Election

Carnage Capitalism: When Mitt Romney Came To Town

Posted by on January 9, 2012 at 2:07 pm. 3 Comments :

“You have to ask the question, is capitalism really about the ability of a handful of rich people to manipulate the lives of thousands of people and then walk off with the money?” (h/t TPM)

You might be wondering which ultra-progressive enemy of conservative, free market, American principles uttered that indictment of capitalism and the GOP (Greedy One Percent) model of the economy. It wasn’t Michael Moore or Nancy Pelosi or George Soros. It was former Speaker of the House of Representatives, and current floundering Republican presidential hopeful, Newt Gingrich.

Seriously. Gingrich is so obsessed with cutting off his nemesis, Mitt Romney (or R*Money as his Highlife Homies call him) at the knees that he has adopted the platform of Occupy Wall Street to expose Romney’s Carnage Capitalism that permits him to profit extravagantly from the suffering of others and the destruction of businesses and jobs. There is even a devastating new video produced by a pro-Gingrich Super-Pac, Winning Our Future, that could easily be used by the Obama campaign against Romney this fall:

This is precisely the strategy that should be implemented against Romney and the rest of the congressional GOP establishment in the upcoming elections. Gingrich knows that this line of attack will be effective or he wouldn’t be using it himself. He has surely done focus groups and other polling to affirm that. Even the GOP’s top pollster/strategist, Frank Luntz warned a meeting of the Republican Governor’s Association that…

“I’m so scared of this anti-Wall Street effort. I’m frightened to death. They’re having an impact on what the American people think of capitalism.”

It isn’t really the word capitalism that is the problem, but the corruption of it by people like Romney (and Gingrich, for that matter). But when the far right is embracing our arguments, you know that the tide has turned. And that is not a sign to relax or declare victory. It is a call to redouble our efforts and march on until our goals are achieved. This concession by Gingrich, and the video by his pals, are just the most recent indications that progressive values are on the ascendancy.

The Price Of Freedom: For Mitt Romney And Family It’s Negotiable

Posted by on January 8, 2012 at 9:55 am. 2 Comments :

The Republicans held their 629th debate last night in New Hampshire and, for the most part, it revealed nothing new about the candidates or their positions. OK, they are against gay marriage and they think Obama is a socialist. We get it. However there was a moment with the inevitable nominee, Mitt Romney, that was disturbing, if not revealing.

Mitt Romney: I find it amazing that we have troops in harm’s way around the world – in Afghanistan right now, in Iraq the first three years of this president’s term. He doesn’t go on TV every month and talk to the American people about the sacrifice being made by these men and women. I find it extraordinary that a very few number of families are paying the price of freedom in America. The hurdle to actually putting our troops in harm’s way is very, very high, and the test is America’s interests. Our security interests. And they have to be involved in a very significant way to deploy our troops.

First of all, what president has ever gone on TV every month to talk about war? Only someone who is not paying attention, or is being deliberately dishonest, could accuse President Obama of not speaking up enough on behalf of the troops.

More importantly, how can Romney, who evaded the draft in his youth by going on a Mormon missionary trip that he spent in a palace in France, and took a couple of educational deferments to attend Brigham Young University and Harvard Business School, now grumble that too few families are “paying the price of freedom.”

And what of Romney’s family? He has five sons who were of age to serve in the military during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, but here is how he described their contribution to freedom’s cost during his 2008 campaign:

Romney: It’s remarkable how we can show our support for our nation, and one of the ways my sons are showing support for our nation is helping to get me elected, because they think I’d be a great president. My son, Josh, bought the family Winnebago and has visited 99 counties, most of them with his three kids and his wife. And I respect that and respect all of those in the way they serve this great country.

So traveling around the United States in a custom painted luxury RV, touting their father for president, is somehow analogous to risking one’s life in the harsh deserts and mountains of the Middle East? This is how the Romney boys sacrificed on behalf their country:

Romney Cheerleaders

Yep. That’s the “Five Brothers Mitt Mobile” and Mitt’s boy Craig cavorting with dangerous cheerleading insurgents.

For Romney to complain that “a very few number of families are paying the price of freedom,” is extraordinarily callous and hypocritical considering that his own family is conspicuously welching on the debt. It exemplifies the aloofness and privilege of a multimillionaire who clearly regards himself as superior to the masses. This soundbite from last night’s debate should get extra attention because it appears to be one of the only positions that Romney has held consistently for several years.

The Top 5 Tax Myths Of The GOP Spin Machine

Posted by on January 7, 2012 at 11:03 am. 10 Comments :

As this election year commences with the media focused on the Republican Clown Car Primary, the American people are are being barraged by ludicrous campaign stunts, dumbfounding debate performances, and the usual mix of dishonesty and hatred that the GOP has fine-tuned for decades.

For the most part, the caterwauling of Republicans has drowned out any rebuttal by Democrats and the press seem content to deliver just one side of the political argument. For instance, the GOP (Greedy One Percent) continue to peddle their Millionaire Relief Act proposals to reform the tax code so that the rich control even more of the nation’s wealth than they do currently.

Fortunately, the folks at the Center for Tax Justice have complied a list of the Top 5 Tax Myths to watch out for this election season. For convenience and shareability I created this handy InfoGraphic to separate fact from affliction:

Tax Fantasyland

For however long the GOP primaries are dragged out, progressives are going to have to try harder to get their voices heard above the clutter. Hopefully communicating in creative ways will help to achieve that goal.

Mitt Romney Fails World Economy 101

Posted by on January 5, 2012 at 3:38 pm. 1 Comments :

The Republican presidential candidate relying the most on a resume of financial acumen to propel him into the White House is undoubtedly Mitt Romney (or R*Money, as his Highlife Homies call him). But as his first post-Iowa campaign event in New Hampshire shows, he may not be able to live up to the hype. From the National Journal:

“One man asked about the growing gap between rich and poor in America. Romney essentially said that it could be worse, and challenged the crowd to name a country where the average income is higher than in the United States.”

First of all, there are ten countries that have a higher average income than the U.S., including Norway and Qatar. But that’s beside the point. The average income says nothing about income inequality. If I were in a room with Bill Gates, the average net worth of that room would be about $25 billion dollars, of which my contribution would be negligible. The United States is home to several billionaires whose presence warps the average income scale.

A more relevant fact is that the 400 richest Americans control more wealth than the bottom 150 million combined. There’s your wealth gap. What’s more, on income inequality the U.S. ranks 18th out of the 20 richest countries:

Click to enlarge
Decadence Index

Romney, the man who believes that corporations are people, chose the cowardly route and dodged the substance of the question. It was also a bit arrogant of him to expect the crowd to have come to the event with data on the world’s average incomes and then claim victory when they didn’t dispute his evasive premise. Which is a good thing because the facts didn’t support his premise.

Finally, the event was also an opportunity for Romney get a bootlicking from his newest fan, John McCain. After declaring his endorsement, the exceedingly “senior” senator from Arizona introduced the former Massachusetts governor as “President Mitt Romney.” Just a slight reality tilt. I’m sure he’ll be fine.

[Update:] McCain’s endorsement of Romney got even better the next day when he expressed his confidence that President Obama would turn the country around:

Bye Bye Iowa: A Pointless Post-Mortem

Posted by on January 3, 2012 at 11:33 pm. 2 Comments :

Well that was fun. But now that the Iowa caucuses are over, can someone remind why we were supposed to care? Iowa is wholly unrepresentative state that comprises less than 1% of the country’s voters. The run-up to the caucuses allowed almost every clown in the circus to play the center ring for a while. And this nonsense got blanket coverage from all three national cable news networks as if the results actually mattered.

Rick Santorum will get a few days of press for having been the last clown in line, but he will never be the Republican nominee. Michele Bachmann gave a non-concession speech wherein the woman who has been in political office for ten years said that she was not a politician. We got to see Rick Perry calling himself a great man, in the words of a supporter whose letter he read aloud. He also took the stage in Iowa to thank all of his supporters from 30 other states. And Newt Gingrich expressed his appreciation for all of the Iowans he met whom he said were all positive. He must have forgotten this guy.

So we move on to New Hampshire. But before we go, one Iowan wants to make sure that you have not gotten the wrong impression of the state over the past few months of almost exclusively Republican media.

Fox News Miscues: Rupert Murdoch And Rick Santorum Send Mixed Messages

Posted by on January 2, 2012 at 8:47 pm. NO Comments :

The campaign trail is fraught with hazards. Sometimes you’re moving so fast you miss important turns and signals. That must be the explanation for the disconnect that just occurred between Rick Santorum and the News Corp CEO, Rupert Murdoch.

Murdoch recently joined Twitter (Interestingly, just a few days after his pal and business partner Saudi Prince Alwaleed invested $300 million dollars). Among his first few tweets are two that reference Rick Santorum approvingly:

January 1: Good to see santorum surging in Iowa. Regardless of policies, all debates showed principles, consistency and humility like no other.

January 2: Can’t resist this tweet, but all Iowans think about Rick Santorum. Only candidate with genuine big vision for country.

That was nice of him. I wonder how he’ll feel after he hears what Santorum said about his Fox News Channel:

“The media has just completely tried to shape this race. And not just the liberal media. It’s even Fox News. You know, Bill O’Reilly has refused to put me on his program. As far as he was concerned I wasn’t a worthy enough candidate to earn a spot to sit across from him and be on his program. Here you have folks supposedly in the conservative media who are saying, “You know, we’re gonna choose who are gonna win.” And then complain that the mainstream media does the same thing.”

Santorum is raising the curtain on Fox’s carefully maintained deceit that they are a fair and balanced news enterprise. He acknowledges that Fox is “the conservative media” from whom he expects special treatment distinct from the other so-called liberal press. I can’t believe that Murdoch will like that. I suspect O’Reilly won’t particularly like this either. Santorum paints O’Reilly as part of a biased cabal with an agenda to harm those he views as outside the approved cast of characters.

But, for once, Santorum has said something that is undeniably true. Fox News wants to pick the electoral winner. They wanted to in 2008 as well, but that didn’t work out too well for them. They will certainly try again this year with a relentlessly negative assault on President Obama. But they may have to work a little harder at getting their stories straight.

Something Santorum neglected to mention about the conservative media that he says is trying to shape the race, is that Fox News has had him on 54 times since June. That’s about twice as many bookings as Mitt Romney or Rick Perry. For the record, the most frequent guest was Herman Cain, with 73 appearances. Talk about a wasted investment.

Fox Nation Posts Creepy Article: Win A Night With Mitt Romney

Posted by on December 31, 2011 at 12:24 pm. 2 Comments :

Get out your checkbooks, America. An unprecedented opportunity has just presented itself and, trust me, you do not want to miss it. This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to rub shoulders (and who knows what else) with the Grand Old Party’s grandest candidate, former Massachusetts governor, quarter-billionaire, and champion job killer in both the public and private sector, Willard Mitt Romney.

Fox Nation is promoting an exciting new contest sponsored by the Romney campaign. The winner of the contest gets to “Spend the Night With Mitt for Just $1.”

Wow, really? The whole night? Will his wife be there? What will he be wearing? I know there won’t be any alcohol (he’s a Mormon, you know), but who supplies the Viagra? Can I bring my video camera?

The comedic and disturbing inferences that spring to mind upon reading this news write themselves. But the Fox Nationalists published it with a straight face and no mention of the inherently creepy nature of the contest. What, you might ask, makes it inherently creepy? Well, that’s exactly what Fox Nation called it when they reported that the Obama campaign did precisely the same thing.

Fox Nation Creepy Contest

Just a reminder: The Fox Nation “Statement of Purpose” says…

“The Fox Nation is committed to the core principles of tolerance, open debate, civil discourse, and fair and balanced coverage of the news.”

Yet somehow, when Obama has a contest to join him and Michelle for dinner it’s creepy, but no such derogatory editorializing for Romney. Furthermore, they make no comparison between the contests themselves. Obama offered any donor who contributed $3.00 or more an equal chance at the prize dinner. Romney’s contest offers donors an entry for each dollar they donate. Therefore, if you donate $1.00 you get one entry. If you donate $1,000 you get a thousand entries. Consequently, wealthy donors will have far more chances to win. That should help Romney avoid having to spend the night with the unclean lower and middle class Republicans who might enter the contest.

Perhaps a corporation will win the night with Romney, since he says that they are people too.

Fox News Ratings Fall Off A Cliff In 2011

Posted by on December 29, 2011 at 12:03 pm. 28 Comments :

In another example of the declining fortunes of the right-wing extremism propagated by conservative media and displayed so prominently by the GOP family of clowns competing for the Republican nomination for president, Nielsen has reported that the ratings for Fox News have taken a steep dive in 2011.

Fox News Ratings 2011

Of the three main cable news networks, Fox News is the only one that went down compared to their ratings in 2010. And a double-digit decline at that. FoxPods will, as usual, point out that Fox is still the top cable news network, but that is beside the point. Its audience is peeling away at a rapid rate and over time they will be unable to sustain their leading position. It is also important to put those numbers in context. While Fox is the #1 cable news network, they lag far behind the broadcast nets. In fact, the highest rated program on Fox (O’Reilly Factor) has about half the viewers of the lowest rated broadcast news program (CBS Evening news).

All three cable networks were impacted by extraordinary events that affected their ratings performance. CNN was helped by breaking news stories like the death of Osama Bin Laden and the Japanese earthquake/tsunami/nuclear crisis. Because CNN has the best developed network of international bureaus, viewers frequently turn to CNN for major breaking news events.

MSNBC was hurt by the loss of Keith Olbermann and numerous schedule shakeups, but still managed to land in positive territory. Fox, of course, lost a notorious personality in Glenn Beck, but that likely kept Fox from declining even more than they did. Beck’s ratings were in free fall and dropped 37% between January and his sign-off in June. His replacement, “The Five,” has held pretty steady since its debut.

The fall of Fox News is striking evidence of the shift in the nation’s attitudes toward the ultra-conservative philosophy advanced by Fox and their brazenly biased facilitators. For Fox to be alone in decline in a year that includes a Republican-only primary campaign is a devastating indictment of the network and the propaganda tactics they employ.

2012 will provide a more diverse range of electoral news as the general election takes shape and Democrats are included in the story arc. That is not likely to boost Fox’s ratings position, but it will probably inflame their rhetoric and result in even more divisive attacks and demonstrations of derangement. Hold on to your hats, America.

Mitt Romney Takes Pot Shots At Big Bird And PBS

Posted by on December 28, 2011 at 3:13 pm. 4 Comments :

Big BirdOne of the right’s perennial targets has been public television and programs that benefit the arts. They have relentlessly criticized these institutions and sought to deny them federal funding. They have even accused them of being socialist vehicles intent on indoctrinating America’s young. Now Mitt Romney joins the battle with a pledge to stop funding PBS and the National Endowment for the Arts (video below).

When Romney says that he wants to “stop certain programs…even some you like,” he is referring to programs that are of significant value to average Americans, but that he can live without because his quarter of a billion dollar net worth enables him to acquire whatever he wants. Romney demonstrates how pitifully out of touch he is by proposing to eliminate funding for PBS, a network that provides educational programming that is not available anywhere else, certainly not in commercial television. He is explicit in what he plans to do:

“We subsidize PBS. Look, I’m gonna stop that. I’m gonna say that PBS is gonna have to have advertisements. We’re not gonna kill Big Bird, but Big Bird’s gonna have advertisements.”

Despite his denials, killing off Big Bird is precisely what his plan would accomplish. There is a reason that commercial TV does not produce the sort of programming seen on PBS. For-profit networks have to cater to advertisers in order to stay in business. By necessity they are more concerned with generating profit than with quality programming. Take a look at tonight’s primetime schedules of the cable nets that were supposed to compete with public television:

  • Bravo: 8:00pm Top Chef: Texas; 9:00pm Top Chef: Texas; 10:00pm Top Chef: Texas
  • Discovery: 8:00pm Sons of Guns; 9:00pm Sons of Guns; 10:00pm Moonshiners
  • Learning Channel: 8:00pm Toddlers & Tiaras; 9:00pm Cheapskates; 10:00pm Toddlers & Tiaras

That’s not exactly entertainment designed to enrich America’s children. It’s a jumble of insipid reality programs that repeat ad nauseum. It’s Real Housewives, Swamp Loggers, Hoarders, and info-mercials. If Big Bird were required to rely on advertisers for funding it would not be long before Sesame Street was just another avenue on the Jersey Shore.

That’s the free market model for public broadcasting that Romney and the right advocate. It’s a model that would replace Bert and Ernie with Kim and Chloe. Is that really the example we want to set for our kids?

Want To Vote In GOP Primary? Then Sign The Loyalty Oath!

Posted by on December 28, 2011 at 11:07 am. 2 Comments :

Republicans nationwide have been waging a war on voting aimed at disenfranchising millions of Americans. This coordinated campaign of voter suppression is directed specifically at senior citizens, minorities, students, and the disabled. These are constituencies that right-wing supporters of these tactics (i.e. the Koch brothers) view as Democratic leaning voters. However, once you enter this realm of election engineering, it isn’t long before the same practices are applied to anyone the engineers seek to control.

So it isn’t surprising to learn that the Virginia Republican Party has implemented a rule that will require voters in the primary election to sign a Republican loyalty oath pledging to support the eventual GOP nominee or be prohibited from voting in the primary.

Once again Republicans demonstrate their commitment to upending the American ideals of democracy. This rule is not only un-American, it is unenforceable. We have a little thing in this country we call a “secret ballot,” so there would be no way to know for whom a primary voter cast their vote in the general election. Consequently, this gimmick was strictly designed to intimidate people who go to the polls to exercise their rights.

These martinets of party virtue somehow got the idea that they can force people to vote for a candidate in the general election that they do not support. And since only Mitt Romney and Ron Paul have qualified for the ballot in Virginia, this rule would require Paul supporters to vote for Romney, or vice versa, a scenario that many supporters of either candidate would find objectionable.

This is the all-too-foreseeable consequence of a philosophy that permits the sort of voter manipulation that Republicans have been engaging in. It is a creeping infringement on liberties that free nations ought to reject. And it is the ideological companion to the phony assertions of voter fraud (which the right has been unable to certify), and the positioning of legal obstacles to voting (ID cards), that is corrupting our electoral processes.

War on Voting