What would life be like if Romney won the election? Aside from the expected terribleness of right wing ideas, there’s the terribleness of Romney and his awful family. A bully already, the presidency would give him the opportunity to up that to “dictator”. No, I’m not kidding.
• James Lipton, of “Inside the Actor’s Studio”, on Romney:
• Tagg, all you have to do is get your dead old dad to stop lying, and then no one will call him a liar anymore.
• Mitt Romney is a bully: He tried to bully President Obama and moderator Candy Crowley during the last debate; he successfully bullied President Obama and moderator Jim Lehrer during the first debate; he bullied other Republican candidates during the primary debates; he torched anti-bullying measures when he was a governor; he made his fortune bullying and destroying financially troubled companies; he bullied classmates as a kid. This morning, I read about more leaked audio of Romney, this time trying to bully business owners into telling their employees to vote for him. And last night, I read about his son, Tagg Romney, saying he wanted to “take a swing” at President Obama. Mitt Romney is the patriarch bully of a family of bullies.
More debate shenanigans
• On Benghazi, the reality is what it is: There are many perils to living in a right wing bubble but not dealing with the realities of the rest of the world is certainly one of them. In the right wing, the facts just don’t exist, because they choose not to see them. So if you’ve got those crazy right wing uncles or friends that love to send you email forwards in all caps with a ton of colour changes and a bagillion exclamation points about how the response to the Libya attack went down, this is a reminder from the world of reality that they are full of crap. President Obama absolutely labelled the attack an act of terror the next day. He labelled it an act of terror the day after that too. Anyone saying different is delusional or an outright liar.
• Rachel Maddow, on Jerome Corsi and how the right wing echo chamber led to Romney stepping on a rake in the debate over Libya:
• You don’t react like this to a simple question without being an outrageous misogynist: The most reliable way, it appears, to cause conservatives to completely lose their minds is for an attractive woman under the age of 40 to speak words in a public forum that suggest she’s been exposed to the idea that women might have value outside of cleaning up after men, being sexual release objects for men, and producing male heirs. We saw it with Sandra Fluke, who was castigated for acknowledging that women use contraception, when apparently the right believes women should pretend the only times we have sex are to produce children, and that no amount of money is too much to spend to continue this illusion. Now—surprise!—Katherine Fenton, the young woman who asked an exceedingly middle-of-the-road question about equal pay, is getting the Whore of Babylon treatment.… the entire thing—like the freakout over Sandra Fluke—is an expose of the conservative male id.
• Fair pay question should be easy to answer: Romney adviser Ed Gillespie told the Huffington Post after the debate that Romney opposed ["The governor would not repeal the Lilly Ledbetter Act," Gillespie told the Huffington Post on Tuesday night. "He was opposed to it at the time. He would not repeal it."] the passage of the bill, but would not repeal it. A day later, he said something completely different to TPM. “I was wrong when I said last night Governor Romney opposed the Lily Ledbetter act,” Gillespie said in a statement. “He never weighed in on it. As President, he would not seek to repeal it.”
• Tax Policy Center: Eliminating all itemized deductions would yield about $2 trillion of additional revenue over ten years if we cut all rates by 20 percent and eliminate the AMT. Capping deductions would generate less additional revenue, and the higher the cap, the smaller the gain. Limiting deductions to $17,000 would increase revenues by nearly $1.7 trillion over ten years. A $25,000 cap would yield roughly $1.3 trillion and a $50,000 cap would raise only about $760 billion.
• During the debate, Romney claimed his tax numbers would add up. Then pulled a number out of his hat. That doesn’t work with real math. Numbers add up when they’re real numbers, not numbers you make up on the spur of the moment. Plus, they don’t add up to anywhere near the 5T Romney is claiming.
• What the hell is Romney talking about? Of course it’s legal to have automatic weapons in this country. And on top of that, we get yet another Etch-a-Sketch: Romney favored assault weapons bans when he was a governor of a liberal state, which made “certain guns illegal.”: MR. ROMNEY: Yeah, I — I’m not in favor of new pieces of legislation on — on guns and — and taking guns away or — or making certain guns illegal. We of course don’t want to have automatic weapons, and that’s already illegal in this country to have automatic weapons.
• Fox “News” left out a four-minute gap in their transcript of last night’s debate—right in the area where Rmoney had to address the question of assault rifles.
The return to right wing craziness
• After losing the debate, I think Mittens wants to return to ‘severely conservative Mitt’ and is doubling down on these sorts of stupid statements. What other explanation could there be?: “47 Percent” Host and Get-Rich-Quick Schemers Holding Romney Fundraisers. Marc Leder, who held the 47 percent fundraiser, and Mike and Irene Milin, who have been targeted by state attorneys general for peddling “free” government money, will host campaign events.
• Condoleezza Rice gave vice presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan a boost Wednesday morning at a rally outside of Cleveland, the former secretary of state’s first public address on behalf of the GOP White House ticket since her lauded speech at the Republican National Convention in August.
I hope you make it very clear to your employees what you believe is in the best interest of your enterprise and therefore their job and their future in the upcoming elections. And whether you agree with me or you agree with President Obama, or whatever your political view, I hope, I hope you pass those along to your employees. Nothing illegal about you talking to your employees about what you believe is best for the business, because I think that will figure into their election decision, their voting decision and of course doing that with your family and your kids as well.
• Manssor Arbabsiar, aka Mansour Arbabsiar, pleaded guilty today in federal court to taking part in a plot to murder the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States. Arbabsiar is a naturalized citizen who holds both U.S. and Iranian passports. The charges stated that Arbabsiar served as an intermediary between the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), an elite Iranian paramilitary group, and a third-party who would carry out the killing.
• Police say Lori Bowcock, wounded Canadian border guard, was not targeted; suspected shooter identified as 32-year-old Andrew Michael Crews, a U.S. resident from north Seattle. According to the stepfather, Crews worked as a tattoo artist in Bremerton. On Wednesday afternoon, Seattle police officers were searching his north Seattle apartment.
• The Israeli military blockading the Gaza Strip calculated the smallest number of calories Gazans needed to avoid malnutrition, a declassified document said. The figure worked out to a daily average of 2,279 calories a person, which could be supplied by 4 pounds of food, or 2,575.5 tons of food for Gaza’s entire 1.7 million population, said the January 2008 “Food Consumption in the Gaza Strip — Red Lines” document, ordered released by Israel’s Supreme Court. The Israeli Defense Ministry, which fought for 3 1/2 years to keep the Red Lines document classified, had argued to the court Israel had a right “to adopt a policy of ‘economic warfare’” against Gaza’s Hamas Sunni Islamic leadership.
• Amid death rumors, Cuba releases Castro message: Cuban state media released a message from Fidel Castro, the first communique said to be from the ex-leader since speculation over his health reached a fever pitch last week. There were no new images of Castro, 86, released Wednesday. He has not been seen publicly since March, when he met with Pope Benedict XVI during the pontiff’s visit to Cuba. Castro’s usually frequent newspaper columns and musings suddenly ended in June. But his silence after the re-election of close ally Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in October prompted many of his opponents to wonder whether Castro was again ailing or perhaps dead. “The comandante is well, following his daily routine, reading, exercising,” Alex Castro, one of Castro’s sons, told Cuban state media after the reports of his ill health.
F.D.Brightly
Those creepy Romneys
Shorter Question Everything
What would life be like if Romney won the election? Aside from the expected terribleness of right wing ideas, there’s the terribleness of Romney and his awful family. A bully already, the presidency would give him the opportunity to up that to “dictator”. No, I’m not kidding.
• James Lipton, of “Inside the Actor’s Studio”, on Romney:
• “He [Romney] does like pranks but he doesn’t like to get pranked. We’ve learned that the hard way,” Josh said.
• Tagg, all you have to do is get your dead old dad to stop lying, and then no one will call him a liar anymore.
• Mitt Romney is a bully: He tried to bully President Obama and moderator Candy Crowley during the last debate; he successfully bullied President Obama and moderator Jim Lehrer during the first debate; he bullied other Republican candidates during the primary debates; he torched anti-bullying measures when he was a governor; he made his fortune bullying and destroying financially troubled companies; he bullied classmates as a kid. This morning, I read about more leaked audio of Romney, this time trying to bully business owners into telling their employees to vote for him. And last night, I read about his son, Tagg Romney, saying he wanted to “take a swing” at President Obama. Mitt Romney is the patriarch bully of a family of bullies.
More debate shenanigans
• On Benghazi, the reality is what it is: There are many perils to living in a right wing bubble but not dealing with the realities of the rest of the world is certainly one of them. In the right wing, the facts just don’t exist, because they choose not to see them. So if you’ve got those crazy right wing uncles or friends that love to send you email forwards in all caps with a ton of colour changes and a bagillion exclamation points about how the response to the Libya attack went down, this is a reminder from the world of reality that they are full of crap. President Obama absolutely labelled the attack an act of terror the next day. He labelled it an act of terror the day after that too. Anyone saying different is delusional or an outright liar.
• Rachel Maddow, on Jerome Corsi and how the right wing echo chamber led to Romney stepping on a rake in the debate over Libya:
• You don’t react like this to a simple question without being an outrageous misogynist: The most reliable way, it appears, to cause conservatives to completely lose their minds is for an attractive woman under the age of 40 to speak words in a public forum that suggest she’s been exposed to the idea that women might have value outside of cleaning up after men, being sexual release objects for men, and producing male heirs. We saw it with Sandra Fluke, who was castigated for acknowledging that women use contraception, when apparently the right believes women should pretend the only times we have sex are to produce children, and that no amount of money is too much to spend to continue this illusion. Now—surprise!—Katherine Fenton, the young woman who asked an exceedingly middle-of-the-road question about equal pay, is getting the Whore of Babylon treatment.… the entire thing—like the freakout over Sandra Fluke—is an expose of the conservative male id.
• Fair pay question should be easy to answer: Romney adviser Ed Gillespie told the Huffington Post after the debate that Romney opposed ["The governor would not repeal the Lilly Ledbetter Act," Gillespie told the Huffington Post on Tuesday night. "He was opposed to it at the time. He would not repeal it."] the passage of the bill, but would not repeal it. A day later, he said something completely different to TPM. “I was wrong when I said last night Governor Romney opposed the Lily Ledbetter act,” Gillespie said in a statement. “He never weighed in on it. As President, he would not seek to repeal it.”
• Tax Policy Center: Eliminating all itemized deductions would yield about $2 trillion of additional revenue over ten years if we cut all rates by 20 percent and eliminate the AMT. Capping deductions would generate less additional revenue, and the higher the cap, the smaller the gain. Limiting deductions to $17,000 would increase revenues by nearly $1.7 trillion over ten years. A $25,000 cap would yield roughly $1.3 trillion and a $50,000 cap would raise only about $760 billion.
• During the debate, Romney claimed his tax numbers would add up. Then pulled a number out of his hat. That doesn’t work with real math. Numbers add up when they’re real numbers, not numbers you make up on the spur of the moment. Plus, they don’t add up to anywhere near the 5T Romney is claiming.
• What the hell is Romney talking about? Of course it’s legal to have automatic weapons in this country. And on top of that, we get yet another Etch-a-Sketch: Romney favored assault weapons bans when he was a governor of a liberal state, which made “certain guns illegal.”: MR. ROMNEY: Yeah, I — I’m not in favor of new pieces of legislation on — on guns and — and taking guns away or — or making certain guns illegal. We of course don’t want to have automatic weapons, and that’s already illegal in this country to have automatic weapons.
• Fox “News” left out a four-minute gap in their transcript of last night’s debate—right in the area where Rmoney had to address the question of assault rifles.
The return to right wing craziness
• After losing the debate, I think Mittens wants to return to ‘severely conservative Mitt’ and is doubling down on these sorts of stupid statements. What other explanation could there be?: “47 Percent” Host and Get-Rich-Quick Schemers Holding Romney Fundraisers. Marc Leder, who held the 47 percent fundraiser, and Mike and Irene Milin, who have been targeted by state attorneys general for peddling “free” government money, will host campaign events.
• Former Vice President Dick Cheney will headline a Dallas fund-raising event for Mitt Romney on Oct. 25, along with the GOP nominee’s son, Josh Romney. The event will be at the Frontiers of Flight Museum at Love Field.
• Condoleezza Rice gave vice presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan a boost Wednesday morning at a rally outside of Cleveland, the former secretary of state’s first public address on behalf of the GOP White House ticket since her lauded speech at the Republican National Convention in August.
Voter Suppression
• In a June 6, 2012 conference call posted on the anti-union National Federation of Independent Business’s website, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney instructed employers to tell their employees how to vote in the upcoming election.
• Arizona County Tells Spanish Speaking Voters To Vote On Wrong Date: Maricopa County, Arizona, the home of anti-Latino Sheriff Joe Arpaio, attached to voter registration cards a document that falsely claimed in Spanish that the general election will take place on November 8th. An English translation lists the correct date, November 6th. The county claims that they caught the mistake early, and the erroneous document was distributed to less than 50 people.
In other news
• Manssor Arbabsiar, aka Mansour Arbabsiar, pleaded guilty today in federal court to taking part in a plot to murder the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States. Arbabsiar is a naturalized citizen who holds both U.S. and Iranian passports. The charges stated that Arbabsiar served as an intermediary between the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), an elite Iranian paramilitary group, and a third-party who would carry out the killing.
• Police say Lori Bowcock, wounded Canadian border guard, was not targeted; suspected shooter identified as 32-year-old Andrew Michael Crews, a U.S. resident from north Seattle. According to the stepfather, Crews worked as a tattoo artist in Bremerton. On Wednesday afternoon, Seattle police officers were searching his north Seattle apartment.
• The Israeli military blockading the Gaza Strip calculated the smallest number of calories Gazans needed to avoid malnutrition, a declassified document said. The figure worked out to a daily average of 2,279 calories a person, which could be supplied by 4 pounds of food, or 2,575.5 tons of food for Gaza’s entire 1.7 million population, said the January 2008 “Food Consumption in the Gaza Strip — Red Lines” document, ordered released by Israel’s Supreme Court. The Israeli Defense Ministry, which fought for 3 1/2 years to keep the Red Lines document classified, had argued to the court Israel had a right “to adopt a policy of ‘economic warfare’” against Gaza’s Hamas Sunni Islamic leadership.
• Amid death rumors, Cuba releases Castro message: Cuban state media released a message from Fidel Castro, the first communique said to be from the ex-leader since speculation over his health reached a fever pitch last week. There were no new images of Castro, 86, released Wednesday. He has not been seen publicly since March, when he met with Pope Benedict XVI during the pontiff’s visit to Cuba. Castro’s usually frequent newspaper columns and musings suddenly ended in June. But his silence after the re-election of close ally Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in October prompted many of his opponents to wonder whether Castro was again ailing or perhaps dead. “The comandante is well, following his daily routine, reading, exercising,” Alex Castro, one of Castro’s sons, told Cuban state media after the reports of his ill health.