “temporary” (haha) Bush tax cuts - an amazing policy that has created so many jobs.

Obama has proposed letting the tax cuts lapse for those making more than $250,000 (though these people would retain the same tax rates on income up to 250k.).  This seems reasonable, but the GOP is sounding Drudge sirens + claiming, “No, no, we can’t do this – think of all the small businesses.  You remember those, right? The Mom+Pop stores that used to exist before we gave Wal-Mart huge tax incentives to come in and ravage your small town we pretend to care about.”

This is all bullshit.

Very few small business owners face the top two tax rates.  The Treasury study shows that only 2.5 percent of small business owners, and 7.9 percent of filers with any income from small businesses that employ people, face the top two tax rates.  Only 0.5 percent of small business owners, and 3.3 percent of filers with any income from small businesses that employ people, make $1 million or more per year.{…}

Extending the tax cuts on incomes in excess of $250,000 would add nearly $1 trillion to deficits over 2013 to 2022, but benefit only about the highest-income 2 percent of households.  The biggest benefits would flow to the very highest-income people… more than 80 percent of the value of the upper-income tax cuts would go to people who make more than $1 million a year.

yes, but think of all the Jobs these Jobs Creators will continue to not Create?!?!

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Sauk Village – Hoo-Ray! Your Water Is Kind Of Safe To Drink Now

Posted by Matt on Friday, July 20th, 2012

The Dark, Hip Face Of The Vinyl Industry

We should definitely gut the EPA and EPA regulations, right Mitt? From the Tribune:

The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency has determined the Sauk Village water supply is safe to drink and can be used to clean food, wash dishes and bathe, Sauk Village Mayor Lewis Towers told residents Thursday night.

Towers, reading from an IEPA memo, said restaurants and groceries can continue using municipal water for preparing food.

The memo comes after the IEPA announced this week that the municipal water supply contains high levels of vinyl chloride — a byproduct of certain types of manufacturing and a common pollutant in urban communities. Long-term exposure to vinyl chloride can increase the risk of cancer, the U.S. EPA says.

Some of the roughly 200 residents attending the special Village Board meeting at Village Hall interrupted Towers’ reading of the memo with boos and grumbling.

The news Thursday night seemed to contradict a meeting the village held Thursday morning with business owners, who were told to prepare to find other sources of water for washing dishes and preparing food.

“I would not use that water,” village Trustee Enoch Benson said Thursday morning, calling the level of contamination “extremely high.”

Towers said the IEPA is not requiring the village to shut down any wells, but it is requiring weekly water samples, as well as treatment of the wells as the levels are reduced.

The IEPA also is requiring the village to provide bottled water to residents and businesses who request it, Towers said. More information would be available later, he said.

Waahh, wahhh, Sauk Village.  The Founders never bitched about vinyl chloride.  Look, common-sense regulation of pollutants is going to kill jobs long before the pollutants kill the people of Sauk Village.  Think about the children.  They’re going to need decent jobs + insurance to cover their chronic health problems.

Until hipsters stop being so cool and stop buying vinyl records (which is so cool to do these days), you’re all going to have to deal with the free market chem-love in your water.

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You’re The Best Around

Posted by Matt on Monday, July 9th, 2012

Yesterday, Mitt was in the Hamptons getting paid via 3 fundraisers.  As expected, the class of attendee was, let’s say, well-heeled, and certainly in touch (just ask them).  This was not just your monocle-clad, captains of industry.  This is 2012.

A New York City donor a few cars back, who also would not give her name, said Romney needed to do a better job connecting. “I don’t think the common person is getting it,” she said from the passenger seat of a Range Rover stamped with East Hampton beach permits. “Nobody understands why Obama is hurting them.
“We’ve got the message,” she added. “But my college kid, the baby sitters, the nails ladies — everybody who’s got the right to vote — they don’t understand what’s going on. I just think if you’re lower income — one, you’re not as educated, two, they don’t understand how it works, they don’t understand how the systems work, they don’t understand the impact.”

Right. How the system works is that plutocrats operate with legal impunity, benefit from low tax rates, loopholes and financial deregulation.  Your wealth grows exponentially for decades while the idiot nail ladies still make $9.00/hr and have to listen to your condescending prattling while they handle toxic chemicals to make your index fingernail look good for the next time you’re pointing out that interracial couple at Starbucks.

Update:  $9.00?  I’m in a fantasy land of Nail ladies flush with dimes. In New York, they actually have to sue to get paid minimum wage ($7.25).  But don’t worry, Astute Range Rover Lady, Mitt will gut all your labor laws.  Cha-ching!

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Draft Dodging “Tough Guy” Ted Nugent Has Small Penis

Posted by Matt on Wednesday, April 18th, 2012

Vote Romney!

Is there another explanation?  “Musician” Ted Nugent may have shit in his pants to avoid serving in Vietnam, but most of the time the shit spews from his song hole.  Speaking to the NRA – an assemblage of some of the most petulant, wannabee tough guys in the land, the alarmist jackass wrapped himself in Chinese-made American flags and continued his asinine rhetoric.

Said Nugent, “If you can’t galvanize and promote and recruit people to vote for Mitt Romney, we’re done. We’ll be a suburb of Indonesia next year,” Nugent said. “Our president, attorney general, vice president, Hillary Clinton–they’re criminals. They’re criminals. Who doesn’t know the crimes our government are committing?”

And (among other things)…

“If Barack Obama becomes the president in November, again, I will be either be dead or in jail by this time next year,” Nugent added.

Whatever the hell this means, it’s totally cool because he didn’t suggest that multimillionaire, stay-at-home housekeeper/chef/chauffer-employer Ann Romney might not have the same concerns as most American mothers.

This continued Nugent’s long track-record of hyperbolic idiocy, which includes such hits as “I should fuck (or kill) Hillary + Obama with my gun,” and “If I wasn’t a chickenhawk, I would’ve killed everyone in Vietnam, including the Americans I don’t like.”

The Secret Service has decided to have a talk with Nugent – hopefully about his small dong insecurities. In response, Nugent threw out this gem:

“First of all, I’m the master of metaphors,” explained the Motor City Shakespeare.  Then he ripped a power chord and howled:

you ran that night that you left me

you put me in my place

got you in a stranglehold now baby

then i crushed your face  

For freedom.

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Romney Campaign Making Heroic Stand On Behalf Of Black Lung

Posted by Matt on Friday, April 13th, 2012

Despite historically low tax rates, let’s be clear:  Barack Obama is taxing the shit out of you!  Or so some say. 

The Romney campaign has taken to claiming that the Obama administration raised taxes on “millions of Americans.” Post fact checker Glenn Kessler asked the Romney camp to justify the claim, and Romney advisers provided Kessler with a list of tax increases under Obama.

Most of them are in the Affordable Care Act, and haven’t been implemented yet. The main tax increase the Romney camp cited, which is in fact in effect right now, was this one:

The one, non-health-care-related, broad-based tax on Romney’s list is a 61-cent-per-pack increase in the federal excise tax on cigarettes. Obama signed this into law shortly after taking office in order to fund an expansion of the children’s health insurance program. About 45 million people in the United States smoke cigarettes, according to the Centers for Disease Control, and the percentage of smokers is higher among those living below the poverty level.

Assuming one smokes a pack a day, that would amount to $223 in increased cigarette taxes a year.

I’m a childless (sometimes) smoker, so you might expect me to send the President a bill for $223, return envelope included (no postage). But as a self-loather, I tend to favor the brat kids of America - even the creepy little guy across the street who stares at passing traffic.  Close your mouth, son! 

So would Mitt Romney repeal this tax + logically defund insurance for freeloading children?  After all, smokers gotta smoke. Or maybe it’s a savvy campaign move.  Kids can’t vote for anything but tv talent shows, and I’ve heard Romney “sing.” I don’t think that’s his endgame.  However, smokers just might get to the polls – as long as they can drive and the lines aren’t too long.  So maybe, just maybe, he’s trying to sweeten the pot for America’s second-most scorned demographic (right between child abusers & Skrillex fans). 

So we’re looking at you – joyless Parliament Light smoker. What are you so unhappy about, you slim biscuit?  Buck up! 

Guy who still collects Camel cash? it’s morning in America! 

Could mean a couple extra cartons for you, sloppy drunk Marlboro Lights user! Don’t forget to reapply that lipstick!

Take another long smoke, corduroy dude with the American Spirits. We understand how hard you’re trying! 

Stay kool, Newport customers!  No wait, you guys should probably quit.

And John Boehner wept. Yeah, but someone should really ask Mitt about that.

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Gratuitous World Blog

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      June 8, 2013

      Fitz and The Tantrums – More Than Just A Dream A little one-dimensional, and exhibiting different qualities than its predecessors, perhaps due to sought to excessive use of new oak. Grade:  C+ Listen to this while:  Subject of a montage that shows you getting a lot accomplished at work.

    • Hopeless Romantic Tries To Propose To Lady, Decides To Go To Jail Instead

      (h/t to twitter’s best account:  @_FloridaMan) Casselberry, FLA:  Thomas Edwards Jr., 22, is just a young man with a dream.  A dream of taking his clothes off and proposing to some lucky girl. The 22-year-old had a run-in with several Casselberry police officers after a homeowner called 911 to say a man had knocked on his door and [...]

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      June 7, 2013

      Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – Specter At The Feast The album balances honeyed freshness with plenty of rich, ripe fruit and supple tannins. Grade: B+ Listen to this while: watering your houseplants while wearing an eyepatch.